Philosophical Dialogues? Hunter and Bain, Jake Jackson, Is law universal?

Dialogues | Is Law Universal?

Hunter and Bain are resting in the cool gloom of a café overlooking the slowly dying Barnard’s Star. They had arrived on a nearby, hospitable moon in time to see a rare, languid flare disappear from sight as the nearest planet began its customary eclipse. Vast shadows launch across the moonscape from where occasional forms shift and skitter in an apparent desire to escape the glare of the proximal star.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: Is there some sort of curfew here?

Hunter: I think so. When your earth cousins arrived they quickly imposed their own perception of normal activity. I don’t think they’ve ever changed it.

Bain: Don’t the locals rebel?

Hunter: It’s not their way. Their interactions aren’t the same as humans’, so human laws or moral infractions don’t really interfere with them.

Bain: Haha, of course. I suppose we came in with big lasers and rocket ships, terra-formed and told everyone what to do – frontiers of space stuff.

Hunter: Yes. Funny to think the laws make no discernible difference, except to the humans operating them.

Bain: Oh, that’s interesting, do you mean the laws don’t affect the locals at all?

Hunter: Yes, because although they do move around the surface most of them live in the cities below ground.

Bain: Ah, they keep cool by keeping out of the sun.

Hunter: Something like that. They’re not bipedal creatures, and their bodies are more ephemeral. They sort of drift, rather than walk.

Bain: Like ghosts?

Hunter: I suppose so, you humans might think of this as a place of spirits, but they’re more solid than that, and they can pass through the rock. It takes them a few hours though.

Bain: What? The passing through?

Hunter: Well, they sort of rest on the rock and press slowly through the atomic structure. The rock is more permeable than you humans think.

Bain: So you’ve seen this?

Hunter, laughs: Oh, many times. I used to annoy them at first because I could travel to their cities in an instant, obviously through the meta-universe, but they don’t know that. I’ve learned to be more considerate since then.

Bain: Really? That’s unlike you.

Hunter: Oh and the other thing is, they don’t have laws in the same way as you humans.

Bain: Inevitable, I suppose.

Hunter: No, I mean they really don’t, but that’s because they don’t need them.

Bain: Explain.

Hunter: They don’t have a system of government, therefore no politics, and they have no murders or wars.

Bain: Sounds boring!

Hunter: Not to them. I’m not sure how old their civilisation is, but their structures underground are ancient, in tall, imposing caverns with the people drifting across all levels. With my mechanical eye I can see the tiny pathways in the meta universe. It’s as though they exist on several planes of existence, all at once.

Bain: So they don’t need laws? They must have some governing principles?

Hunter: Well, your laws are based on various systems of control. In your societies, whether on Old Earth, or the colonies across the universe, humans seem to need to impose their will, and provide punishments for transgression.

Bain: That’s because so many of us want to transgress!

Hunter: Hmm. It’s more than that. It seems to be about protecting a human-centric view of the universe too. Every society has to bend to the will of human laws.

Bain: It’s an extended sort of ‘might is right’ thing. Big guns and shouty security, crackdowns on anyone different, anyone who might misbehave…

Hunter: …or foment disorder by thinking creatively, or in an apparently deviant way. It’s law built on the edifice of moral outrage and fear of the difference. Sometimes I think your laws are just made for the convenience of opinionated politicians or tyrants.

Bain: Or they’re just the expression of people’s natural fear of the alien. So, we submit to a strong voice to lead us because we think they will protects us. And that defines the laws.

Hunter: Barbaric. You’d think advances in technology would have educated that out of your species.

Bain: Well, technology has certainly reduced the need for theft as everyone now has access to so much more than they used to. But people are still jealous of their neighbours, or want more than they can reasonably have, or desire something or someone that isn’t theirs. We humans are a venal bunch, especially when thrown across the stars, with new colonies starting from scratch on few resources.

Hunter: Yes, it seems to be the tension between the haves and the have nots, and the decisions made to create the difference by those in power, that drives the need for law in human society.

Bain: I’m surprised you’ve engaged with it that much.

Hunter: Seeing so many different lifeforms and stages of existences across the star systems, it’s hard not to compare one with the other. Even over the millennia since Old Earth was abandoned Humans still behave the same way. The inflections of technology seem only to create greater gaps between those with access and those without.

Bain: So the people on this planet, with their caves, and general floating about, they don’t need laws, or perhaps we just don’t have the understanding to recognise them?

Hunter: Ah, perhaps, but they seem united by an absolute morality, without exception, so if there’s some sort of code of ethics it doesn’t need penalties of law to reinforce it because there are no transgressions. And they have all they require, their population is either static or if growing, not reducing their resources, so there’s no murder, theft, abuse or conflict.

Bain: Well, they’re either admirable, or very dull.

Hunter: Beyond our understanding I think. Have you noticed the creature by the table next to us?

Bain turns his head, and nods at the impression of an outline, in the dark recess of the cafe: I hadn’t but it’s so dark, that’s hardly surprising.

Hunter: Well, they’ve been slowly submerging into that wall ever since we arrived.

Bain tries to gauge the form of the creature, but it feels like he is staring into a stir of shadows. Hunter taps on Bain’s metal arm and nods at several other tables at the edges of the cafe, and each seems to contain slowly shivering outlines of darkness. Bain wonders how he had not noticed. As the pale light of the local star withdrew from the landscape Bain’s eyes adjusted and he realises that everywhere he looks, both inside and out beyond the café, dark forms churn across the rock floor of the moon. He glances back to Hunter, both of them laughing quietly at the idea of human laws of conduct and punishment being imposed in this place.

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