tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post116481949736862747..comments2023-10-31T07:32:11.739-04:00Comments on Wormtalk and Slugspeak: Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566889846240013567noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post-1167922963048483122007-01-04T10:02:00.000-05:002007-01-04T10:02:00.000-05:00There's no doubt at all that the inverse relations...There's no doubt at all that the inverse relationship between formal and interpretive stability that you mention applies in law. The very first thing that modern (i.e. 19th-century) comparative legal scholarship discovered was that law progresses from code to fiction to equity back to code.<BR/><BR/>In the code stage, we have a fixed or nearly fixed text, like the XII Tables, the Code of Justinian, Magna Carta, or the U.S. Constitution. Because every fixed text is obsolete as soon as it is fixed, it is quickly necessary for legal fictions to develop, in which a portion of the text is allowed to cover new circumstances by allowing one party to stipulate things which are not true and nevertheless cannot be rebutted by the other party (see the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction" REL="nofollow">Wikipedia article</A>) for excellent historical examples).<BR/><BR/>When this device becomes insufficient to the needs of the time, a new and overlapping legal system grows up, based on the conscience of the King or what is <I>aequum et bonum</I>; here there is no fixed text, as <I>stare decisis</I> is usually disclaimed from the start. Successive interpreters of the flexible principles eventually freeze the whole thing into a mechanism nearly as stabilized as the underlying code, and eventually a new codifier arrives to do the donkey-work of assembling the new fixed text. So it goes.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post-1166470070651942272006-12-18T14:27:00.000-05:002006-12-18T14:27:00.000-05:00How does Torah and the centuries of commentary fit...How does Torah and the centuries of commentary fit with your notion of memes, and textual vs. interpretive stability? It'd be an interesting test case, though probably beyond the scope of anything you could do.Naryahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05369280617520806983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post-1165004433213479682006-12-01T15:20:00.000-05:002006-12-01T15:20:00.000-05:00I'm a blogger listening to your lectures on scienc...I'm a blogger listening to your lectures on science fiction.<BR/><BR/>I have a quibble with how you tarred H.G. Wells for being a fan of Lenin and Stalin.<BR/><BR/>I think you should have merely said Wells was a fan of the Soviet experiment and Lenin. Wikipedia portrays Wells as giving Stalin mixed reviews and criticizing him for being "too rigid".<BR/><BR/>According to Wikipedia Wells was not primarily a socialist but a one-world utopian, "His most consistent political ideal was the World-State."<BR/><BR/>This makes Wells sound more like a World Federalist (like Kurt Vonnegut and Albert Einstein) than a proponent of Gulags.Carl Nyberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600144635930031384noreply@blogger.com