--- Notes on law ---

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intentions of public policy..., even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow men, have a good deal to do... in determining the rules by which men should be governed.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

As a social psychologist, I look at organizations as I do individuals. I look at the law as a conscience of a country. I have said before that, if an organization is to have a conscience, a sense of morality, it has to be built in from the inception, and like a moral compass in a person, that conscience, that body of law, can be lost in time.

As a person's ethic embodies their development (as the older folks say, "Their upbringin'"), a nations laws embodies its history.

I'm not sure what good the idea that laws should be just does. Laws can be just but that's not their purpose. Laws exist to attempt to establish internal equilibrium in a social organization. If the "central nervous system", the governmental bodies that provide whatever central control to the organization, thinks that accommodating the powerful individuals in the body is what is required to maintain equilibrium, then that is what they will do. If they are wrong, it leads to disequilibrium. But, evidently (to any reader of history), the "revolution" that follows in the organization is as likely to lead to more disequilibrium before it dies down to "business as usual."

--- Notes on political systems ---

It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny.

Alexander Hamilton

When you see the suffix "-ism" on a word, you should immediately assume a double vision.

We seem to have inherited from our simian cousins a strong us-or-them mentality which is well conveyed by many uses of the "-ism". In that form, the suffix means "I'm a [whatever "-ism" is a suffix of] and we're better than everybody else." Patriotism ("I'm an American and America is the greatest country on the planet"), racism ("I'm white and white people are superior to everyone else"), male chauvinism ("I'm a man and men are superior to women") are common examples of this form.

"-ism" can also indicate a love for the group. This form is slightly different from the other and can even be laudable. For instance, I am an American and I wish greatness for my country so that it can be a  benefit to the rest of the world. I would like the American reputation to be that of friend and cooperant of the other peoples of the world.

But, like Mr. Hamilton, I don't see that democracy has worked that well in history and I can't see it as the panacea of all political ills. I have noticed that some countries have not fared so well under democratic governments.

People vary greatly in personalities so it would be very peculiar if there were not a need for a variety of governments to accommodate those differences. I think that states rights in the United States is a good idea. It would be a better idea if states did not have such a huge need to meddle in others states' business. A state is what it is and, in the US we have choice. If the political climate of one state is not to our liking, then we can move to another.

Well, that's my ideal - of course, it's my naive ideal. For instance, not everyone is mobile enough to find which state works best for them and some states, being what they are, are downright detrimental to their people. I wish people could build things such as compassion and respect for others into their governments, corporations, and such, from the inception, but unfortunately, that rarely happens.

I'm a social psychologist and one who looks at organizations as people in their own rights. Just as maturity brings certain characteristics - self control, empathy, compassion, responsibility, etc. - into a person's life, a healthy, mature organization will also show those qualities but they have to be part of the original design and they must be maintained as the organization develops or else, like an individual that regresses to a more infantile stage of behavior, the organization will go bad.

I've talked about Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety so it should come to no surprise that I value diversity even in the political realm. I think that there should be a variety of governmental forms, but there is good diversity and there is bad diversity. Good diversity builds up, bad diversity breaks down. In the same way, there is good government and there is bad government.

In all things, we should strive to be what makes the world a good place. That kind of -ism is well founded.