In modern legal literature, legal nihilism is the antipode of legal idealism. It should be noted that it also has a number of negative features and consequences that are the result of legal ignorance, undeveloped and deformed legal awareness, and to a certain extent even a deficit of political and legal culture. Legal idealism is an extremely hypertrophied attitude to legal means, revaluation
opportunities and role of law, the belief that only one existence of laws can solve all the problems of society. Essentially, it is the second side of the same coin as nihilism. Legal idealism, the concept of which at first glance suggests the absolute opposite of the latter, in fact ultimately merges with it and forms a general problem. And although outwardly this side of the coin is less noticeable and less audible than some provocative forms of nihilism, the phenomenon is considered no less destructive in its final consequences.
Causes of occurrence
- Legal hunger cultivated for decades and centuries.
- Extreme degree of legal ignorance.
- Underdeveloped and deformed legal awareness in society.
- Legal ignorance of citizens.
- Deficit of political and legal culture.
Often all these problems, the direct consequence of which is legal idealism, stem from the omnipotence of state power over a long period of popular history. In Russian conditions, we have just a similar situation when the prolonged subordination by the authorities of all civil and natural rights (in the form of a ban on wearing a beard, forced wearing of European clothes, prolonged conservation of feudal relations, decades of total fear of state power, and so on) led to inadequate perception legal system these days.
Forms of Legal Idealism
- A completely unrealistic attitude to the law of legal scholars. The perception of this right as an abstraction, completely divorced from life.
- The blind and peremptory faith of citizens of the state in "good laws", which in themselves are capable of quickly changing things for the better.
- The literal perception of legal law as the only means that regulates social relations. Ignoring objective reality, in which not only law regulates social relations.
- Extremely idealistic attitude to legal norms on the part of legislators. For example, legal idealism leads to negative consequences, when deputies of the parliament, during the development and adoption of legal acts, are poorly guided by the life reality of the people and their interests, believe that the adoption of the law alone can solve the problems that have arisen, and therefore cannot mechanisms for implementing the norms of this legal act.
- Excessive enthusiasm by the formal side of the rule of law (for example, during the consideration of court cases).