It’s violence escalating over time over and over again, but it seemed to me like McCarthy didn’t want to “condemn” the glorification of it. The book is based on an actual posse of scalphunters, and to me the tone of it all seems to be on par with his other books where the main message you have to get out of it is “the world is a flaming giant turd filled to the brim with violence and hatred and it’s painful to tell you the kind ones aren’t coming out on top”. I hope I made it clear enough.