The pandemic crisis and the Ukraine war crisis have highlighted how crucial the regulatory apparatus is seen to be fundamental in managing mass phenomena or global crises (according to the opinion of those who issue those regulations). The law is the same for everyone ( they say lying), even assuming this is true, Nature is not the same to everyone. It is a rather stark fact but it seems that everyone has different DNA and different experiences. Or we, simply, find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is little we can do but accept that the things that happen are very often bigger than us. An ancient Greek would have boldly embraced what the Fate was offering him. There is no regulation that holds if you find yourself in a trench under artillery fire. The shots fired, following a predictable parabolic trajectory with a good approximation, will fall at a very specific point and if you are under it…that is. (We are not neglecting the importance of regulations in general here, the fact that using chemical weapons is considered a war crime has essentially prevented their use after World War I, let’s repeat, essentially. But that is not the point). Let us proceed.
What is behind this system that wants the normative to prevail over natural law or logic?
Obviously we do not know, if we did we would be in the system and not here writing, but let us hazard a casual guess: there is the need for totalitarian and self-referential trust in the certainty of the system itself.
During the pandemic, it got to the point where slimy rules and humiliating regulations overrode logic: the law of law took over from natural law.
Natural laws are studied by physics, chemistry, logic, mathematics, etc. even statistics in some respects. Natural laws are observable and can be modelled in a more or less complex way (The discussion of results, however, is a controversial topic as it is possible for these to be manipulated dishonestly. You change the assumptions or boundary conditions and that’s it, you can bureaucratically prove whatever you want, but that has nothing to do with the occurrence of nature).
However much one may argue and theorise about models, natural laws are incontrovertible (given the reality we are in). If something does not add up, it is the fault of the observer who either does not observe well or has not understood. A grave will move according to Newton’s Laws (according to the rules of the game: non-relativistic velocities etc), you can discuss how to model friction phenomena, thermal phenomena, whatever you want, but the event happens. Eppur si muove.
The laws of law affirm agreements and relations between men.
The problem arises when a gap is created between law and Nature. When certain laws impose things that either do not follow logic or consciously violate natural laws.
In the last case, we could put it like this: to achieve the goals of the Paris conference, the thermal efficiency of refrigerators will have to double: no matter how much one may legislate, the laws of Nature will be completely indifferent to them; technology adapts to them out of necessity and can only do so much. In short: Nature doesn’t give a damn about regulations.
Europe legislates believing in the superiority of law, Putin acts according to natural laws: if you (NATO) break my dick, I (Russia) must break you.
We believe in the superiority of natural laws not because we like them but because they are the ones that govern the world without judgement. Law can only function if it carefully considers natural laws. Although there can clearly be exceptions (law that regulates human behaviour that has nothing to do with Physis: crimes and punishments for example).
Indeed, we believe that it is not possible to apply economic values to ideal drives, rather the opposite is valid but only as a consequence and not as an end.
If the West does not quickly realise that the bureaucracy of law should not have supremacy over natural laws, we can predict with some certainty that the current European system will not be able to stand on its own. Indeed, it does not produce the goods necessary for its own intimate subsistence. The European bureaucratic system is a machine that burns energy without creating (any more) goods of exchange with sufficient value to repay that expended energy. It’s a simple energy balance: here we refer to Sgaragac and thermodynamic bureaucracy , while Nature Tira dritto without raising an eyebrow.