Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.
Rene DaumalRead
Judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish; it can only add a second atrocity to the original one ... So long as one sees killing as wrong there is no need to waste time with the deterrent argument, since it would be nonsense to try to prevent a theoretical evil in the future by perpetrating an actual one in the present.
Interpretation
Judicial execution cannot rectify a wrongdoing; it only perpetuates further violence.
Auberon Waugh's quote emphasizes the futility of capital punishment by arguing that inflicting death as a form of justice does not erase the initial crime but instead creates a new moral atrocity. He critiques the idea that execution can serve as a deterrent, asserting that one cannot justify future potential wrongs by committing actual wrongs in the present.
In practice
During a debate on criminal justice reform, one might use this quote to argue against the death penalty.
Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are checks drawn on insufficient funds.
The U.S. should worry about the effects of its polices on the rest of the world. We would like to live in a world where countries take into account the effect of their policies on other countries and do what is right, broadly, rather than what is just right given the circumstances of that country.
The world is governed by opinion.
Racism is a disease in society. We're all equal. I don't care what their colour is, or religion. Just as long as they're human beings they're my buddies.
We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up. Jesus said that we should not be judged by the bark we wear but by the fruit that we bear. Jesus said that we must measure greatness by how we treat the least of these.
How does it come about that what an intelligent man expresses is much stupider than what remains inside him?
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