Retaliatory Violence Is a Form of Forgiveness

I worry that some of the ways we think about retributive violence is this is a futile attempt to undo the past, to try to compensate for a loss. And so I think there is retaliatory violence does have this kind of implied impulse towards restoring something,. Even if not the literal thing that was lost, some sense of balance or order. So in terms of national forgiveness or national penitence, I think the posture of national leaders ought to be to speak frankly about what we have lost and what we have done and what we cannot regain.