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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5999561" data-attributes="member: 4937">It focuses tightly on the group vs. individual divide because that is I think the core division between the two.  If we are to be able to accurately separate what it means to be 'chaotic' and 'lawful' we have to use as a touchstone something which isn't relative and situational.  Typically, people who define law through other standards run into all sorts of contridictions once you pursue them:1) Organized: While it might be true that lawfulness tends to lead to organization, this turns out to be more of a personality trait when applied to an individual than anything else.  It's possible to a be an untidy disorganized lawful individual or a neat freak chaotic.  Personalities do not strongly indicate what a person is going to choose when 'the chips are down', and we would not wish to equate personality with alignment because it leads to gross simplification of characters and sterotypes that hinder roleplay and give the very notion of alignment a bad name.2) Belongs to an Organization: This turns out to be a terribly weak distinction, since it implies that a lawful person can never be a 'loner' (again, personality), or that there is no such thing as a chaotic society or organization.  While it might be the case that in perfect chaos there is no society, just as we would expect that in perfect law there is no individual, amongst mortals especially we'd expect there would be societies with a strongly chaotic inclination.   Just because all lawfuls belong to some group, doesn't mean that belonging to a group is a trait exclusive to lawfuls.3) Obeys 'the Law': This also turns out to be a terribly weak distinction, since it also follows that all chaotics are criminals (and conversely that all lawfuls are not), and that there are again no such things as chaotic societies.  Often it is presumed that 'the laws of the land' are what must be obeyed, but this fails to deal with issues like heirarchies of potential loyalties - to a society, to the nation, to a god - who could have contridictory codes or with what happens if a lawful moves from one society to another with contridictory laws.  This standard is ultimately impossible to apply and naturally leads to arguments in play, which in turn leads to alignment being discredited (among groups that misuse it).4) Has 'a code': Related to 3 above , you'll often hear people argue that anyone who has a code that they try to adhere to is perforce 'lawful'.  While it is true that all lawfuls have a code that they follow, following a code is not a trait exclusive to lawfuls which can lead you into all sorts of confusion.  The common trait of all the codes that lawfuls follow (even where two codes disagree on some point) is that the codes are lawful.   That is to say, the codes originate with some external source (a god, a lawgiver, an idealized form), and that they are in some sense public codes shared by others, reviewable by others, and that the holder is subject to judgment by others on the basis of his adherence to the code.  You'll often find people trying to argue that a private code of honor ('Don't rob children', 'Always repay insults double', 'Never back down from a fight unless outnumbered', etc.), made up by the person holding it according to his particular fancies, where the person can only be judged on how well he is adhering to the code by himself is somehow 'lawful', which is just nonsense.   For a code of honor to be lawful, it has to be shared among a group and not subject to the whim of the person holding it.  Otherwise, you get into a situation where even the fey with their inscrutable internal codes and logic are 'lawful' by the given definition.You leave me at a great disadvantage when you say that there are these other aspects to the Law/Chaos divide I'm not considering.  Ok, just what are they?  And even if there are some, you haven't demonstrated that the divide I suggest isn't the essential quality.</blockquote>

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