A law that has lost its content becomes indistinguishable from life

Evidence

In Agamben’s account, whereas Scholem insists that the relation with the law is one in which law “does not signify,” yet “still affirms itself by the fact that it is in force,” Benjamin objects to “Scholem’s notion of a being in force without significance.” Benjamin argues that “a law that has lost its content ceases to exist and becomes indistinguishable from life.” Benjamin reads Kafka as announcing “law’s fulfillment,” its “becoming indistinguishable from the life over which it ought to rule.” With Kafka, Benjamin would thus let “no form oflaw remain in force beyond its own content.” Life, daily life, life in all its might, would also be the musical instrument that, no longer accompanying anything with its only score, remains lying in overfilled attics. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 755 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Formal logic and law serve the status quo once stripped of political content — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 225; Environmental law’s settlement into ordinary life also dulled its effectiveness. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 732; Codified law ages while human circumstances change continuously — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 4655 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Law emptied of content ceases to exist and merges with life #expands (0.97) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 755