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Habit and Law

Modernity was the invention for the tradition of repetition and habit. The western habitude of jurisprudence, obsessed with habit and repetition, chose to establish the foundation of positive science of law. Religious interpretation, the biblical narratives of just and good life were too fragile for newly emerged Protestant ethics for worldly salvation, as explained by Max Weber. For a repetitive set of laws were instrumentally warranted for the sake certainty in the transactional attitude of the "economic man" (homo economicus). Law originated from the imagination of pattern, a repetitive and continuous reality. The foundation of natural law was shaky, uncertain and unpredictable. For a higher priest or a philosopher was required to be consulted in the process of knowing what nature has to offer and what truth is concealed from the senses of a being? Discovery of eternal or divine law was a serious business, for authority was consulted. Modern man was afraid of too much uniqueness and uncertainty of every phenomenon; from natural to social events. They were in search of law, a pattern, a repetitive reality, which appears to the senses as the "law of nature". Galileo in fact claimed that nature reveals its truth, its laws in the language of mathematics. Nature was reduced in that sense to numbers and shapes in quest of certainty. Certainly, law for the organization of society was also wondered and created for the sake of inculcating and accepting habit as a certain reality for business and all the social-transactional affairs. 

Picture's Source: Pinterest

Does it mean that the law doesn't have any truth apart from the structure of pattern and repetition? What about an odd note which is not arranged for a published composition of an artist? Does it fail to appeal as reality, a unique life? Every life is a unique life. I think, the true sense of law exists in the marginality and uniqueness of event, like the fresh leaves of spring, which exists for the moment as a part of the aesthetics of nature. Habit is not essentially a reality outside our mind. Habit is is the byproduct of mind. If we treat everything as a repetition or fall from the grace, there can't be any possibility to realize what is happening unique in our daily experience. The law of life is not about surrendering before the mechanical structure of habituated mind. It's about celebration of difference, uniqueness, and oddness of our experiences. There are no two days alike. Though, we may choose to return again and again to the nostalgia of past and may remain habituated as we have been since the leap of evolution.



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