Imperative Gap

The Imperative Gap is the concept that there is a difference between the imperative that is issued and the one that is obeyed. No imperative can completely specify the terms of its implementation. Some discretion is necessarily left to the obedient. This is important in Originary Grammar because this concept gives us a new way of thinking about what makes a command “legitimate.” Instead of asking whether a command corresponds to some external concept of “justice” (so that one is within one’s rights to refuse to obey an “unjust” order), one would now think within the terms set by the imperative itself. The imperative is not even taken to be legitimate a priori—it’s more that the concept of “legitimacy” doesn’t apply to imperatives. The question is not whether to obey, but how to obey or which to obey, and the answer is to be found in closing the imperative gap, which means making the imperative one is obeying as consistent as possible, in itself and in its dependence upon previous imperatives—those issued by the authority in question and those that founded the social order or authorized the authority. This doesn’t necessarily make questions of obedience easier, but it has us starting with authority as the default condition, rather than as contingent upon some ultimately arbitrary concept.