Uncorrupting covenant: the four layers of decision and authority
Before what we do—and how we decide—there are deeper questions: what determines what counts as authority, and what we ultimately serve?
Several readers have given me similar feedback on my previous two articles on addiction:
“this is a little highbrow for me, but I sense you are onto something important.”
So forgive me if I use this Substack as a kind of testbed. I am trying to drill down into the underlying structure of whatever bedevils us both in our personal lives and in the operation of society at large. My thesis is simple: the same structural problem appears in both domains, and it is edge cases like drug addiction that make it easiest to see.
What is new here is the level at which we are looking. Most sociological and spiritual analysis operates at the level of attachment—what we are drawn to, what we cling to, and how that leads to suffering. In Buddhist thought, attachment is the root of suffering.
What I am proposing is that we initially go one layer deeper. And once we do, a pattern emerges: each time we think we have reached the root of the problem, we find that it rests on something prior.
Beneath attachment to any outcome (like getting high) lies a more fundamental question: what do we allow to decide which outcome we select?
We can call this authority—the thing that settles the matter at the point of decision. Attribution is how that authority is assigned: how a given decision becomes tied to a particular authority. This linkage determines what we treat as sufficient to decide, which in turn shapes attachment, behaviour, and ultimately suffering.
But this does not resolve the problem. It simply relocates it.
If attribution determines attachment, then what determines attribution? What governs what we are willing to recognise as authoritative in the first place?
In a Christian framing, this appears not simply as physical or emotional suffering, but as temptation—serving the wrong authority. That need not be vice in any obvious sense. It can be as subtle as treating the state, or any human institution, as an ultimate authority rather than a subordinate one.
In this article, I want to outline the emerging framework that comes out of analysing addiction, using it as a kind of development crucible, and then apply that same structure to my “ghost court” litigation. At one level, none of this is new: theology and jurisprudence have been circling these ideas for centuries. But I believe this particular articulation—starting at the level of attribution—offers a clearer way of seeing the pattern.
If it works, it should leave you with a deeper understanding of how loops of behaviour—whether in ourselves, in those we love, or in public institutions—can degrade over time. And perhaps also with a little more compassion, because the structural challenge is the same in all cases.
Before we get to the four-layer model, it is worth briefly restating the core insight from the previous articles on addiction, because it contains the seed of everything that follows.
The conventional focus is on the reward—the “high”. But this turns out to be misplaced.
What actually drives the behaviour happens earlier, in the moment of ambivalence. There is a tension between competing possibilities: should I do this, or not? That tension is often uncomfortable, even acute.
Then something shifts.
The moment the decision is made—often before any substance is taken—the tension collapses. The internal noise quietens. A sense of relief appears, and with it the feeling that this is the right move.
The “high” has not yet arrived, yet the system has already settled.
That timing is the key. It tells us that the behaviour is not primarily driven by the pleasure of the outcome, but by the resolution of the decision. The relief comes from committing to a course of action—not from the action itself.
In that moment, what has changed is not the external situation, but the internal assignment of authority. Something has been allowed to decide.
The anticipated “high” is therefore not just a reward to be pursued. It functions as a stand-in for a fuller account of reality—a simplified construct that is treated as sufficient to justify action, while omitting what would contradict it.
Seen in this light, the focus on the chemical or experiential reward is secondary. The deeper issue is not the action, but what authorises the action.
We have already, implicitly, identified two layers:
what happens, and
what decides what happens.
But as the example shows, that is not enough to produce a stable system. The question of what decides does not resolve itself.
And that, in turn, leads to a more fundamental question at a third, yet deeper, layer:
what determines what counts as authority in the first place?
What we have just uncovered is a simple structure.
At the surface, there is what happens. Beneath that, what decides what happens. And beneath that, what determines what is allowed to decide.
We can think of these as three nested layers:
Layer 0 — behaviour: what happens
Layer 1 — authority: what decides what happens
Layer 2 — governance: what determines what is allowed to decide what happens
In most everyday situations, this structure is stable enough that we do not notice it. But in moments of acute ambivalence—what we might call the quandary moment—it becomes visible.
At that point, the system is under tension. Competing authorities are in play, and there is no immediate resolution. But this is not a neutral contest. There is often an intuitive sense of what is right, set against what will relieve the tension.
This is experienced as anxiety, agitation, or internal noise—not simply because a decision has not yet been made, but because something of value is at stake. We sense, however dimly, that to resolve the tension one way may require relinquishing something we would otherwise wish to hold dear.
More precisely, the system is attempting to hold incompatible positions at once: to recognise one authority as right, while preparing to act under another. The tension is not just emotional, but logical.
It is the strain of contradiction. And because contradiction cannot be sustained, it must resolve—either by alignment or by collapse.
Something has to give.
And when it does, what emerges is not simply a decision, but a form of submission. One of these candidates is not merely selected—it is elevated. It is treated as sufficient to decide, and the others fall away.
In addiction, what typically happens is that a simplified construct—the anticipated “high”, or more precisely the relief associated with committing to it—steps in and is treated as sufficient to decide. The deeper question at Layer 2—what is allowed to decide—is not resolved, but bypassed.
What follows is a shift in how the layers interact. In the absence of a stable Layer 2 of self-governance, the burden falls onto Layer 1 with “the hoped-for high” as a proxy for authority. The system must still resolve the question of what decides, but it now does so without a consciously managed governing frame.
Under these conditions, Layer 1 does not adjudicate between competing authorities in any principled sense. It yields to whichever authority can resolve the tension most quickly—the tension of being unable to reconcile what we sense is right with what will bring relief.
In this context, the anticipated “high”, already associated with relief, presents itself as sufficient.
The moment that construct is accepted as authoritative at Layer 1, the tension collapses at Layer 0. The decision is no longer open. A temporary calm emerges—at the cost of misaligning Layer 2 with our longer-term wellbeing.
Importantly, this settlement occurs before the purported primary reward itself: the relief that comes from ending the internal tension is its own reward—and it is decisive. What is being experienced as relief is not the outcome of the action, but the resolution of the authority conflict between Layers 1 and 2.
This explains both the power of the loop and its persistence. The act of committing to the Layer 0 behaviour functions as a solution to the Layer 1 quandary: it answers the question of what decides, and in doing so collapses the question of what is allowed to decide. The relief comes not from the outcome, but from no longer having to decide—or to govern what should decide.
Absent something else that can resolve that same tension—something that can operate at the level of authority rather than behaviour—the loop will tend to reassert itself. The system will return to what has previously worked to collapse the ambivalence.
Seen this way, addiction is not primarily a failure of restraint, nor even a misvaluation of reward. It is a failure, under pressure, to hold open the deeper question of authority.
But that raises further issues to resolve:
What would it take for that authority question to remain stable?
What allows one candidate authority to hold, rather than collapse under pressure into whatever resolves the decision tension fastest?
This is where we reach the next layer.
The presenting problem is not only what decides, but what determines what is allowed to decide in the first place.
And yet even this is not enough. For under pressure, what we allow to decide is itself unstable—unless something fixes it in place. At that point, the question is no longer just what decides, but what we ultimately serve.
What this reveals is why the system collapses in the way that it does.
In the absence of a stable way to govern “what counts as authority?”, we are unable to hold the question open. The system cannot sustain the tension of undecided authority at Layer 2. And so it resolves the problem at a lower level — Layer 1 collapsing to Layer 0.
Rather than stabilising what decides, it jumps to what happens. The behaviour becomes the answer. The loop is not entered because it is preferred, but because it is available. It is something that can decide, when nothing else will hold.
In that sense, the failure is not primarily one of restraint. It is not even, at root, a failure of will. It is a structural failure at the level of self-governance.
As long as what is allowed to decide remains subject to our own revision, the question cannot stabilise. Because any rule we set remains subject to revision by the same process that set it, it cannot bind under pressure—it will always collapse into whatever resolves the tension fastest.
But this does not mean that nothing decides. On the contrary, something always does.
What emerges, in practice, is a form of implicit allegiance. The system orients itself toward whatever can reliably resolve the tension. That object—whether a substance, a behaviour, or an institution—is treated as sufficient to decide and tacitly govern.
This points to a deeper layer still.
Layer 0 — behaviour: what happens
Layer 1 — authority: what decides what happens
Layer 2 — governance: what determines what is allowed to decide what happens
Layer 3 — covenant (or worship): what fixes what determines what is allowed to decide what happens
Here “covenant” names the binding structure; “worship” names the object ultimately served through it. To “fix” here means to remove the possibility of renegotiation at the point of pressure, where collapse would otherwise occur. A system that cannot hold under pressure cannot function as a source of authority.
In the absence of a stable Layer 3, governance (Layer 2) cannot hold. Authority (Layer 1) becomes unstable, and behaviour (Layer 0) resolves the question by collapsing it. This is already a kind of pseudo-covenant — a promise of relief from the burden of deciding what should decide.
The question is not whether we are bound to any object of worship, but what we are bound to. Either authority is anchored in something not subject to our immediate revision, or it remains subject to us.
There is no stable middle ground here. As long as authority is ultimately determined by us, it cannot hold, reverting to self-will, which cannot function as stable authority at all. It will collapse, under pressure, into whatever resolves the tension fastest. Every time, given enough pressure.
This is not the absence of covenant, but its corruption. It appears as freedom—“do what thou wilt”—but its function is to subordinate conscience as whatever resolves the tension at Layer 2. The question of what ultimately should decide is not answered, but escaped.
What we have uncovered is not a peculiarity of addiction, but a general structural pattern that appears wherever authority must be fixed under pressure, yet remains open to potential renegotiation.
Where a system cannot stably determine what is allowed to decide, it becomes internally contradictory. It attempts to recognise one authority as valid while acting under another. That contradiction cannot be sustained. It must resolve—either by alignment to governance, or by collapse of governance itself.
In the personal domain, we have seen how that collapse occurs. In the absence of a stable governing frame, the system resolves the contradiction by yielding to whatever can settle it fastest. Behaviour takes over. The loop closes. A corrupted covenant emerges: a standing resolution of the question of authority in favour of immediate relief.
This is not a failure of competence. It is a failure of structure.
The same structural options exist at every level:
A system may anchor what is allowed to decide in something not subject to its own revision. In that case, governance holds, authority stabilises, and behaviour follows in a consistent way.
Or it may leave that question open—subject to reinterpretation, convenience, or pressure. In that case, governance cannot hold. Authority becomes unstable. And the system resolves the contradiction in the only way available to it: by collapsing into whatever action sustains itself and relieves the tension (for now).
In addiction, this collapse takes the form of the behavioural loop. The system does not resolve what should decide. It resolves the tension by acting.
In law, the same pattern appears—but in a different form.
Instead of a substance or behaviour resolving the tension, it is the continuation of process itself. Proceedings continue, decisions are issued, enforcement proceeds.
This is the institutional analogue of the addictive loop.
Law presents itself as a system of authority: a framework for determining what decides what happens. But that claim only holds if the underlying governance—what counts as valid authority—can itself be fixed.
If it cannot, then the system is placed in the same position we have already examined. It must attempt to act while holding incompatible positions: asserting authority that it cannot ultimately ground.
And, as before, contradiction cannot be sustained.
What follows is not the application of law, but its collapse into behaviour.
The authority-collapse we see in addiction does not apply only within the individual. It appears wherever decisions are made under constraint and what counts as authority cannot be stably determined.
What the addict experiences as internal ambivalence is a breakdown in self-governance: a conflict over what is allowed to decide, resulting in a loss of internal legitimacy. An institution experiences the same structure as a challenge to its own legitimacy.
In both cases, the pressure is identical: a contradiction at the level of what counts as valid authority that cannot be held open indefinitely.
The individual resolves that tension by reaching for the promise of relief.
The institution resolves it by reaching for the promise of continuity.
In both cases, the deeper question is not answered, but escaped — rendering those promises false in the long run.
We can now turn to the legal domain in its concrete form, and in particular to the “ghost court” problem—processing labels on summonses and other legal instruments that do not map cleanly to any entity established as a court in statute.
At first glance, this might appear to be a matter of naming or administrative imprecision. But that framing misses the substance of what is taking place.
A court name is not merely descriptive. It is a juridical act. It is a claim: that this entity exists as a lawful authority capable of deciding what happens.
That claim is not neutral. It is material. And once made, it cannot simply be withdrawn or reinterpreted without consequence.
The line has already been crossed. The system has asserted that something is a court.
At that point, the question is forced—either the claim is valid, or it is not:
If it is valid, then there must be a coherent legal basis by which this entity is constituted and authorised.
If it is not, then the claim is void, and any exercise of authority that follows is without foundation.
There is no stable middle ground. The system must either ground the claim, or abandon it—conceding that no valid claim was made and that the instrument is void. Deferral is not a resolution.
This is a contradiction at the level of governance.
The system is attempting to assert authority while lacking a settled basis for what counts as authority. It is, in effect, treating the claim as both valid and not open to full examination at the same time.
And here the parallel with addiction becomes exact.
The system now faces the same structural choice:
It may resolve the contradiction by confronting it—by determining, clearly and definitively, whether the authority claim holds. This is the equivalent of getting real: allowing the question of authority to be answered, even if the answer is costly.
Or it may resolve the tension without resolving the contradiction. In that case, the question is not answered, but bypassed by installing a proxy. Proceedings continue. Hearings are listed. Orders are made. The claim to authority is treated as sufficient to decide, without being stabilised. Behaviour takes over.
Rather than stabilising what is allowed to decide, the system moves to what can be done next. The contradiction is not resolved, but managed through continuation. The appearance of authority is preserved, while its grounding remains unsettled.
The structure is the same:
Layer 0 (behaviour)
Addiction: the intoxication act itself.
Law: proceedings continue—hearings listed, orders made and enforced.Layer 1 (authority)
Addiction: the anticipated relief is treated as decisive.
Law: assumed judicial authority is treated as sufficient to proceed.Layer 2 (governance)
Addiction: what is allowed to decide.
Law: what makes this entity a court at all.Layer 3 (covenant)
Addiction: relief is what is ultimately served.
Law: continuity is what is ultimately served—unless authority is fixed by law itself.
In the context of “ghost courts”, the legal system behaves as if authority were settled, without settling it. It has become, in effect, a continuity addict: when challenged at the level of what counts as authority, it resolves the tension by continuing rather than by deciding.
By this I do not mean incompetence or bad faith in any individual sense, but a structural tendency: where the system, when faced with a challenge to its own authority, resolves the tension by preserving its own short-term continuity rather than confronting the underlying question that affects long-term legitimacy.
This can be seen directly in the procedural history of my own case.
At Layer 0, mechanisms such as the Case Stated appeal are not processed. The system continues without engaging the authority question that has been raised—reaching for the next procedural “fix” without pause.
At Layer 1, Judicial Review operates within an assumed frame of authority. It asks whether decisions have been made lawfully, but does not determine what constitutes lawful authority in the first place. Where the defect lies at that prior level, the process cannot resolve it. The question is displaced rather than answered.
This is how a continuity addict behaves: contradiction is not confronted; the tension it creates is resolved by behavioural continuation alone.
My Part 8 claim sits at a different level — Layer 2. It does not ask whether authority has been exercised lawfully, but what makes it authority at all. It asks what determines what is allowed to decide. That question cannot be resolved at lower layers. Attempts to do so result only in continuation without resolution.
In that sense, one is not engaging with individual decisions, but with the governing frame within which decisions are recognised as valid.
It is not within my control whether the system ultimately aligns itself with Layer 3 rule of law—authority grounded in coherent and identifiable legal structures—or with a form of continuity in which authority is treated as sufficient because it is maintained.
But it is possible to force the distinction between uncorrupted and corrupted covenants.
The question can be put in a form that cannot be avoided: by what legal mechanism does this act count as an act of a court?
Only once that question is answered—clearly and explicitly—can any defect in the governing structure be identified. And only once identified can it be corrected.
Absent that, the system remains trapped as we have seen: contradiction managed through endless behavioural continuation, even as it proves self-destructive—just as the addict returns to the substance that once promised relief, only to watch the cost mount relentlessly.