Without judgment: What the culture of impunity and that of sanctions have in common

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to opinion essay by David Miliband, “Our age of impunity,” February 17, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/ukraine-corruption-human-rights.html#commentsContainer:

The other side of the culture of impunity is what the centrist political forces uphold along with the capitalist police state, which is regimes of sanctions in a culture where law that must constantly be enforced with punishments tends with the corporate and administrative state towards policing without judgment and the pure rule of people giving orders.

An example of this is the regular use now by public institutions including health care facilities of electronic signing pads that normally are given to clients of the organization to sign without an opportunity to read the contract that they are agreeing to with their signature. Sometimes punishments are threatened if one does not "comply" by signing, the idea being that governance now consists of the giving and obeying of orders. In short, militarism.

What is missing in both cases (the centrist culture of sanctions for rule violations and the pseudo-anarchist or radical right hostility to law as such in a culture of a permanent state of exception) is the essence of law, which is not enforcement and obedience but judgement. It is a kind of thinking that is called for. Judgment assumes that society exists and imposes obligations, and thinking about what one (an individual or collective subject, such as a company) should or might do as a a decision on a shared good and participation in it. Policing, punishments, and war are secondary to this.