Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“A just order, in fact, would be (by definition) one in which judges ruled: there are institutional relations in which everyone is allotted a role governed by tacit and explicit conventions and rules and disagreements and complaints are either settled informally, on the model of how they would have been settled formally, or they are taken to court, to be settled formally. Everything—property damage, adultery and other sexual transgressions, slander, fraud, murder, could all be handled this way—and once was, more or less. This order was undone by the claim that the judge could himself be unjust, and in need of judgment; once this case is made (also in juridical terms—the king is marked as a criminal, a traitor, etc.) then we have “politics,” meta-juridical procedures for ensuring that whoever is judge for the moment can in turn be judged. This in turn leads to the creation of whole new disciplines dedicated to determining the logic or grammar by which the judge can be judged, by whom, in accord with which procedures ensuring that the judges of the judge could themselves withstand judgment in turn.”

— Adam Katz, Media as Infrastructural Translation · May 03, 2022 · Bouvard Substack