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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3298123" data-attributes="member: 4937">America, and to be fair the whole British culture of which America is just the most exceptional (in the since of different than the norm not necessarily better than the norm), has this really interesting and complex aspect to it, in that it prizes individuality and freedom above just about anything, but the way that it chooses to express this is by enshrining those freedoms in the law.  Thus you have this tension created by the inclination of society to protect the individual rather than demand of the individual that it protect the society (which is what you'd normally expect of lawfulness).  It just goes to show how complex things can get when you get away from sterotypes.That's that strain of puritanism that I mentioned.  And the Puritans are interesting (and distinctly British) too in that they are a radically lawful culture with this distinctive brand of rebelliousness.And that to my list of 'alignment myths'.  It is a myth that lawfuls tend to create labrintine and obscure laws.  Interestingly, I think on the whole that this is a tendancy of chaotic societies, not lawful ones.  Lawful societies tend to want very clear, very simple, very consise guidelines on behavior.   As societies become more complex, more diverse, and less respectful of the law they tend to proliferate laws enormously (for one thing, they tend to have to because people are looking for loopholes).  You can see this is in religions too.  The more lawful minded the religion, the more that they tend to focus on a single text and make the assumption that the text is simple, concise and comprehensive.  On the other hand, legal proliferation in a religion is usually (not always) a sign that its becoming more flexible in application and more subject to individual interpretation.  I'd bring some real world religions into this as examples, but its getting so that you can't bring up anything because someone is still believing it and doesn't take my casual observation kindly.  I personally feel the opposite, that in our respect for chaotic ideals we are moving away from the lawfulness that kept them in check (constitutionality, puritanism, culturalism) in favor of more chaotic ideas (living documents, post-modernism, multi-culturalism).   I could go further that way, but as with religion, much further that way and I'm sure to offend someone.</blockquote>

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