The Dark Web Murders

CHAPTER TWENTY

Friday, 17th August. Late evening 

A shadowy figure sat hunched in front of a laptop screen. It was the only light in a darkened room. The face that was bathed in the pale light was impassive, expressionless. There was no hint of stress, of strain, of emotion, just blank concentration. Blank like the blank screen. For several moments the cold eyes stared at the pale light. Nothing moved. Not the hands, not the head, not the lips, not even the eyes, as if the figure was in some kind of trance. Then suddenly the hands moved forward and the fingers began to type. 

ΝΕΜΕΙΝ'Σ ΒΛΟΓ 

Συστιφιξατιον 

Today, my many faithful followers, I wrestle with the concept of JUSTIFICATION. While the elements of Justice and Vengeance can be defined objectively, separated from thought and deed, Justification strikes me as an inner belief that extends beyond the objective. Justification cannot reside in broad generalities other than as literary examples that are inherently empty. Real justification, the essence of a specific deed, can be found only in the belief and in the psyche of the doer. In other words,justification is immediate and real. It has no place in empty philosophy. 

It is, however, based on intellect, too. When claims are made, such as those made in my earlier blogs, justification is used to support and affirm those claims. Justification can emerge from various sources, some empirical, some based on authoritative testimony, but obviously, in the cases I have presented, justification derives from intellectual consciousness and logical deduction.This, I know, is a complex argument. I won't bore you with a too philosophical analysis, but it is important that you understand that justification focuses on beliefs, and that justification is the reason why people hold and maintain a belief. It is the inner belief that gives justification its focus, its essence, its power, what Socrates in his Dialogue 'Theaetetus', identifies as 'a justified true belief'. In other words, a justified belief is one that we are within our rights in holding, a belief that is neither political nor moral, but simply intellectual. 

Our beliefs, of course, do not come from the air. We form our beliefs based on empirical and logical evidence and thus, when those beliefs fall within the confines of normal human conduct, when we act within the ambit of those beliefs and are true to them, then our actions are justified. 

There are many different theories of justification, among the most popular of which are: Externalism, where a person seeks to justify a belief by having recourse to outside sources of knowledge, or: Internalism, where a person must be able to justify beliefs or actions through internal knowledge already deemed true.There are other theories that move to more extreme versions of justification but, since they are not relevant to my argument, I will ignore them. Suffice to say, any theory of justification must correspond to reality as the doer sees it, BUT, intrinsically, must correspond also to the reality of the external world. In other words, his beliefs and attitudes must reflect the beliefs and attitudes of normal life; they cannot be a compendium of the delusions of the insane. 

I have given much thought to the justification of my own cause, my own pursuit of justice. Two major elements apply, elements that match the key components of justification as defined above. ONE, my belief that a major miscarriage of justice has been done is informed not only by my own inner belief but also in terms of the normative behaviour of the world around me.TWO, everything I believe about my quest coheres strongly with the entirety of the rest of the beliefs in my values system.Therefore, I continue my crusade with renewed confidence and a renewed sense of the rightness of what I do. 

And so, I happily relate the story of the pursuance and dispatch of the next perpetrator of the injustice that has all but destroyed my life.I saw him come into the bar. I experienced a small frisson of anticipation. I could not have been certain, I could only have hoped, that on this night he might eschew the frenetic delights of his more extreme haunts for the emptiness of a lonely drink. It was a slim hope, but there he was.That fortuitous confluence of timing truly made me wonder if Justification and Karma are somehow aligned.