The Violence Has Been Contained
Dennis is satisfied. The violence inherent in the system has been replaced by controlled, explicit, !-marked mutation. State changes announce themselves. Data transformations produce new values. Threading macros read top-to-bottom instead of inside-out.
“It’s not oppression,” Dennis admits, examining his cell. “It’s a contract. The ! tells you what it does. The function tells you how.”
He goes back to his mud. Occasionally, from across the field: (swap! mud-pile add-mud).
Nobody is being repressed.