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In Defense Of Revenge, William I. Miller
In Defense Of Revenge, William I. Miller
Book Chapters
One of the risks of studying the Icelandic sagas and loving them, is, precisely, loving them. And what is one loving when one loves them? The wit, the entertainment provided by perfectly told tales? And just how are these entertaining tales and this wit separable from their substance: honor, revenge, individual assertion, and yes, some softer values, too, like peacefulness and prudence? Yet one suspects, and quite rightly, that the softer values are secondary and utterly dependent on being responsive to the problems engendered by the rougher values of honor and vengeance. Is it possible to study the sagas and …
Clint Eastwood And Equity: Popular Culture's Theory Of Revenge, William I. Miller
Clint Eastwood And Equity: Popular Culture's Theory Of Revenge, William I. Miller
Book Chapters
Revenge is not a publicly admissible motive for individual action. Church, state, and reason all line up against it. Officially revenge is thus sinful to the theologian, illegal to the prince, and irrational to the economist (it defies the rule of sunk costs). Order and peace depend upon its extirpation; salvation and rational political and economic arrangements on its denial. The official antivengeance discourse has a long history even preceding the Stoics, taken up and elaborated by medieval churchmen and later by the architects of state building.