this is a great lecture which gets into the differences between, as starkey puts it, english law and roman law.   qmtmxhlw when listening to this it should be understood as english law being a product of a mix of roman law and germanic law, and roman law being a product of the eastern influence on rome; essentially we're talking about a preserved version of ancient european traditions contrasted to the centralised eastern notions of law. as starkey says, english law is essentially the idea of that law is something which protects you from outsiders, and he highlights the jealous nature of it (such as the conflicts against the roman catholic church). this is strongly contrasted to eastern notions of law where law is a moral rule. as he says there's the old notions of that > the english are a naturally law abiding people and also that as 14th century english chief justice said > english lawlessness is the guarantor of english law this may seem like contradictory things, but of course they're actually the same: the english follow the law because they own it and made it; law is not an imposition upon them. the english can ignore the law because the law is merely a tool.  this relates to the whole previous notion brought up of that somehow 'atomisation' is a dereliction of responsibility to your neighbour. 'individualism' and 'collectivism' are heavily bastardised terms. individualism is rooted in cultures with strong senses of public duty, the individualism is that an individual is responsible for themselves; all of this is rooted in a strong notion of that your true identity is your public identity. contrast this to 'collectivism' where it's not seen as immoral to avoid paying taxes as it's something you're obliged to do; collectivist cultures are very individualising cultures. individualist cultures are traditionally concerned with what's best for the group. this relates to the atomistic family structure of north-western europe.
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