People v. State

. . . appears as the vital Idea of which the “consent of the governed” is a pale and passive imitation, and as what distinguishes and divides a People from a State. A few posts ago I quoted Nietzsche:

Where there are still peoples, the state is not understood, and is hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.

I hold up as support for Nietzsche’s observation the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy and the attitude of the Iroquois to the authoritarian governments brought over by the British colonists, and recommend Charles Mann’s 2005 op-ed in the New York Times on this subject. In his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Mann wrote:

Different nations had different numbers of sachems, but the inequality meant little because all decisions had to be unanimous; the Five Nations regarded consensus as a social ideal. As in all consensus-driven bodies, though, members felt intense pressure not to impede progress with frivolous objections.

John Hasnas correctly observes that “law is rarely grounded in consent.” Rather, what Nietzsche refers to as “laws and customs” are ultimately grounded in consensus.

In consensus, also, appears the social embodiment of the Presumption of Innocence.

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