Legal Systems Orthodoxy

The established, institutionalized set of beliefs about law that dominate legal education, practice, and discourse—the often-unexamined assumptions that law is neutral, that courts are independent, that legal reasoning is distinct from politics, that rights protect freedom, that the rule of law is inherently good, and that current legal arrangements are fundamentally just. Legal systems orthodoxy includes specific commitments: that judges apply law rather than make it, that legal procedures ensure fairness, that legal rights empower the powerless, that the adversarial system produces truth, that legal evolution is progress. Like all orthodoxies, it provides a framework for legal understanding, but it functions as ideology—making legal arrangements seem natural and just, obscuring how law serves power, and delegitimizing critiques of law's role in maintaining inequality. Legal systems orthodoxy determines what legal arguments are considered "sound," what legal arrangements are "just," and who counts as a "serious" legal thinker versus a radical critic.

Example: "She suggested that law might systematically serve ruling class interests—and was dismissed as 'not understanding how law works.' Legal systems orthodoxy doesn't allow questioning of law's neutrality; it's treated as axiomatic rather than contestable."

by Dumu The Void March 17, 2026

The system is down

The system is down, yo!

Heyy what happened to my website?
The system is down yo!

by [e-mail] May 9, 2025

metric system

an actually logical system of measurement that my country refuses to use because they prefer measuring in body parts over metres

When will the US use the metric system?

by уour mum July 2, 2025

Like System

The thing that is now broken on Urban Dictionary.

“Bro, all the likes and dislikes on UD are set to 0, and I can’t change it, the like system must be broken.”

by Forgive Marcel August 6, 2025

pettys nautical grading system

1. a grading system petty uses to Distinguish special from his fellow cadet
2. (GNPS) special same gets nautical zeros which count as a -115 every time he makes a zero and didnt study for it

1. the class laughed at special sam and his dumb question
2. sam got 2 nautical zeros and failed the course

by GNPS October 21, 2004

electronic data system

EDS=Everyday sucks. low wages, suck ass mgrs, game playing ass clowns.

Everyone I worked with at EDS (electronic data systems) agreed it sucks

by apolloobserved May 6, 2008

Rear Entertainment System

A male or female's entertainment rich rump. Usually well formed, large but not overboard.

Can be abbreviated as RES, or just Rear Entertainment.

Wow (he/she) has quite the rear entertainment system.

Looks at the size of that RES!

And I thought my Hummers RES was fly!

by Cinap April 7, 2009