Tradition and taboo are unavailing. No punishment, Arendt wrote, has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been. It is in this sense that the twentieth century, having introduced into human history crimes never before imagined, or if imagined, never before undertaken, is immortal, and will, like the crucifixion, remain a permanent part of the human present. It is simply there, an obelisk in human history: black, forbidding, irremovable, and inexpungable. – David Berlinski, Human Nature, 2019
[The observant reader will note that this is the second post in a row where the word “inexpugnable” has been used. A man might go a lifetime without that reoccurring.]