So... do you think justice is just a pipe dream?
In short: charity begins at home, and should end there.
Wonderful read. You haven't posted a proper essay for a little while now, but it was well worth the wait.
The mention of symbolic power was nice as well. As easy as it is to snarl at the post-modernists, they at least got that right.
Justice is a pipe dream, but a useful one. That's where I disagree with the postmodernists: many things we take for granted may be illusions, but people need illusions - and I don't exclude myself. If we didn't have illusions we'd be slinging shit at each other while fucking the holes in trees. Illusions that are more dangerous than useful, however, are the enemies of the precious illusion that is civilization. Justice, taken to extremes--the kind that would say, justify the torture of a child in the name of a greater good--is anti-civilization. At least the pre-20th century religions had built-in limits, even if they adhered to them less than they should. The lure of Heaven on Earth is a recipe for Hell.
Commenting by HaloScan
