The human impulse to make perpetrators of violence pay for their crimes is almost an overwhelming one. It cannot possibly be overcome with platitudes like “Now don’t you see that violence won’t solve anything?” If you have seen your home burned down and your relatives killed and raped, such talk is laughable—and it shows no real concern for justice. Yet victims of violence are drawn to go far beyond justice into the vengeance that says, “You put out one of my eyes, so I will put out both of yours.” They are pulled inexorably into an endless cycle of vengeance, of strikes and counterstrikes
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