{
  "id": "never-again.past-wall",
  "term": "never again",
  "sense": "past-wall",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 21,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A collective self setting a wall for all later time from one past crossing, so keeping its memory is maintenance of the wall.",
  "folk_gloss": "a vow that a past atrocity or disaster must not be allowed to happen again",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "set.fix",
      "wall.range-end",
      "later.temporal",
      "time.dimension",
      "past.temporal",
      "event.occurrence",
      "read.information",
      "cross.pass",
      "keep.maintenance",
      "memory.cognitive",
      "maintenance.upkeep",
      "narrative.self-story",
      "constraint.limiting"
    ],
    "interaction": "The narrative turns one event into a permanent constraint; because the wall's force depends on the event being remembered, commemoration becomes maintenance, and forgetting reads as the wall being taken down.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "remembrance as maintenance of a wall",
      "one event setting walls for all later time",
      "a vow held by a group rather than a person"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Argentina's 1984 truth commission report on the disappearances under military rule was titled 'Nunca Más', 'Never Again'.",
      "domain": "history"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "lessons-of-history.past-model",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "lessons read the past as a general model; never again fixes one wall from one event"
    },
    {
      "id": "burned-bridges.path",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "a burned bridge is a wall the past set; never again is a wall the self sets from the past"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "never again"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-never-again.past-wall"
}