 |
| Taken at a gas station on I5 |
For the past few years, every time that I have seen the sign
above at a gas station, I have done a double take. “It’s not just wrong, it’s
illegal.” Does this mean that, as a society, we value law over morals? The structure of the statement sets up an inequality, so because it isn't phrased as "It's both wrong and illegal", it makes illegal actions more important to put our attention than moral wrongs. For a while, I even thought that the signs had been misprinted, and it was supposed to read "It's not just illegal, it's wrong."
When I
told my friend that I was thinking about writing my blog on this, she commented
that actually, laws are intended to be representations of morals as interpreted by the government. Although I think that it is very true that this was the original intent of law in primitive society (ex: "Dhama" was a word used in ancient India that meant both law and morals), things have changed drastically since that time. The question now is if laws are successfully representing what we as a society deem as moral. Laws are external and have external consequences where are morals are internal and have internal consequences.
I looked at some headlines on cnn.com to see how much the people of our society are in agreement with the laws that govern us. Below are some screenshots of various articles through the years that show a tiny fraction of the disagreement that many Americans feel towards laws or methods of law enforcement.
 |
| 2014 |
 |
| 2012 |
 |
| 2009 |
When viewing this issue with a sociological imagination, the first thing that I think of is socialization and how interesting it is that, since laws and morals have been separated, everyone has to learn about laws as somewhat arbitrary restrictions that you will be punished if you break. If we were better at aligning our laws with morality, how would things be different? Why do we care more about rules than making sure that citizens act in accordance with their goodness? I am not proposing that we do away with laws and see what happens when everyone tries to act in a way that makes them feel positive about their impact on the world, but when laws are prioritized above morals and we socialize an entire people to either follow the laws or revolt, a key aspect of humanity is lost. No longer can we come together as a people to govern ourselves with integrity.
This post reminds me of the conversation we had in class about what is deviant and not illegal and what is illegal and not deviant. Since, as a class, we were able to come up with such a long list of actions that did not line up with our laws, there is clearly a disconnect between our societies morals and its laws. I like your example of the gas station sign because this sign could be more effective if its emphasis was on the fact the buying tobacco for minors is wrong. In my experience, people are likely to follow laws only when their own morals align with the laws. If a society believed that buying cigarettes for minors was not moral, there own conscience would prevent a person from doing it. Emphasizing that it is illegal is not going to have as significant of an impact unless a person truly believes the action is deviant.
ReplyDeleteSome people do see the law as synonymous with morality or as an extension of morality, but most people I know see it as a mix of important protections, targeted oppression, dated superstitions, and a list of things you shouldn't get caught doing by police. The law is presented by the U.S. government as more important that morality or justice, in very explicit terms. We live in one of less than 25 countries that doesn't guarantee the release of people in prison for a crime that has since been made legal. In addition, there's no guarantee of someone's sentence being reduced in accordance with a general sentence reduction for the crime they committed (even if they time they are serving becomes greater than the new maximum sentence). For example, there are people waiting to be executed on death row in Connecticut even though the state abolished the death penalty. This practice sends a message that the abstract act of "breaking the law" is more important to someone's jail time than any harm they may have done. Fair justice and morality are demonstrated to be less important than obeying in the eyes of federal law. As a socializing message it's reinforced with real consequences.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up a very valid point. And I also remember when we made a list of morals that did not line up with our laws in class, supporting that fact that our laws do not always line up with our morals. I think where this all gets very complicated is when we consider that fact that from birth we are being socialized to have certain morals often based on these laws, so how can we really determine what is actually a personal moral and what is just a social construct we take as a moral? But moreover, if we consider the fact that everyone has different morals on different issues/topics. If we all prioritized our own moral over the law, we would enter a virtual state of anarchy because the laws would become simple guidelines that could be thrown away if we decide we disagreed.
ReplyDelete