Still Paying the Price of Heterodoxy: The Behavior of Law a Quarter-Century On.

This article discusses the validity of a theory presented in the book The Behavior of Law, by Donald Black. The book presents the only general extant sociological theory of an ancient and important social institution. Yet it has been largely neglected. The problem is not validity. A broad array of data support the theory. Most of the data are, however, unfamiliar and come wrapped in a strange set of ideas, none of which may seem all that momentous. Put them together in a single package, however, and they meet with resistance ranging from puzzlement to hostility. Surely the resistance can not continue forever. One impetus to greater recognition would be the development of research closer in style to orthodox sociology, such as the construction of empirical tests to collect quantitative data that measure the theory's variables adequately and that lend themselves to appropriate statistical analysis. In sum, the theory does not fail the discipline, the discipline fails the theory. Sociology is not the general science of social life it promised to be when young. In middle age, it has settled for something much less ambitious, content to pursue either the statistical analysis or humanistic interpretation of modernity.