"The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles"
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Brandeis isn’t taking a swipe at wonder so much as at wishful thinking dressed up as theology. The line is a jurist’s cold splash of water: life is already hard if you accept that outcomes follow rules, incentives, institutions, and human limits. Make yourself believe in “miracles” - exceptions that arrive unearned, uncaused, or unaccountable - and you compound the difficulty by surrendering the very tools that let you diagnose and fix problems.
The intent is pragmatic discipline. “Law and order” here isn’t merely policing; it’s the broader premise that society is legible, that effects can be traced to causes, and that responsibility can be assigned. That premise is what courts run on. If you reframe the world as governed by miracles, you invite a politics of shrugging: corruption becomes fate, injustice becomes mystery, reform becomes impious impatience. Miracles, in this framing, aren’t comforting; they’re destabilizing. They turn failure into something no one has to answer for.
The subtext is also a warning against charismatic shortcuts. A “world of miracles” is the mental habitat of demagogues and grifters who promise exemptions from complexity: one leader, one breakthrough, one providential event that dissolves structural problems. Brandeis, writing from the Progressive Era’s battles over monopoly, labor, and regulation, stakes his moral authority on the opposite faith: not in divine interruption, but in institutions, evidence, and the slow grind of accountability.
The intent is pragmatic discipline. “Law and order” here isn’t merely policing; it’s the broader premise that society is legible, that effects can be traced to causes, and that responsibility can be assigned. That premise is what courts run on. If you reframe the world as governed by miracles, you invite a politics of shrugging: corruption becomes fate, injustice becomes mystery, reform becomes impious impatience. Miracles, in this framing, aren’t comforting; they’re destabilizing. They turn failure into something no one has to answer for.
The subtext is also a warning against charismatic shortcuts. A “world of miracles” is the mental habitat of demagogues and grifters who promise exemptions from complexity: one leader, one breakthrough, one providential event that dissolves structural problems. Brandeis, writing from the Progressive Era’s battles over monopoly, labor, and regulation, stakes his moral authority on the opposite faith: not in divine interruption, but in institutions, evidence, and the slow grind of accountability.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
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