[The detective story] keeps in some sense before the mind the fact that civilisation itself is the most sensational of departures and the most romantic of rebellions... It is the agent of social justice who is the original and poetic figure, while the burglars and footpads are merely placid old cosmic conservatives, happy in the immemorial respectability of apes and wolves. [The police romance] is based on the fact that morality is the most dark and daring of conspiracies.

In language, instead of exerting direct violence on each other, we are meant to debate, to exchange words, and such an exchange, even when it is aggressive, presupposes a minimal recognition of the other party. The entry into language and the renunciation of violence are often understood as aspects of one and the same gesture: 'Speaking is the foundation and structure of socialization, and happens to be characterized by the renunciation of violence,' as a text by Jean-Marie Muller written for UNESCO tells us. Since man is a 'speaking animal,' this means that the renunciation of violence defines the very core of being human: [...] violence is 'indeed a radical perversion of humanity.'