Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law Ch.4

In the first season of the Undisciplined Reading Series, we read Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law. In this episode, we discuss Chapter 4, "The Static Aspect of Law", from that book.

[@projectmalus]

This was insightful for me, thanks. It fits with my experiences in a courtroom, that as a stage where judge and prosecutor representing objects of law and government engage with "game pieces" or token objects. The prosecutors are allowed to be emotional in their presentation, as part of the stage, so this would seem to be the less static aspect. It would seem intrusive to that static aspect to make prisons into businesses for profit, or for judges to be emotional other than after the fact and maybe not even then. The judge or jury needs to be wholly rational in their presentation otherwise the stage play is confused because the role played by each object (law or government) is confused by presenting a duality of both reason and emotion in either. To me this is the static, the separation of emotion and rationality into a large infrastructure containing these objects, as a stage for the dynamic which is the adjusting of sizes of objects to create different levels.

[@Undisciplined]

Thanks for your comments, as always! To what extent do you think are the roleplayers in court able to separate emotion and rationality?

[@projectmalus]

@@Undisciplined This might be shown by the scapegoats that appear when the separation is lost.
It depends on the prosecutor, what tone they set in order for the judge or jury or both to respond to.
Juries and the emotional character of judge or prosecutor seem to blur the edges.
The law itself can be a relic, like marijuana laws, where the law itself is too static and the scapegoat is the "guilty" party. Loss of faith in the justice system is probably part of the meaning crisis.
This is struggle for the individual in the system but the individuality is still there with the possibility of winning the struggle.
When the large display of the separation is lost then individuality might be the scapegoat in some grand endeavor like war, on drugs or whatever.