damolaolomu

upon reflection, i’ve deduced that there’s a direct correlation between law and culture. every  integral change in society’s perception and perspective was hinged on the creation, modification or abolition of laws. laws influence culture and culture engineers society’s perception of reality. intrinsically, the inherent difference between two societies is culture: the ethos, the spirit and soul of the societies and this is engineered, enabled and established by laws no matter how subtle or seemingly insignificant they appear to be. if you desire to make the people in a select geographical jurisdiction adopt a mental module, the proven effectual approach is to create or change existing laws. 

to contextualize this, laws are guidelines, frameworks and guardrails that determine what’s admissible and tolerable in a society and what’s not. institutions, entities whether private or corporate and families are all subject to the authority that backs laws. a law doesn’t just spell out what what freedom is, it dictates what morals, values and rights are acceptable, permissible and tolerable. laws cut across divers strata spanning from education and innovation, politics and religion, economics and value creation to social security and the sociological dynamics of the society.  the difference between right and wrong, laudable acts and misdemeanors are laws. 

laws are binding customs and principles hinged on precepts and concepts usually enforced by a justice system. some are institutionalized and some not so much but they exist to regulate human conduct, uphold justice and equity, maintain social order and provide a framework for settling disputes. laws are in classes and some supersede others in weight of authority and i point out this weight because everything in society answers to laws whether constitutional, statutory, common, administrative, customary or religious. laws are equalizers. from acts to bills, net positive and negative changes in society with respect to productivity, innovation, adaptation, evolution and growth in different dispensations can be traced to laws and in the same vein, every depravity and abhorrent action that grieves basic moral and axiological standards in society today is enabled by a law, things that were absolutely absurd just a few decades ago have been made culturally acceptable today by the power of laws. 

wars have been fought, systems and structures have clashed and crumbled, economies have thrived and been rendered crippled by the power of laws. radicalism, terrorism, insurgency have found expression in different forms because corrupted belief systems and opinions were set in stone by laws. territories have expanded and conquests have been wrought throughout history riding on the wings on laws because laws seek to establish perspectives while having little to no respect for the blind spots that come with them. now who sets these laws in stone and motion? legislators. 

legislators are elected, appointed, or sometimes hereditary individuals responsible for making, passing, and amending laws within a government body, belonging to a class called the legislature. they are vested with authority by the power of this office to craft, amend or repeal laws. they are representatives of the very folks who voted them in so essentially they’re put in that position to serve the interests of society. for order and structure, society can’t be run, swayed and tossed around by the opinions of isolated individuals so by election, there’s a microcosm of people, clad with the rights to speak for and represent the interests of the larger society and constitutionally, the people are obligated to respect both their rights and perspectives.

i point all this out to make sure there’s a revelation of the not so unsung but widely misunderstood power that legislators wield. they have the rights and obligation to write and pass laws and these rights are upheld by authority and affirmed by law. they stand as the voice of the people, which basically means their perspectives represent the perspective of the macrocosm of society and because laws in themselves aren’t sentient, they affirm these perspectives assuming process must have run it’s cause. in most societies today they are elected by the people but do these people really understand what this position is capable of doing in and to society as a whole? if laws are the equalizer and a handful of people have the authority to enact them, shouldn’t they be vetted? i mean actually subjected to a standard where parameters like character, vision, furnished leadership mindsets and transformation oriented agendas hold sway, not just mindless manifestoes and affiliations.

 legislators should be people that have been taught and transformed to understand that they are change agents. i personally believe that the first quality to look for in approving or appointing a legislator is character because it’s inherently who they are and their opinions, values and perspectives reflect just that. if laws dictate culture and laws are crafted by legislators, we can logically infer that legislators shape culture and effectively engineer society’s thinking not the laws in themselves because society reflects what the culture is and the culture is engineered by legislation. i think it’s pertinent to explain what culture is. culture is the aggregation of the ideas and ideologies, customs and practices, and social behaviour of a peculiar people or society.  it’s the constructed perspective and collective  methodologies adopted by people in a system and environment. simply put, it’s the way of life ingrained in individuals and people groups by virtue of underwritten constructs through association and existence in peculiar jurisdictions.

with that layer peeled off, we begin to see both the authority and weight of responsibility vested on legislators. humanity and civilization as we know it is really at the mercy of their interests, now what if their interests are selfish, profit driven and disingenuous? what happens to a society when not so credible individuals are given the rights and obligation to dictate how people act and by extension think? what happens to a society when the people who essentially qualify these legislators have no understanding of the power they’re committing into the hands of incompetent people and how much of a ripple effect these choices have? what happens to society when it’s legislators lack complete understanding of what their assignments and responsibilities are and what this deficiency of wisdom does to the macrocosm? a generation can be ensnared. societies have imploded, economies have crumbled, civilizations have been neutered by the gross ignorance of this connection of laws, culture and legislation. 

i have more to say, but my submission is to point out the covering cast and veil of ignorance and indifference with respect to this connection and to emphasize the need for concrete attention to detail to what’s currently lacking in legislation, legislature and the election of the actors on that stage, because culture dictates the state of a society and every society reflects the aggregation of the interests, values, thought processes and mental modules of it’s legislators. everything wrong in society today is feedback from the blind spots that ride on the back of our perspectives and this cuts across all strata of human endeavor.