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

case, substituted the verbal duel of litigation and adjudication
for physical duels and outlawed vendettas, and tried to substitute
international law/courts for wars.
The problem is whether the approaches above does the closure
job, so let us try to look more closely into the matter.
Scenario 1: X hurts Y, X is the perpetrator, Y the victim.
This is the primordial, elemental act. Is it obvious that
there has to be a follow-up in order for closure to take place?
The answer depends on X, Y and a lot of Zs.
Imagine that for X this was a sudden burst of passion, an act
that only made sense once. Imagine that Y sees it the same way.
Y may not attribute it to X's "nature" but to X's nature under
extreme circumstances (drugs, illness, passion) and add structure
(suddenly unemployed) and culture (macho). Violence is seen by
both X and Y as catharsis. Z accepts, or knows nothing.
This type of thinking places us squarely in a dilemma with no
clear exit. The extenuating circumstances, let us call them the
NSC-complex for Nature, Structure, Culture, gets X off the hook
but at the (considerable) cost of dehumanizing X, seeing him (it
is usually a he) as the helpless and hapless victim of NSC, like a
leaf caught between three heavy storms.
Then restore his humanity, make X an actor with a free will
which he, the administrator of that will, handled badly by
releasing the violent act. The violence was willed, it was really
an act, not only some behavior conditioned by the NSC
circumstances. X now has the dignity of being an actor, but at
the (considerable) price of being on, not off, the hook; and the
hook may even be the gallows. Moreover, Y and Z are also on the
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