The Latter Days Of The Law

 In the great Japanese War epic Heike Monogatari which memorializes the Gempei War (1181-115), one of the unknown author's reasons for this catastrophe befallen the Heian Culture (and ultimately its downfall) is that this was part of the time referred to as Mappo, The Latter Days of the Law, a period following the death of the Buddha which would be an age of conflict and disruption.  When the great raids and counter raids occurred and the great capital, Heian-kyo, burned, and the Tenno (Emperor) was exchanged and counter marched all over known Japan at that time, it was no mystery why all of it was happening:  it was the Latter Days of the Law, of course.  How else could anything else happen?

I am no Buddhist of course to comment on such things, but as point of context I do note one additional clarification on this point is "Quarrels and disputes will arise among the adherents to my teachings, and the Pure Law will become obscured and lost". 

There are, as you might suspect from the opening of this, days where I feel like we have truly entered a sort of "Latter Day of The Law" period.

What is Law?  In its most simple definition (Thanks Merriam-Webster!) it is "A binding custom or practice of a community, a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority."  So - unlike how we often seems to us it here is the West where we only define a thing in one way- it can be as simple as a custom which we all follow (for example, once upon time entering churches in silence instead of chatting on one's phone) or as complex as a law formally passed by a legislative body with enforcement penalties, from something as relatively benign as a Home Owners Association to the Nation-State's assembly.

I could, I suppose, point out various incidents and events over the past year to date which would give rise to the fact that on the whole, we have come to consider the law as something more of a suggestion rather than a binding or enforced custom or rule of conduct; we have courses of action which are now openly followed which are denoted as illegal.  But to list the specific actions is to freeze this post in time, and that is not my intent.  The reality is that flouting of law has undoubtedly occurred since laws were first put in place.

What I would argue is different - now so more than ever - is the sense that of these definitions - custom, practice, rule of conduct, action - is considered to be very much a personal choice, to be adhered to or excluded as one feels the right.

Western Political Thought, in a broad generalization, has supported the concept of the individual as enjoying an inherent level of rights and freedom (most potently enshrined in the American idea that rights come from God, not the government).  But inherent in the practice is also the understanding that individuals live in groups and as such, must agree to and live under and respect - the most important word here - a certain level of common understanding and practice (read law) for society to function.

Without a respect for the law, that sense that I (often generally speaking0 understand which behaviors are accepted and legal versus unaccepted and illegal, societies eventually cannot function.  They cannot have economies, they cannot have associations, they cannot have everything that we consider the mark of a civilization.  They are subject to the whim of social movements, the preferences of petty tyrants, the movement of the stars.  Those societies which ignore the concept of the law are bound, ultimately, to collapse into incoherence and every sort of bad and evil behavior which arises from the concept that in the absence of the law, Only Might Makes Right.

It strikes me as unfortunate that the individuals leading this charge cannot fully see where this ends - or perhaps they in fact believe they know where it ends while in fact they seldom do; history suggest revolutionaries and rabble-rouses are often consumed by the very movements they begin, whether by those more extreme than themselves or by those who believe that some sort of stability is better than none at all and are willing to endorse terrible actions to bring things to an even keel.

At those moments, it would seem we had entered The Latter Day of the Law indeed.