My title for this diary comes from the movie A Man for All Seasons, based on a play by Robert Bolt. Here is the relevant quote:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Follow me over the fold as I discuss this a little more.
I missed the great series of Restoring our Constitution, several of which discussed our current constitutional crisis in the context of much earlier historical incidents. When watching A Man for All Seasons, however, I could not help but feel that this was yet another pertinent historical parallel to our woes.
The movie centers upon Sir Thomas More's refusal to take the Oath of Succession, which would be a public recognition that Henry VIII's previous marriage was no marriage at all, that his current marriage was legitimate, and most importantly perhaps for More,
It demanded that persons swearing the oath renounce the power of any 'foreign authority or potentate' and repudiate any oath previously made to such an authority.
This meant that More must repudiate the authority of the Pope and of the Catholic Church. The relevance of this lies not in More's religious beliefs (indeed, the playwright was both an agnostic and a socialist), but More's deft understanding of and deep respect for the law. He believed that neither Henry nor the Parliament had the authority abrogate Henry's lawful marriage. Further, More believed that as long as he did not publicly denounce the King's act, that he was safe. Why? Because to speak out against the King could be tantamount to treason, and therefore More's silence bought his safety. But this was not to be so.
Cromwell, a veritable 16th century Karl Rove, under the King's orders, pursued More relentlessly, eventually convincing a court that More's silence was pregnant with condemnation. The law had been perverted, and justice made absent. Like Socrates before him, More submitted to "the law" even though it had been carried out with injustice.
On the note of justice, there is further relevance in this movie/play for our current debates. I could not find the quotes, so I am paraphrasing:
Cromwell expressed the wish that he could torture More to get the truth out of him, but the King's conscience could not take it. Instead, he would threaten More with justice, to which More replied that he has no fear to be threatened by justice. At this point, he still believed that justice and the law would protect him. He underestimated what it meant to live in the State of Exception as Giorgio Agamben has described it. While the Patriot Act and the suspension of Habeas Corpus is a more pure example of the State of Exception, More's plight is a more subtle one, and perhaps the more dangerous.
The State of Exception is when the government gathers power to itself at the expense of civil liberties in order to protect the people against some exceptional threat. In the case of More, Henry abrogated the law in order to suit his whim, in order to pursue, persecute, and execute someone who failed to have blind faith in his sovereign. In a wider context, then, the State of Exception is when the sovereign, or the government, suspends the law for the supposed good of the people. More was seen to be guilty of treason, perceived of it, not proven to have committed it, and his silence injured Henry. There are several instances today where the law has been broken not for the tangible, even if misguided, protection of the people, but to suit political vendettas. One such event has come to a head this week.
In my inexpert opinion on such matters, More seems to express a view of the law that roughly coincides with what Martin Luther King, Jr. describes in his "Letter to Birmingham Jail." On breaking laws, King wrote this:
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
This argument put forth by King, and the example I have used concerning More, is separate from questions of religion and faith. We, all of us, whether we are people of faith, humanists, patriots, or agnostics or atheists, all, as people who resist the worldview of this current administration, believe with King that "An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law." I will leave you to decide how to define "moral" in this context. The suspension of habeas corpus is an unjust law because it does not square with the moral law. For me, a non-religious person, I refer again to King who stated that "Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." My morality is to "uplift human personality," not degrade it.
To return to the quote that got me started on all of this, yes, I would give the devil the benefit of law, because I too wish to be safe! To take the law away from one person, you make it possible to take it away from all.