A Picture Of Modern Legal Culture

Association between social change and legal development is the core of the legalissues of Friedman’s cultural theory, Friedman believes that social world gives legalsystem life and authenticity, through treating the legal system as a dynamic processthat input of sue and output of referee, Friedman built a relatively complete legalcultural theory. Social forces that affect the law, such as social attitudes and values,are referred as the legal culture by Friedman, Friedman believes that the core and keyof the legal system is legal culture. Around this theme, in the "Republic of Choice,"Friedman depicted a modern legal culture focused picture. In Friedman’s view, themodern legal culture presents a trend of convergence, through the definition andanalysis of ongoing and profound interpretation of the modern legal culture, Friedmantried to find a social foundation upon which modern legal system was constructed, heexplained the tension in modern society between individual choice and legal order,and put the legitimacy of the foundation of modern social order over individualchoice.The pecific situation of modern society is the theoretical premise of the studiesmade by Friedman on modern law and legal culture, the context of modern societywhich Friedman describes can be attributed to modern trends, open society, mobilesociety and the modern welfare society and so on. Through the description of thecontext of modern society and the comparation between modern social context andthe social context of the19th century, Friedman argues that modern society appeared"expressive individualism" culture, people express themselves and emphasizeindividual choice. Along with the expansion of individual choice and cultural territory,a new awareness of rights was created, that is,"the general expectation of justiceattitude," people generally expect an effective social safety nets and social justice, andpursuit formal laws and precise right design. This makes modern society’s personallife presents incredible sides: on the one hand, people made their choices in freedom;on the other hand, the individual choices have to rely on legal rules. Unlike theeither-or linear understanding of the relationship between modern law and freedom,Friedman made constructive explanation on law and freedom, he thinks modern legaland personal choice are not contradictory. On the one hand, the rule of law dependson the cultural, the pressures and demands arising from legal cultural finally shaped of the legal system; on the other hand, legal system in fact acted as an intermediary ofthe freedom of choice, through the arrangements of legal system, freedom of choice tobe able to get full realization. Friedman’s theories assume that the modern legalsystem is actually a system of choice and the core of modern legal culture is thefreedom of choice in the "expressive individualism". Through legal system in modernsociety, the modern legal culture tries to achieve the just expect that appear in thelegal culture, and achieve effective integration of legal system and the culture ofpersonal choice. Under this legal system framework, Friedman’s personal choicetheory points to construct the system under the concept of individual choice and thetrend of authority in modern society.Friedman did not stay on the interpretation of the rule of law or the interpretationof legal theory, but made centralized analysis on the relationship between modernlegal culture and modern legal system, and the relationship between modern legalculture and the authority of law. Through the whole explanation of the modern legalstatus in specific practice, Friedman provides us the answer on issues such as howmodern legal practices, what kind of state does modern legal culture appear and whatis the modern legal culture’s future trend. But Friedman’s theoretical construct madepersonal status a transcendent from society, leading to a fatal harm to this theory. Thismakes Friedman’s study on modern legal culture goes without the care on theauthenticity of individuals, making the basic concepts of the theory of individualchoice-individual to be a fictional concept, and therefore the concept of legal culturewith ambiguity and uncertainty. Although Friedman’s modern personal choice theoryhas significant flaws, but the study of legal culture-related issues provides thecorresponding revelation for the continue study, and is nonetheless the importantreference for modern legal culture studies.