Can legislation change Culture?

LiamMc

(By Legislation I mean both the Acts of Parliament, bye-laws and Common Law and by Cultural I mean, personal behaviour, how the larger society is perceived both within and outside the Country [personally, I prefer not to include perception from the Media as reflecting Cultural].

There are many types of Acts passed that reach down into personal behaviour and also concern groups within society.

Equality Legislation may be cited as a fairness indicator for a community but how often does newly introduced legislation differ from the Community and how often does the Community feel that the legislation is lacking.
Equal Status Act 2000 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0008/index.html
Defined discrimination, defined criteria that public and private providers had to adhere to. But did it go far enough in protecting individuals, as providers for people with disabilities did not have provide a service if there was a large cost involved.

Gender
Crimes like Rape may be considered Gender-specific crimes. So when legislation gets passed defining Rape within marriage, was this legislation reflecting how society was thinking or do posters feel the legislation was inspired by other societies.

Health
Can legislation change diet and eating habits? How much dietary legislation is on fashion or knee-jerk reactions to food production scares?

Trade/Travel/Foreign Policy
How much are individuals World View conditioned by what other countries in the world their own country trades with, where airlines fly directly to other destinations, visa requirements: How many more Ireland passport holders can now visit the USA since the removal of simple visa requirements (thanks to the heroic efforts of Her Excellency Mrs. Jean Kennedy Smith a huge legislative and policy story that has changed the lives of thousands and thousands of people).
With Trade Wars or political Cold Wars, how does this effort how a society perceives a place or considers travelling to a destination?

Social Justice
Can Local Authorities, Dail Eireann change peoples opinions of targets of funding with decisions on how they fund/ refuse to fund/ remove funding?
Does using 'Social Justice' betray my bias?

Economicanisanalationism
It has to be considered, the individuals place in a large society based on their Economic Status. How individuals perceive each other Economically and But it is a huge question, I think it is too big for the specifics I am interested in.

chops018

I always assumed legislation changed due to culture change such as a more cars being on the road and naturally there are more rules of the road more steps being taken. I always thought legislation was impacted by culture rather than the other way around.

Grolschevik

LiamMc wrote: »

Economicanisanalationism

Me likey!


I think it's a complex series of feedbacks; causality doesn't run in just one (or the same) direction in all instances. It depends on the issue and the nature of the law.



Or, if you're a Marxist (specifically one influenced by Gerry Cohen), the legal superstructure will always reflect, or be evolving in order to better reflect, the needs of the forces of production. As indeed, will all cultural phenomena: morality, religion, the social relations of production etc.

Procrastastudy

Firstly Legislation and the Common Law are quite different. I think it's more that culture changes legislation. The common law would be changed by culture but to a lesser extent - it would depend on the Judges of the time. Arguably in Ireland the effect of culture on the common law and vice versa has been curtailed by the Constitution. This is slightly ironic as judges in Ireland appear to be much more in touch than say judges in England and Wales.

Legislation is essentially dictated by the people (theoretically) given we vote in the people that make the law. Culture and politics of the time therefore give rise to the legislation enacted. An example would be the legislation on syringe attacks when no such legislation was really needed.

Victor

Both change each other.

Smoking habits and their health implications resulted in legislation. Legislation has made it legally and socially unacceptable to smoke indoors.

krd

Procrastastudy wrote: »

Firstly Legislation and the Common Law are quite different. I think it's more that culture changes legislation. The common law would be changed by culture but to a lesser extent - it would depend on the Judges of the time.

What if the law is there, but through some cultural fluke it's being absolutely ignored in certain instances, and in other instances law that does not exist is being acted on.

Magdalene laundries would be a case. Women were detained in these institutions with no legal basis for their detention. Women were committed on the basis of things like lettre de cachet. If the women attempted to escape the Garda would round them up and bring them back to the laundry.

A twist of Stalinist Soviet Union and contemporary Saudi Arabia, all rolled into one.

The legal aspect of the Laundries is something that's always surprised me. There was a blatant lawlessness about them at the time they were in operation. How could the law have had such an insane blindness for something so obviously a large scale criminal enterprise.

This is shocking. The Justice for Magdalene’s report.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/dirty-laundry-207874.html

Carawaystick

Grolschevik wrote: »

I think it's a complex series of feedbacks; causality doesn't run in just one (or the same) direction in all instances. It depends on the issue and the nature of the law.

I think you'll find the 2nd law of thermodynamics is the un-repealable law that forces (or observes that) causality to only run in the direction of increasing entropy

The arrow of time points the way

im invisible

Has anyone even been decided something something,
makes sense like

LiamMc

Carawaystick wrote: »

I think you'll find the 2nd law of thermodynamics is the un-repealable law that forces (or observes that) causality to only run in the direction of increasing entropy

The arrow of time points the way

Act of Parliament Laws can be repealed. Returning to an original state. No change on paper.

The change is the memory of the individuals within society.

krd

Carawaystick wrote: »

I think you'll find the 2nd law of thermodynamics is the un-repealable law that forces (or observes that) causality to only run in the direction of increasing entropy

The arrow of time points the way

Not an appropriate use of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Entropy is hard to explain and easy to misunderstand. A disordered system will not spontaneously return to a previous state of order. A cup of tea, will not separate into hot tea and cold milk. You can't apply entropy to human affairs. If you were a Martian, watching school children on earth, go chaotically from their homes to school, and then chaotically back to their homes, in daily a cycle, you'd recognise the 2nd law of Thermodynamics was being broken - and that you were not looking at a thermodynamic system.

Laws can be repealed. A man cannot be unhanged - so the 2nd law does apply to hanging, but not the law itself.