The Paradox Of Community Essay -- essays research papers

The Paradox of CommunityOne can see that insiders are caught in the paradox of community Thesame cultural vocabulary that undermines community is simultaneously thatcommunitys idiom of self-affirmation (Greenhouse, et al. 175). In Law andCommunity, David M. Engel explores how ordinary people in a small, rural,Illinois townsfolk perceive the law, courts, litigants, and community. By analyzingthe legal pr puzzle outices and relations in smoother County, it is evident that law andthe courts play a central role in the processes of making and unmakingcommunities. Furthermore, this get word illustrates how such manifestations,reflections of the insiders ideology, fail to live up to the promises for law in our society.In the 1970s, Sander County was undergoing great social and economicchanges. Agriculture, a central part of livelihood for most residents, became moremechanized and a few large manufacturing plants opened, bringing in quite anumber of a certain element Sander County had n ever had before (29). Long-time residents, worried about change, express what they believe to be the newrole of laws and the courts in the local and national society (1).though personal injury litigation rates are lower in Sander County thanother major types of litigation, a norm of aversion towards this legal converseis evident throughout the majority of the community. Those who enforce personalinjury claims are viewed by fellow residents as greedy, selfish, and quick tosue. Litigation is portrayed as enervating the collective values personified inthe law as a means of turning the law against the community to make an easybuck (144). Even super respected members of the community are criticized formaking personal injury claims. For example, a minister filed a suit afterslipping and falling at a school. A local observer commented by saying thereare a lot of people who are resentful for it, because...he chose to sue (28).The long-time residents of Sander County were experiencing a pr evalent sense ofa collapse in the conventional dependencies and exchanges that had typified lifein Sander County. Understandings of personal injury claims are largely shapedby these societal transformations as the local populace encounters them and alsoby the notion that traditional relati... ...ty (Carter 11).The irony lies in the fact that the power of the insiders as a altogether disempowersthe individual, whether the individual is an insider or an outsider. Everymember of Sander County is rather powerless before the law the efforts to keepthe town safe from change paradoxically caused a lack of trust in the legalprocess. This lack of trust contributes to the chaos of community that alreadyexisted in Sander County.Law is a language by which we constantly reconstruct our communities(Carter viii). Instead of constructing community through just legal discourse,Sander County destructed what it had left of a community in a desperate act ofwarding of that which it did not understand (or did not want to understand).Law in practice, in Sander County, does not produce justice it producesinequality. This prevalent inequality, or difference, is a justification oflitigation by insiders in defense of their community (Greenhouse, et al. 175).They fail to see that their myth of community is challenging community.Disempowerment and inequality will not generate trust. Furthermore, of what use,or longevity, is a community without trust?