A Feud Is a Net Loss

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

F feuding is just a very common way of addressing di sput among among nomadic people. From the ruler's perspective, a feud is a net loss, so you have to stop it as quickly as possible. We find it all over the world, still in parts of eastern thibet where i've recently done field work. But just as you said, the kings who come along the centralized rule as they want to stop it. It's a net loss. They want to try and put a lid on it and establish a more centralized system of justice. And that's what hammerobby was doing. Am you find that in a early anglo saxon, england, all

Rulers throughout history have used laws to impose order. But laws were not simply instruments of power and social control. They also offered ordinary people a way to express their diverse visions for a better world. The variety of the world’s laws has long been almost as great as the variety of its societies.

In this conversation, Shermer speaks with Oxford professor of the anthropology of law, Fernanda Pirie, who traces the rise and fall of the sophisticated legal systems underpinning ancient empires and religious traditions, showing how common people — tribal assemblies, merchants, farmers — called on laws to define their communities, regulate trade, and build civilizations. What truly unites human beings, Pirie argues, is our very faith that laws can produce justice, combat oppression, and create order from chaos.