Dialectic of Injury and Remedy

We are here to discuss injuries without remedies. I want to begin the discussion by considering the very complex relations between these two notions. My argument is: (1) Each is a cultural construction-but no less real for that. Both injury and remedy can, at a given moment in a given society, be regarded as positive and measurable.

But if we step back, extend our time horizon, and widen our view beyond a given legal system, we see (a) that these notions are inextricably bound up not only with theories of justice but also with images of personal wholeness and social bonds; (b) that they are congenitally and indelibly normative; and (c) that although we can separate them analytically, they are, at least in part, constitutive of one another. (2) Further, that each, injury and remedy, is not static but changing in meaning and content-that there is what we might call a moving frontier that marks the addition of new territories and the subtraction of old ones. I emphasize these features, because I want to speculate with you about (3) the possible futures of injury and remedy.