It is precisely this freedom that our legal system so carefully cultivates and protects. Even as litigiousness expresses, and accentuates, the pursuit of individual advantage, the rule of law helps to hold such a fractured society together. Yet contradictions abound. 40 individualistic society encourages the assertion of legal rights as an entitlement of citizenship, but distributes them according to the ability to pay. Litigation is the all-purpose remedy that American society provides to its aggrieved members.
Solace lies in the comforting assurance that there is no tolerable, or preferable, alternative.
Throughout the twentieth century social theorists have insisted that a formal legal system, with a trained professional class of legal experts, is the superior form of civilized social organization. The transition from unchecked theocratic or secular authority to administration by a legal elite is counted as one of the undisputed blessings in the evolution of modern Western civilization. It marked the triumph of formal justice, with its presumed virtues of rationality, consistency, impersonality, and predictability, over arbitrary rule and social instability. They also created the legal culture that now is such a widespread source of public dismay. Whether the rule of law is perceived as a blessing or a curse, as the highest plateau of civilized achievement or as a disturbing symbol of cultural fragmentation, the role of law in American society is endlessly debated.