The Killing Of A Criminal Can Be

... [l]ess Than At Any Time Does A Simple Reproduction Of Reality Tell Us Anything About Reality. A Photograph Of The Krupp Works Or Gec Yields Almost Nothing About Those Institutions. Reality Proper Has Slipped Into The Functional. The Reification Of Human Relationships, The Factory, Let's Say, No Longer Reveals These Relationships. Therefore Something Has To Be Constructed, Something Artificial, Something Set Up.

He Who Asks Fortune-tellers The Future Unwittingly Forfeits An Inner Intimation Of Coming Events That Is A Thousand Times More Exact Than Anything They May Say.

To A Book Collector, You See, The True Freedom Of All Books Is Somewhere On His Shelves.

In Other Words, The Unique Value Of The "authentic" Work Of Art Has Its Basis In Ritual, The Location Of Its Original Use Value. This Ritualistic Basis, However Remote, Is Still Recognizable As Secularized Ritual Even In The Most Profane Forms Of The Cult Of Beauty.

If Mythic Violence Is Lawmaking, Divine Violence Is Law-​destroying; If The Former Sets Boundaries, The Latter Boundlessly Destroys Them; If Mythic Violence Brings At Once Guilt And Retribution, Divine Power Only Expiates; If The Former Threatens, The Latter Strikes; If The Former Is Bloody, The Latter Is Lethal Without Spilling Blood