Bombadil | Jimmy Lai’s Trial : Discipline and Punishment of Hong Kong

In the Jimmy Lai case, the judges delivered a verdict spanning 855 pages. This is perhaps the most vivid footnote to Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. (The Hong Kong independent media outlet The Witness has provided a detailed analysis of this judgment.) Jimmy Lai’s refusal to plead guilty and his act of disobedience, along with the many resisters currently imprisoned—perhaps this is the greatest tragedy in Hong Kong today, and it is also the very spirit of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone from 441 BC. When Antigone—the earliest civil disobedient in human history—stood in opposition to the king’s law on the basis of her personal conscience, Hegel called her “the most sublime figure that has ever appeared upon the earth (Lectures on the History of Philosophy). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit inbetweenreview.substack.com/subscribe