David, This is fantastic. Truly. As I've said to you before I propose that one could swap "law" with "markets" and come to the same conclusion you have. That we need civilization when we've abandoned relational maintenance. Broken egg, no chicken, so to speak. But relationships are hard work. I just wrote something similar in a piece called Guilt-Grief-Gratitude: My encounters with guilt arrive most often when I visit nonhumans in the woods. Guilt mixed with envy. All they have to do is be themselves alongside their neighbors, who also seem to know how to be themselves, and, without sitting through hours of consensus meetings or spending years studying nonviolent communication, they just make a healthy forest.
Oh yes, I resonate deeply. I think this is what I want to call creature politics. The trees have no debts or masters or markets. We should converge somehow to hold markets and law under some light together and see what emerges?
Gladly, David. The market needs the state and its laws to enforce the sanctity of property, and the state needs markets to move food/shelter/clothing around and into people's hands/bellies--at least enough that they stay dependent. The gift has other ways of doing this work that relies on trust/faith/love rather than entitlement/fear/fairness. Call me an idealist, but I get to see little glimmers of this in my work all of the time--sparkling glimmers.
The charge of idealism comes my way sometimes; as though something that can't be universally realised within a generation must be nonsense. As though there's something irrational about gathering the good like berries wherever you find them.
“Law reflects, but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society…. The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven, there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb…. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”
It comes from a lecture by Prof. Grant Gilmore, published as The Ages of American Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 110-111.
Gilmore was away from Yale law during my time there … but his view somehow infiltrated.
Hi Peter. This quote says everything I'm reaching for here so succinctly. I'm fascinated by where, and in what sorts of disciplines, this kind of disouse appears. When I found these principles in Benjamin and Scholem, and then rediscovered them in Foucault, it seemed to me outrageous that Christian theology (where the 'critique of law' has tended to be understood as a critique of other religions, but not one's own), has not, within my reading, reached in this direction. Many thanks for the reference.
Seems like this line of thinking would be strong in Christian millenarianism. It usually has a strong antinomian aspect. Been reading some Winstanley lately. This seems to be very much his view in early writings like The Law of Righteousness. Later, in The Law of Freedom he gets more authoritarian. Luther seems to hold both views simultaneously: the true Christian does not need the law, doing all it would command out of love. The unchristian though much needs the law to restrain their evil so the good Christian should become jailer, executioner, etc to help out his neighbor. Seems to come down to how generalized one believes the Spirit of unity may become. If universalized, no need for positive laws. On the above quote, I suppose no one in hell has that spirit and everyone in heaven does….
As I mentioned, he was away during my time there, but I studied under four of the others...I wasn't aware of them as part of a 'movement' at all; only came to see the 'realist' perspective as such as I began to work on the development of what became 'legal studies' — a liberal arts approach to law study outside the professional training world... Looking back, I am grateful that they simply taught and didn't claim to be doing anything other than teaching law. The battles between the realists and others within professional legal education were something I studied much later.
Incisive, powerful stuff -- as usual, David! "the Messiah is the end of the law for people of pistis " = "for all those who live amid a web of relations good enough to trust." That's an electric way to reframe it -- we need that.
I think what you write here is great, I really enjoyed it. But I do have one question: “the messiah came to abolish the law, so it says”. Where does it say that? Didn’t the messiah actually say he came “not” to abolish the law? Or are you referring to something else here?
Hi Elf. You're quite right. On one hand, in Matt 5.17 the messiah figure says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill." Meanwhile in Ephesians 2.15, it says "he [the messiah] has abolished the law with its commandments.." blessed complexity! The Greek words under each are actually different. The latter, I've suggested should not be translated 'abolished,' but the former (katalusai) might be.
I love your words: “Joyous wildness resumes.” Heaven and Nature sing as all live within a life affirming pattern of interbeing. If we truly know and accept our necessary interdependence then we make and keep “relationships good enough to trust”.
David, This is fantastic. Truly. As I've said to you before I propose that one could swap "law" with "markets" and come to the same conclusion you have. That we need civilization when we've abandoned relational maintenance. Broken egg, no chicken, so to speak. But relationships are hard work. I just wrote something similar in a piece called Guilt-Grief-Gratitude: My encounters with guilt arrive most often when I visit nonhumans in the woods. Guilt mixed with envy. All they have to do is be themselves alongside their neighbors, who also seem to know how to be themselves, and, without sitting through hours of consensus meetings or spending years studying nonviolent communication, they just make a healthy forest.
Oh yes, I resonate deeply. I think this is what I want to call creature politics. The trees have no debts or masters or markets. We should converge somehow to hold markets and law under some light together and see what emerges?
Gladly, David. The market needs the state and its laws to enforce the sanctity of property, and the state needs markets to move food/shelter/clothing around and into people's hands/bellies--at least enough that they stay dependent. The gift has other ways of doing this work that relies on trust/faith/love rather than entitlement/fear/fairness. Call me an idealist, but I get to see little glimmers of this in my work all of the time--sparkling glimmers.
The charge of idealism comes my way sometimes; as though something that can't be universally realised within a generation must be nonsense. As though there's something irrational about gathering the good like berries wherever you find them.
My favorite quote about law:
“Law reflects, but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society…. The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven, there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb…. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”
It comes from a lecture by Prof. Grant Gilmore, published as The Ages of American Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 110-111.
Gilmore was away from Yale law during my time there … but his view somehow infiltrated.
Hi Peter. This quote says everything I'm reaching for here so succinctly. I'm fascinated by where, and in what sorts of disciplines, this kind of disouse appears. When I found these principles in Benjamin and Scholem, and then rediscovered them in Foucault, it seemed to me outrageous that Christian theology (where the 'critique of law' has tended to be understood as a critique of other religions, but not one's own), has not, within my reading, reached in this direction. Many thanks for the reference.
Seems like this line of thinking would be strong in Christian millenarianism. It usually has a strong antinomian aspect. Been reading some Winstanley lately. This seems to be very much his view in early writings like The Law of Righteousness. Later, in The Law of Freedom he gets more authoritarian. Luther seems to hold both views simultaneously: the true Christian does not need the law, doing all it would command out of love. The unchristian though much needs the law to restrain their evil so the good Christian should become jailer, executioner, etc to help out his neighbor. Seems to come down to how generalized one believes the Spirit of unity may become. If universalized, no need for positive laws. On the above quote, I suppose no one in hell has that spirit and everyone in heaven does….
Gilmore was one of the 'legal realists' at YLS. See: https://ccl.yale.edu/history-business-law-yale/heyday-legal-realism-1928-1954
As I mentioned, he was away during my time there, but I studied under four of the others...I wasn't aware of them as part of a 'movement' at all; only came to see the 'realist' perspective as such as I began to work on the development of what became 'legal studies' — a liberal arts approach to law study outside the professional training world... Looking back, I am grateful that they simply taught and didn't claim to be doing anything other than teaching law. The battles between the realists and others within professional legal education were something I studied much later.
Incisive, powerful stuff -- as usual, David! "the Messiah is the end of the law for people of pistis " = "for all those who live amid a web of relations good enough to trust." That's an electric way to reframe it -- we need that.
Thanks Graham! 🙏🏻
I think what you write here is great, I really enjoyed it. But I do have one question: “the messiah came to abolish the law, so it says”. Where does it say that? Didn’t the messiah actually say he came “not” to abolish the law? Or are you referring to something else here?
Hi Elf. You're quite right. On one hand, in Matt 5.17 the messiah figure says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill." Meanwhile in Ephesians 2.15, it says "he [the messiah] has abolished the law with its commandments.." blessed complexity! The Greek words under each are actually different. The latter, I've suggested should not be translated 'abolished,' but the former (katalusai) might be.
I love your words: “Joyous wildness resumes.” Heaven and Nature sing as all live within a life affirming pattern of interbeing. If we truly know and accept our necessary interdependence then we make and keep “relationships good enough to trust”.
Thanks Michelle. Yes, nature needs no policing.