Chapter 7, Contexts, High and Low Summary and Analysis

Much of the law in the United States has been decontexted from the point of view of interpretation, with differences in the way it is applied in the context of sex, socioeconomic level, and ethnicity. Lawyers regard the law as something apart from real life, thereby demonstrating the distortion due to extension transference. Law is a low context system.

The disadvantages of low context systems are readily apparent in American law. It is becomes massively complex and is subject to manipulation by influence of precedents in widely-scattered courts. In French courts, a much higher context system, a trial is placed in the hands of an individual judge rather than a jury of twelve citizens and there is leeway in the matter of evidence submitted to the court. The overriding concern is to find...