exponential ramblings

I've been writing the presentation for Copenhagen. I will probably be writing the presentation for Copenhagen the entire weekend. The working week has only lasted three days after all.

I decided to start from a case. That's always something, huh? But I am torn, I am torn. I am writing the old stuff again, because I realised this morning that the new stuff may not work after all. I read a wee bit of Prodi again, you see, and I think I partly figured out why I didn't understand his view of justice. It's because he isn't really writing about justice. To him justice seems to be something that is the matter of conscience and ethics - and ethics something that belongs to theology and the church. Well, that was probably a misunderstanding, but he is making a far clearer distinction between law and justice than I would.

Well, anyway, a very long story short, I realised that the things that interest me have too much to do with morality. Not moral philosophy as such, but more morality/ethics in their original meaning, in the meaning of customs. Morality or justice is not the domain of the church or the lawgiver, but the customs and habits of the societies, communities. Of course the church and the lawgiver as well as the courts are some of those communities, because there are always multiple moralities in one time and place. The lawgiver and/or the court enforce a certain type of morality, but it may be contradictory to that of the population - and will always be contradictory to the morality of at least part of the population. The law can support its degrees by punishments, but they are not really relevant unless they carry with them the punishment of shame, which of course is a matter of morals, not of law.

That still doesn't make sense, does it? Yeah, I am skipping too many parts. But the point is that I can't really do the new dissy approach as such, because it wouldn't really be legal history anymore. And more importantly it would require time. If I write something that actually matters to me, then I don't want it to suck and I can't read myself into this in six months. I have to do the old thing and just add a new chapter. Or then not. It would mean that I'd be back into the old problems of not knowing what I am doing... Argh, the time is running out. And I am torn. I am torn.

But still torn or not, the thoughts swirling messily in my head or not, I am still loving this. I got an idea for an article today and that's new. Even in Venice the thoughts of research kept me entertained. And hopefully the things will continue to just pop into my head. But, alas, there is only a month left and I am not sure I can continue like this back home.

Currently listening to: Schandmaul - Hexentanz