AFTER VIOLENCE: 3R, RECONSTRUCTION, RECONCILIATION ...

something is usually referred to as emotions.
Those emotions may be highly inspired by a social or world
structure found unjust or at least in need of basic remedy, and be
nourished and soothed by a culture informing them that he who
takes up the sword and puts others to it will be justified. The
cognition/emotion distinction is not so sharp that emotions cannot
be analyzed cognitively, including by those driven by them. True,
they may be blinded by a rage that also may have its physiological
basis. But in general we fall back on culture and structure. To
which we now turn, in a fourth effort.
4. Violence, War, Trauma, Guilt - and the Search for Closure
In the beginning was the act, not the word; physical movements
were followed by verbal acts. Some acts are beneficial, they
enhance others. Other acts are harmful: a punch with an arm, or
the extension of an arm, arms, armies; a word that hurts, or the
extension of bad-mouthing, propaganda. There are also neutral
acts. But when tension and emotions are high, no act is neutral.
The act is a transaction, between the two, sender and receiver, or
perpetrator and victim/31/ if the act is violent, harmful. If the
act is beneficial the bond may be friendship, even love. In
either case reciprocity is the norm, not only the same quality in
the sense of good for good, and evil for evil, but the same
quantity ("an eye for an eye -") in this negative market for bads
and disservices rather than goods and services.
In Buddhist discourse beneficial acts carry merits to the
author, the actor; and harmful acts carry demerits. Both have
major consequences for the quality of the rebirth. In Christian
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