Introduction: Violence in the Shadows of the Court

Love, hatred, aggression, and ultimately violence are such ever-present and yet amorphous forces in human society that it might seem almost superfluous to subject them to close scholarly examinations. As Hannah Arendt comments in her famous essay On Violence, “no one questions or examines what is obvious to all. Those who saw nothing but violence in human affairs, [were] convinced that they were ‘always haphazard, not serious, not precise’ (Renan) or that God was forever with the bigger battalion, had nothing more to say about either violence or history.” ² Most of us know about violent conflicts and hatred, have had experience with them, and accept them, even if grudgingly, as constants in human existence. Our history books are filled with accounts of the brutal consequences of these emotions and actions, and whereas their manifestations have changed over time, depending on the cultural, social, economic, and religious conditions of each period, their nature and impact on us have not. Murder, rape, theft, adultery, and slaughter have always met with severe criticism and condemnation, if there was a public authority to do so. ³ And love, the ever-elusive phenomenon, is today as much “in the air” as many centuries ago, although each culture approaches and defines it in its own terms. ⁴ Love and crime have been the topic of endless discussions and historical investigations, but suffice it here to be mindful of this quixotic relationship. Crimes committed by people from different time periods have sometimes been regarded with approval if they were carried out in the name of a victorious tribe, people, or country against another social group or entity, which, however, would depend on how a chronicler reported it, coloring our opinion about the justification of this or that act of violence accordingly. ⁵ In other words, crime and violence have not always been identified as such, and this very ethical relativity requires us to approach them anew from a discursive perspective with the faint, but invincible conviction that violence can, no, must be overcome for good.