It should now be clear that the grief-driven need to remake memory, to overcome the past completely; to destroy one's antagonists utterly is disturbingly authoritarian. On a personal level such vengeance does seem to proceed at the expense of reason and of truth. As it becomes dominant within American culture, altering its practices of punishment and changing its perceptions of justice, it appears to be systemic vengeance of a different order, a vengeance which is at odds with democratic justice itself.

But what can it mean to say that vengeance has this character, or that it is undemocratic when there has clearly been so much of it in democracy? From the French Revolution to the uprisings of New England, the cause of democracy has always had its vengeful side. While democracy has aligned itself with ‘reason’ and ‘rights’ against revenge, those very things have justified democratic revenge and revolution.