Laying down the law : mysticism, fetishism, and the American legal mind / Pierre Schlag.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-188) and index.

To hear judges or legal academics speak of "law," one would think that it is a humane, genteel, and noble calling. To experience law on the receiving end - as a litigant or a witness - is an altogether different experience, often evoking fear and dread. Whence the difference? Laying Down the Law traces this difference back to the self-deceptions of the legal mind. By exploring the ways in which legal professionals think, Schlag reveals the cognitive blockages, the false self-identifications, and the conventional sophistries through which the illusion of law is created.

For Schlag, the legalist form of thought extends far beyond the official precincts of law. The essays here are of interest not only to those who have undergone "legal education," but to philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, social theorists, and anyone else whose discipline is already prey to legalism. Schlag shows us how to move beyond the self-congratulatory rhetoric of the law so that we might think critically about its identity, and limitations. The book calls into question the dominant normative orientation that shapes so much academic thought not just in law, but in the humanities and social sciences. It challenges as well the dominant images of self, reason, and morality routinely assumed into existence by the legal community.

This could be your culture -- Normative and nowhere to go -- Values -- The evaluation controversy -- Contradiction and denial -- Fish V. zapp: the case of the relatively autonomous self -- How to do things with the First Amendment -- Anti-intellectualism -- The legal form of being -- Laying down the law.

Print version record.

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