ABSTRACT

Tragedy as a form of living is neither mimesis nor catharsis, it neither imitates a tragic incident nor aims to release pent up emotions. Those who live on the timeline think that it is relatively easy to retain the unity and objective truth of their grounding statements for long enough to provide themselves with secure foundations for law and justice. Greed, the impulse to savagery, the hubris of knowers who do not know the limits of their knowledge, and the tragedy of unintended consequences: these form some of the plot lines of the pessimistic story. The spirit of law's task is not a doctrine or thesis that leads anywhere in particular, either to affirmation or denial. The image portrays the future as a mystical origin and the past as merely the detritus of a primal force that spends all of its energy in bursting forth into the present.