In Arthur Miller’s After the Fall , a character says, “When you’re young, you prove how brave you are, or smart; when what a good lover; then a good father; finally how wise or powerful or what-the-hell-ever. But underlying it all, I see now, there was a presumption. That I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation where – God knows what – I would be justified, or even condemned – a verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day – and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was an endless argument with oneself – this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench.”
Seems that justification is still plenty relevant.
