Kierkegaard applies here the logic of hainamoration, later articulated by Lacan, which relies on the split in the beloved between the beloved person and the true object-cause of my love for him
For Danton, the Jacobin, revolutionary state terror was a kind of pre-emptive action whose true aim was not revenge on the enemies but to prevent the direct ‘divine’ violence of the sans-culottes, of the people themselves. In other words, let us do what the people demand of us so that they will not do it themselves…
for a fairly low-brow cultural connection, refer to the episode of Pretty Little Liars when Mike punches Ezra despite lacking any real anger towards him because he doesn't want his father to do it
if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates
quoting from the end of Critique of Violence
It is only when she decides on her revenge that she effectively acts as and becomes one of them, losing her arrogant, superior position. In killing them, she recognises them in a Hegelian way.
a pseudo-dialectical synthesis of the two terms as a way of resolving the eternal dilemma ‘to punish or to forgive’: first, punish the perpetrator, then forgive him
