Justice is subsumed in law as the equation of guilt and atonement.

Evidence

Every birth is paid for with death, every fortune with misfortune. Men and gods may try in their short space to assess fate in other terms than the blind course of destiny, but in the end existence triumphs over them. Even their justice, which is wrested from fatality, bears the marks of fatality: it corresponds to the look which men—primitives, Greeks and barbarians alike—cast from a society of pressure and misery on the circumambient world. Hence, for mythic and enlightened justice, guilt and atonement, happiness and unhappiness were sides of an equation. Justice is subsumed in law. The shaman wards off danger by means of its image. Equivalence is his instrument; and equivalence regulates punishment and reward in civilization. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 40

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘equivalence regulates punishment’ theme connects to the reader’s sacrificial-literature interests (Lindow Man, Dido) and to the historical law-merchant/equivalence material already in the memory. — connects to: Justice is revenge deferred and transformed into objective legal procedure — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 305; Justice reenacted the crime in execution to annul it — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 98; Ascribed-status societies codified lifestyle privileges and justice by class tier through law. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 147

Broader Connections

• Justice is revenge deferred and transformed into objective legal procedure #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 305
• Justice reenacted the crime in execution to annul it #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 98