On Friedman's Conception Of Legal Culture

An internationally renowned, prize-winning legal historian, Lawrence M. Friedman has for a generation been the leading expositor of the history of American law to a global audience of lawyers and lay people alike—and a leading figure in the law and society movement. The great accomplishment in studying the relationship between legal culture and Social development which Friedman has achieved are noticed by all social-legal scholars .So this article is mainly concerned about the theory of legal culture.In the first part, the question proposed and the framework of the argument established. Friedman has always been concerning the issue of the relationship between law and social development as his question and probing the role that law plays in the development of the society. And with his research goes on, Friedman gives the final answer to this question is that due to the development of science and technology, leading to a change in a society. The change of a society also has some influence on people's mind, followed the change in people's mind, and the legal culture will change. The change of legal culture will impact on the legal system, and legal system ultimately has an impact on the community. It is the legal culture, as a media or a processor, that makes the human society towards a desirable direction. The discussion above as one of the theoretical hypothesises about the relationship between legal culture and social development; I think the hypothesis is of great theoretical significance. Friedman who was dominated by the modern paradigm makes his theory to be a universal theory. When he makes his theory apply to the whole human society, regardless of all the difference these societies have, the problem emerges. At this point I can not agree with him. So the frame work of this article will first discuss his main concept, after clearly understanding these concepts, I will inspect how he constructs the Republic of Choice by using these concepts. At last I will try to question and criticize the problem which Friedman will meet when he uses his theory to explain the development of other countries.In the second part, I will try to explain the main concepts of Friedman's theory clearly. Friedman believes that law has its life in a society. Law can be a code or a standard, which lawyer or judge will turn to them for guide. Meanwhile Friedman also thinks that the law is not a science, but a parody of science. The law should exist in civilized society or industrial society, where there are some institutions, including courts, legislatives, criminal judiciaries and so on. Friedman thinks that legal system consists of three elements: structure, substance and legal culture. The legal system by using the legal culture as a bridge let the social force go into the inside of the legal system, and finally gives out a result by calculating with the law. Legal culture means some attitudes, ideas and values held by people in a society. When legal culture turns interest into demand or allows this change, social force makes legal act comes out .In the third part, base on understanding of the there main concept, we will discuss how Friedman constructs his Republic of Choice. Friedman is sure of that the origins of choice come from the change of modern science and technology, combining these changes in material world , make the idea of choice goes easily .These changes acting on people's mind make the idea of choice deeply rooted in people's thought. For insuring the desire and hope in people's mind , legal system need to cooperate with them, that is to say, legal system need to protect the action of choice. The legal system gives people more and more choice, and insures every one in society has the second opportunity and gives the justice to the loser. So in the Republic of Choice, despite of the differences in religion, sexuality or age, the choice of individual will decide how they treat this aspect. We can not eliminate the huge difference between men and women caused by physiology or psychology, but in an atmosphere of emphasizing choice they can choose any life style they want. In the Republic of Choice, pluralism itself neither encourages or opposes the fusion of religions, and people become more and more catholicity to the difference. This catholicity makes our life become more and more colorful. Take the age for example, in some degree people can break away from the restriction caused by age and make more choice as easy as possible. Anyway we can say that the republic of choice looks beautiful.In the fourth part, I mainly discuss the problem which exists in Friedman's theory of legal culture. The first problem is whether the result is the same when the same reality effects on different culture. On the process of making his theory universal, Friedman has a hypothesis which he denies but we can see it from his discussion, and it is that the moving of a society effects on people's mind in the same way. I can't agree with this hypothesis. I can not accept the future which Friedman gives us according to his belief of evolution of society. What he has done has denied the way that our country explores for ourselves. The second question based on the first question is keeping on questioning where the science and technology can take our society. Friedman can only see that the science and technology bring us convenience, at the mean time the bad part he choose to ignore. The right example is he didn't concern the value of law which law should pursuit. From the very beginning when the concept of what is good and bad comes to human beings mind, human does not hesitate to make the world become what they want, although there is no same standard. People are always pursuing those values by using law. Friedman only emphasizes the effect of the science and technology, but forgets that legal culture should do something for pursuing justice, equality and freedom. He just takes the advance of the society as a regular pattern, but doesn't notice the power that people's work on institution, so we can say the republic of choice is just beautiful, but it doesn't suit for all countries on earth. The conclusion of this article is that, firstly, he can not tell us where the science and technology will take us, and secondly ignoring that the law should pursue some value like justice, equality and freedom makes his theory so fragile that we can not trust.