Critical legal studies was a movement in legal thought in the 1970s and 80s committed to shaping society based on a vision of human personality devoid of hidden interests and class domination perceived in existing legal institutions. Adherents of the movement sought to destabilize traditional conceptions of law, and to unravel and challenge existing legal institutions. The more constructive members, such as Roberto Mangabeira Unger, sought to rebuild these institutions as an expression of human coexistence and not just a provisional truce in a brutal struggle, and were seen as the most powerful voices and the only way forward for the movement. Unger is one of the last standing members of the movement to continue to try to develop it in new directions—namely, to make legal analysis the basis of institutional imagination.
The abbreviations "CLS" and "Crit" are sometimes used to refer to the movement and its adherents.
Read more about Critical Legal Studies: History, Themes, Continued Influence
Famous quotes containing the words critical, legal and/or studies:
“Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.”
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“In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends—an attainment conditioned in this way by universality—there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness, etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured.”
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“What happiness did poor Mother’s studies bring her? It is the melancholy tendency of such studies to separate people from their friends and neighbors and fellow creatures in whom alone lies one’s happiness.”
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