Friday, June 16, 2023

The Restless Ghouls of Yesterday


Nature in her ineffable wisdom knows all about

the untameable passions of humanity for

after all she designed them, their specific purpose 

linked inextricably to existence itself. Yet paired 

with the autonomic response of self-defence is an 

intimate sense of justice, close cousin of survival.

The ancients knew well the dispositions of

human interaction; gregarious among their own

hostile toward all others, the risk of lethal violence 

expressing the demons of human thought and reaction 

never suppressed by the predictive warning adage  

of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth --for

passion dominates, not reason. Punishment for crimes 

committed has become the hallmark of civilization 

but even justice carried out is no guarantee the 

offender will not reoffend. And so it is that the ultimate 

deadly offence against humanity that sought to annihilate

an entire people saw global justice exacted as the 

perpetrators cowered in shame and sought to expunge 

their crime with humility and broad reparations. 

Only the victims know the hallmarks of a resurgent drive 

of dehumanization and the emerging prospect of mass

death; their collective memory has not forgotten the 

symptoms and knows most intimately that a barrier once 

breached will inevitably be breached yet again.



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