Reading Catch-22, and came across this passage on the way home:
"That's not what justice is," the colonel jeered, and he began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. "That' s what Karl Marx is. I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?"
I dunno. That scared me, really. The little speech seems contain a lot what's informing WAY too many people's sense of right and wrong lately. As though it's cool to throw away the slow, crawling progress we've made as a society for the quick, cathartic orgasm of mindless, spurting revenge. War is just too easy to suggest, and too hard to back out of, y'know? But that initial thrust...
...baby, that's heaven.
Right?
"That's not what justice is," the colonel jeered, and he began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. "That' s what Karl Marx is. I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?"
I dunno. That scared me, really. The little speech seems contain a lot what's informing WAY too many people's sense of right and wrong lately. As though it's cool to throw away the slow, crawling progress we've made as a society for the quick, cathartic orgasm of mindless, spurting revenge. War is just too easy to suggest, and too hard to back out of, y'know? But that initial thrust...
...baby, that's heaven.
Right?
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