That's just it. The unpardonable offence has been in our not offending - The dilettante, Edith Wharton
1
The one who is accused cannot be known. It is a law. It is a law written in the shadow cast by the law. The nature of the one accused, in the moment of accusation, because he is accused, cannot also be known. He cannot be known because his unknowability is a function of the law set in motion by the accusation against him. The law does not know the accused, and commences the process of examination and trial to show what it does not know - by this means it will come to know itself, and the limit of its reach in relation to the accused. That is the meaning of versus (this inside here and known, the law, against that outside there and unknown, the accused) as it is set within the meaning of the adversarial (the structure of the contest between a particular and unknown of the exterior brought up against the abstract ordering of the general interior). The law is the process of separating the law (the known) from the accused (the unknown). Or rather, the law is impelled to extract the offence from itself and make itself more perfect. The law seeks to know itself in the elaborate procedure of not knowing what offends against it. The law is an apparatus writing itself into the world by not knowing whatever it is not. The only purpose of the law is to not know what is outside the law.
2
The testimony that the law demands from the accused which functions as his defence, the answers he make in response to the accusations made against him, are necessarily inscrutable: taciturnity, loquacity, inarticulacy, sincerity, unconcern, anguish, righteousness, arrogance, fawning, are all proofs of the falsity of his account. He cannot be known by what he says. Nor can he be known by the patterns of his history. In the event of the accused being found not guilty, the verdict will not have been arrived at along the path of who he is. Even admission of guilt does not belong to him on the territory of the law, as this also operates as a function within the process where the value of the accused’s unknowability shifts but is not overcome. At the juncture of the accused’s confession, the law no longer wishes to know itself in confrontation with him.
3
Internal developments will always drive every societal body towards a point where the use of the accusatory apparatus alters in line with a corresponding shift in its corrective mechanisms. Where previously, the law’s knowledge of itself would be gained through the rigorous iteration of the ways it could not know the accused, it later develops the accusatory form to inhibit knowledge of the limit of the law in relation to the unknown and thus to prevent understanding of its proper domain, which in turn facilitates its further extension as inscrutable power into farther corners of the life-world.
4
A man from the law arrived at a bridge over the narrow stream marking the border with the country. A guard sat at the checkpoint on the bridge and lifted the barrier. The guard was armed with a heavy quarterstaff. The man from the law said, I should like to exit the law and go over to the country. The guard replied, go ahead, the country is yonder, it is what comes after the law. He gestured as if to the wider world and recited the protocol required whenever someone from the law arrived at the border with the country. The country is all that may not be seen nor known by the law. As men may enter the law, so the law does not enter the deserts, the plains, the mountains, the forests, these taken together constitute the country. The man of the law asked, what is it about the country that is so inhospitable to the law? The country is what the law does not see and cannot know, replied the guard. The law is overwhelmed by endless exceptions, he said, each more powerful than the general character of the law’s statutes. He added, the ceaseless blowing of the tramontane plucks at the pages of the law and scatters them across the fields. The man of the law peered closely at the guard, a feeble wretch dressed in rags, a man almost not there, but still he held back from crossing over to the country, what do you know of the pages of the law? Anyone and everyone may exit the law, the guard replied. In practice, there is no border between the law and the country. He went on, but that only sets us a question for the ages: has the he who takes his leave of the law thereby also arrived in the country? The guard took up his quarterstaff as if to defend himself. You may pass, he said, making ready to strike. All this, he said, this border post apparatus and the border itself, of which I am the poor sentinel, is but a trick to distract you from forgetting yourself and attacking me. The man of the law was now afraid, and also raised his quarterstaff. You there, sentry guard if that is what you be, and not the very devil himself, tell me now, are you belonging to the law or to the country? The guard became very great and answered him, lo! see my staff, it is lusty and tough. Now here on the bridge we will play. Whoever falls in, the other shall win the battel, and so we'll away.
