Lessons of Law

I wish I had kept a record - of all the ways that studying law has defined me, of how it has shaped the way I see the world, on my evolving views on justice, on nuggets of truth I discovered unexpectedly along the way.

I will never remember anything now - my memory has been moulded to suit my specific occupation's needs - to store copius amounts of meaningless information in my short term memory for retrieval upon panicked demand. No, I will never remember, but I will never again be the same person. The study of the law has defined me.

I do not feel calmer. Though I am not more attuned to justice than I was before, I am more aware of how to create a just result by manipulation of technicalities. For there is no greater underlying sense of justice which permeates any legal system - I was misguided to seek it. All our labour has merely brought us one step closer to having the power and knowledge to use means and resources available to us, as lawyers, to achieve whichever result our client paid us to achieve. A purely capitalistic endeavour. I feel as though I am losing a greater sense of what is right - although no system created by man could ever capture the elusive virtue of justice.

There are few truly altruistic people - few people who take any pleasure in the happiness of others, unless such happiness is intrinsically linked to their own. Just look at the way man treats animal - as if their cries of pain were soundless, or meaningless.

I have encountered the efforts of those who seek to protect animals. I feel these are noble, and yet largely futile. A species which cannot extend its care to its own clearly lacks the inherent capability to extend its care further. Animal protectors often claim cruelty to animals is a root of cruelty to humans - I fear that they have mistaken symptoms for causes. Cruelty which lurks within a human will find any and multiple ways to manifest itself.

And man is evil.

This is no revelation, in fact it is the rationale behind every attempt man has ever made at religion. For I still believe that most religions were created by noble men - nobler at least by comparison to those they would have follow them.

Religions have demanded refining as man has become more knowledgeable of his surroundings, and as civilisation has evolved to provide more opportunities for evil, man has extended his reach to all of them.

There are many, many things which I, and the rest of the common world, are not privy to in the man-made world, and none of them are forged by love.

There is no divine guidance. If there were there would not be so much evil in the world. The sooner people accept religion for what it is - an attempt to curb the evil of mankind - the sooner we can move towards an understanding that death and suffering, for any reason, or in any name, is still a natural sin. No religion that provides an outlet for any form of violence deserves the status of divine rules. And I have yet to encounter a religion which does not.

It matters not what version of greater good we adhere to - whether we name this good "God" or "Nature" or "Science", or any other conceivable name... We need to remove the objects which distance us as humans from this notion, whether these objects are religion, ignorance, or simple stubborness. Somewhere in human consciousness there must be a greater capacity for love, care trust... and justice.