I have this (Japanese) Law class that I started this week. As per the usual start of every class we got to spend some time discussing the topic of the class. “What is law?” Well my response was that law is a tool that governments use to maintain their power by regulation, fear, and legitimizing the use of force. According to the professor I have been the first American that has made such a distinction. The primary failure of the class is the text that we are using which displays my primary flaw with academia.
The text claims for a state to develop economically they need the have a legal environment to pursue economic development by making it easy to own property, etc. There are several examples from the United States and Japan (it is after all a Japanese Law class) but the entire book neglects to discuss cases like the People’s Republic of China, 1930’s Germany and the Soviet Union where there were laws that were not promoting a free and open “democracy”.
Most of the books and texts that I have had to read during my long road though academia have been filled with claims that it reveals the truth about something, they all push their point of view using examples that support their view and ignore everything else. There is no truth.
In defense of academia though, everything that is trying to be taught is that there is no truth, or if there is a truth that it is composed of something more than a theory. I pressed the professor and he admitted that he wanted more controversy with the text, but we are a business class and not a law class so I think that the reference went above many peoples heads.
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