“At the heart of law is not justice but the will to punish. And it is when this will to punish becomes a pervasive political impulse, a mass phenomenon, that we leave democracy and enter what we call neodemocracy: the idea that the law is here not to protect the vulnerable, or be responsible to those who are outnumbered. When punishment becomes the guiding force in and of law, we have left the realm of human freedom. We have entered into what liberals call the rule of law.”
What, Mutant asks, does the law yield? What does the law make of us — and what does the law break in us?
At the heart of the modern democratic contract is the principle — and the faith — that the majority will decide for everyone. But...
How do ordinary citizens become the foot soldiers, the automatons, the purveyors of evil? How does barbaric cruelty become a civic norm? In her...
No idea in our political lexicon is as deeply mired in paradox as freedom. One is wholly alive, wholly human, we are often told,...
