Is Revenge Hopeless?
In the modern day, do you think revenge or "getting back at someone" is worth worrying about?
If you or someone you care about has been wronged, an emotional person would want to retaliate, but laws and restrictions prevent this from being a logical decision.
Building off of this, what will become of a person who soaks in this resentment every day for a long span of time? Without any form of catharsis, will the subject be able to make it out alright?
It shouldn't be right for this person to be locked in this cage, or down in a hole.
If you or someone you care about has been wronged, an emotional person would want to retaliate, but laws and restrictions prevent this from being a logical decision.
Building off of this, what will become of a person who soaks in this resentment every day for a long span of time? Without any form of catharsis, will the subject be able to make it out alright?
It shouldn't be right for this person to be locked in this cage, or down in a hole.
Comments (68)
- study about Buddhist need-not-want-not.
- study about the divine providence and heavenly justice
- anger consumes those who are angry; it is more damaging than fear or than worry.
- there are only two ways to get rid of vengeful anger: to retaliate or to forgive.
- you have weighed your options, and you decided to not retaliate.
- so your only option is to forgive if you want to live again
The social contract forbidding one to act alone in retribution for grievous harm has always been the most difficult thing to accept. It is not a "modern" problem. It is the one we have had since people could say there is a problem.
Revenge could fulfill an import end goal in life by giving you the peace of mind that you stood up for what you care about. Is this not an important accomplishment? Could this not give you wisdom?
I don’t think that revenge will give you piece of mind. It is more likely to torture you for needless reason. I think it’s easier to learn how to control your impulses for revenge than it is to carry out revenge and then deal with the unexpected emotional consequences of that decision.
Why do you think it is important to have a sense of dignity? Is having a sense of dignity good for its own sake or is it good only because of something else that it allows you to obtain?
What’s the difference between dignity and self respect?
Fair enough, but is dignity ever necessary for a happy life?
That’s interesting, but this comment raises another question. Imagine someone who is shameless and has lost all self respect yet has become comfortable with his lack of self respect. Someone that allows himself to be humiliated and yet is unfazed by the humiliation. Could such a person exist and yet be happy?
Dignity is the response by the community when the community senses you have high self-respect AND they feel it justified for you to have it.
"If you have to ask, you don't have it." -- Ogden Nussbaum, the discoverer of the condition "carpal tunnel syndrome".
Revenge is a form of justice, not justice is a form of revenge. You get revenge in our western democratic societies by the law finding the guilty party and punishing him.
This has several connotations. The law, as it is structured these days, or ever, is not about justice. It's about applying the law. Many people come to court and seek justice and find none, since the law does not meddle with justice.
The law, instead, finds someone guilty of a crime when there is no reasonable doubt that he or she committed a crime. The guilty verdict has nothing, absolutely nothing, with the perpetrator of the crime. The guilty verdict is applied when there is no reasonable doubt that the person is guilty.
It is just luck and reasonable expectation, that most people who get a guilty verdict ARE indeed the persons who had committed the criminal act for which the court finds them guilty.
I believe the only way this person who has lost all respect for himself can be happy is by means of materialistic pleasures and other outside influences like that. This person cannot produce anything that they are proud of, which allows them to only feel temporary happiness from outside influences. I think long term happiness comes from self respect and pride.
There is a reason for that, a deep and satisfying reason. A lot of the time (not most o the time; in a tiny fraction of instances, but it is grave and horrible when it happens) the courts find a person guilty who had not commit the crime he or she is charged with. In other words, the police investigation and the court proceedings produce the wrong result. But it is a very small percentage of guilty verdicts.
On the other hand, personal revenge is often misdirected. If we, as a society, allowed personal revenge to take place, much more not guilty people would suffer unjust punishment than now.
You see, the private person who carries out revenge does not always reliably know who the guilty party is. He or she may have strong suspicions, but they will still be wrong in selecting the person as guilty.
The courts have a more reliable and fool-proof way of selecting the treu perpetrator than any single human being. Except for Detective Inspector Hector Poirot, of course.
I understand your point about the risks of letting people run free and make others suffer for crimes they possibly didn't commit, but what if the private person who carries out revenge DOES reliably know who the guilty party is? And in this scenario, there is almost no chance that police or law interference is going to take place. What happens? As a human being are we supposed to just let this one slide under the rug? There must be something that can be done. Or maybe it's just one of life's cruel realities.
Without specifics even God could not answer your question. You made a legal problem into an ethics question. This is a shift that logic and reason can't bridge.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/accused-killer-speared-in-aboriginal-payback-20021008-gdfpf8.html
In that case, maybe logic and reason is sometimes looked too highly upon. I feel at times that individual emotions are discarded, due to an obsession with logic and reason. All though I see the importance of logic, it is almost dehumanizing to take such a simple emotion like frustration, and try to solve it with logic.
I tend to agree. Sometimes I feel a nagging distrust of logic.
Well, either pee, or get off the pot. If you ask us to find a solution for you, without the specifics of the problem, you are asking us a favour we can't fulfill. We gave our best shots to explain to you why you could do this but could not do that, but ultimately it is a course of action that you have to take, so you have to decide whether to take a course of action, and which one of the many available.
We can't do it for you. We can give you emotional and moral support, we can give you legal advice (such as it is), we can give you reasoned opinions, but you prefer to whine about the fact that you are too much of a coward to carry out justice. Because this is essentially what you do.
So, like I said, pee or get off the pot. Enough has been said to enable you now to make a decision. So make it, please. Do not wait. Do not procrastinate. Do not try to hang an imaginary and unreasonable guilt for your own grief on society.
I would like to entertain you with a story. There once lived a wanderer who was passing by a local town and he saw a little boy who was caught after pulling a prank which humiliated a wealthy and powerful aristocrat in the town. The aristocrat decided it was appropriate to punish the boy by humiliating him. Except the proposed humiliation was far more cruel than the prank. The prank simply involved a whoopee cushion yet the aristocrat wanted the boy to be stripped naked and have the boy thrown into a cage with a dozen skunks who will spray him in front of everyone as punishment for the prank. Horrified at this ordeal, the wanderer told the aristocrat that the boy was his son and he would like to take the punishment for him. The aristocrat was happy to have the wonderer take his place since he thought it might humiliate the boy even more to see his supposed father get sprayed by skunks while naked. After the humiliating ordeal, the wonderer felt no resentment or temptation for revenge. This is despite the fact that he happened to be a runaway prince who could of summoned his father, who was the King of the his nation, to punish the aristocrat for his actions. He did not want to do so partly because he knew his father would overreact and have the aristocrat beheaded for something that doesn’t seem to warrant a beheading in the opinion of the wonderer. The wonderer believed that he could be happy by traveling around the country and helping those in need. He shunned his pride to save the boy from the wrath of the aristocrat and to spare the life of the aristocrat from the wrath of his father. He also shunned the materialistic pleasures which came with his royal life to pursue a life of impoverished adventure and compassion. Is it psychologically possible for someone like the wanderer in the story to exist in real life?
What is the reason for you to feel this nagging?
If you want something to rule over reason and logic, then let it. I encourage you to do that.
I am not asking for advice, or for you to find a solution for me. The question was meant to be thought provoking. I never stated that I myself am in a situation where I need to make the decision to carry out revenge or not.
Thanks for clarifying this.
1. Revenge is not a hopeless path to follow if you are willing to put up with the consequences.
2. S/he will for all the rest of his / her life be doomed with sometimes debilitatingly strong feelings of anger, frustration and heavy guilt.
Good luck in your future endeavours.
Yes I believe it is possible. But I can't help but think that the wanderer gains a sense of self respect from his life of compassion.
Because it flatters us so much.
So perhaps you don't like flattery? You don't like to hear good things about yourself, said by others?
That’s a good point you just brought up. Does this mean that it’s sometimes possible to maintain your dignity while refusing to take revenge?
I find these stories to be such nonsense. Really, what’s to be gained by them?
Maybe it's possible to maintain a logical dignity, but not an emotional one. Same as if one would carry out their revenge, they would keep their emotional dignity and lose their logical one.
So I suppose one must decide whether to respect their intelligence and decision making, or respect their human emotions.
Fair enough, which do you respect more?
“The Duke of Plantagenent, though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. He was later convicted of treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed”. Wikipedia.
If he had not been executed as an act of revenge, then very possibly he would have returned again to plot against King Edward. His murder, as opposed to imprisonment, made this impossible.
I wish I could say I respect the emotions. I really really wish I could say that. But my logical side is making it really difficult to. I believe I am a more emotional person in general, but consequences can't be ignored. I have to be smart about my decisions, especially in such a pivotal point in my life.
So putting this into simpler terms, you say that, for example, a thief who has stolen in the past, will steal again if not punished for his actions?
No, not ‘flattery’ in the sense of how good a jacket makes you look to others, but ‘flatter’. We’re impressed by the logic and convinced how right we are by our mastery of logic.
No, I don’t mean that. I’m just addressing issues of revenge and situations where it may have had good reason to be enacted.
Emotions are very powerful and intoxicating. Obviously there is some purpose for them, I guess. But we can’t live purely on emotion, it’s destructive. I don’t think revenge is required anymore. Though revenge can be carried out financially, or any number of ways. Our justice system acts on issues of crime, it’s social, no longer an individual issue.
I don’t know if you read the story on Aboriginal ‘payback’, but it works because everyone accepts it and the ‘payback’ puts an end to the whole issue.
Is there a reward in revenge? Possibly, for a very short time. But you’ll pay dearly for that moment.
Edit: regarding the thief, he may still steal after the punishment. So punishment doesn’t seem to be a solution. The death penalty didn’t stop murder.
Edit: I would think revenge doubles your pain.
Ah, I see. Do you think it's worth contacting the police even if it is unlikely that the problem will be solved?
What do you mean?
Do you mean instead of revenge?
There are always legal ways to take revenge. Quoting Etzsche
I agree. It's something I struggle with. I think if one gets passed certain kinds of stages in ones own life, then some of that anger merely dissipates. If someone, for example, treated you cruelly in a romantic relationship - cheat on you, whatever - and then later you go through a few relationships each time being a bit more yourself, getting closer to what you want, and then find someone at last who treats you just the way you want, then the revenge urge will pass or can. One doesn't have to 'succeed' but I think if one moves through the judgments brought up by whatever they did - no one will ever treat me right, life is a lonely hell...etc. for this example - and gets passed them, then the memory has little bite.
None of this is to say that the other person was ok or that anger is wrong. It isn't but one must also notice the other feelings and also realize that much of the bite comes from fears and judgments that it will never be ok, that you have permanently lost something or were made wrong or life is hell, etc.
You could go to the police. They may do little, I don’t know. You may have to anticipate that. If there’s no evidence then they probably may not help, but it may help you a little to do that at least. The thing about revenge is that the other party then seeks revenge. In such a situation myself, I would set a time to wait, set things aside and review things again down the track.
I really like what you said about much of the bite coming from fears and judgments that it will never be okay. I don't think I've thought about it quite in that way.
Also I must say you have a very nice way of speaking, or typing rather, that helps convey what you are saying.
Thanks
You should consider this as just a way to justify your actions. There’s no reason for it to be so detrimental to yourself to refuse revenge.
What do you mean?
The idea that a person will be permanently soaking in resentment, that a catharsis is required to make it out alright. That may not be the case, but it serves as an excuse for revenge, like a person just needs the tiniest approval to carry out revenge. It’s finding excuses for revenge when you know it’s probably not the best move.
I think you're probably right about that one. Thank you for the clarification.
The desire for revenge is probably something that will always be with us, but considering how socially mediated the expression of that desire is, I would be surprised if that was the case. In the aggregate, things which are in our nature; we have no control over. The need to poo isn't like the need to kill your wife for cheating.
It means it can be a rationalization to do something that might not be good at all. If the choice is presented as feel terrible about it forever or take some kind of revenge, then it seems more logical, though not necessarily logical to take revenge. But there may be a lot of other options. And taking the revenge, even if it goes well, may not really deal with the roots of the problem.
Also it might feel like taking revenge to, for example, tell the person how badly they acted, in a direct, not victimy way, with some anger in the tone, and then move off. Both parties might experience this as revenge, when in fact it could be seen as expressive, good feedback and taking a stand. Hell, it might even be win win. Of course many situaitons preclude this and it may not feel like enough payback etc. Just saying that even immediate impulsive reactions that don't quite fit the traditional idea of revenge might be there to achieve catharsis and move on.
Generally revenge is changing the other person. Getting over the whole pattern is changing yourself. Now when people tell you to change yourself, this can come off like a guilt trip. I think other people sometimes need to deal with the natural consequences of their actions. However if this sends you to prison, you're at an even worse net loss. And sometimes other people simply cannot suffer that much. Film revenge can often be, for example, the quick death of a man who tortured the heroes family to death. One may never make them experience what you did.
I wrestle with this myself. I am way to cautious to do anything illegal or dangerous to myself, so movie revenge is off the table. But still there can be the urge to hurt and I get what you described as far as feelings. I suppose I don't really think of it in moral terms. It's not that i want to be a good person that prevents me. I just don't want to cause myself more problems. So much as I may scream my head off at them in private, or perhaps, totally legally confront them - this happens once in a while - for the most part I have to learn to live with myself and feel good. My feeling good should not be dependant on them suffering, even if they deserve it.
I don't want to put words in your mouth. You said you distrust logic, because it flatters you; so you distrust things that make you feel good? Or is it only logic, the one thing of many that makes you feel good, that you distrust? for instance, you trust your chocolate cheese cake, you trust your lover, you trust your children, they all make you feel good, (I'm assuming that... substitute anything else that makes you feel good) but some, including logic, you are distrustful of.
What is it between logic and something you enjoy and trust, that makes you distrust logic? If you enjoy both of them, like you would enjoy a remark about yourself that makes you feel good, what is the inherent thing in logic that makes you distrust it?
And you said you don't ALWAYS distrust it, but sometimes.
Hm?
Ok. I think it’s good that you don’t let your negative emotions run your life. Although, I would say that compassion is also an emotion and the wanderer in the story does seem to respect his emotions. He just prioritizes what I think are the positive emotions rather than the negative ones. I think if the wonderer was purely logical, then he would of never volunteered to be humiliated for the boy or even runaway from his royal life to become a wonderer. Either way, I agree with you that you have to smart about what decisions we make in life, because we would suffer greatly if we make the wrong decisions.
That makes sense. I guess I never thought of it that way.
This is true
“Sometimes I feel a nagging distrust of logic”.
I don’t distrust things that make me feel good. I mean I’m wary (maybe that’s a better choice of word than distrustful) of how we are seduced by our own logic, and I should emphasise ‘our own’. Just look at the resistance to challenges on this forum. It’s easy to enjoy this stroking of our ego by the idea of our distinction through applied logic. And consequently it follows that any answer that comes about as the result of logic must be correct. One of the primary characteristics of the Enlightenment was reason. The consequences of that was science and then that science applied to utilising natural resources, the Industrial Revolution and so on, all very beneficial to mankind’s development. But look at the price, where’s the logic and reason in the consequences?
It’s all very seductive, possibly because it gives us this sense of superiority over our environment. We even spin out into space and say this logic is evident in the galaxy, as if it’s not man-made, as if it’s the stuff of the Universe. I can’t help think the negative reaction today towards Christianity is a reaction of logic towards a threat to its hegemony.
On the other hand what are we without it?
I wonder, sometimes, if logic and common sense are two distinct things. Common sense does not appear to be quite so seductive as logic. The outcomes are very tangible, they are either beneficial or they aren’t. Logic seems to want to go on analysing the problem as if talking about the problem is the actual solution. Like today we often hear the comment about a particular problem: “we need to have a conversation about this” (the problem). Do you see the seduction in all this?
This is very true. Reasonable people don't like stupidity. Christian dogma, like every religion's dogma, is so contrary to reason, logic, and common sense, that reasonable people are scratching their heads on the doggone stubbornness of the religious to stick with their dogma in this day and age.
It's hard to say whether logical, reasonable, smart people of common sense are threatened by Christianity (and by other religions) or are just vexed by it, due to religion's irritating dogma, and due to the irritating religious who won't budge from their erroneous thoughts.
At any rate, reason, logic, common sense is no weapon against the dogmatic religious. They simply ignore it.
How does your wariness of logic (and of common sense, reason, intelligence) fit into this picture?
For me? Frankly, I value intelligent people, and it follows without any effort to believe the non-religious scientific viewpoints and opinions much more readily than religious dogma for me. To me logic is not seductive, but a matter of fact, it is the only thing to decide debate with. If you appeal to emotions, in philosophical debates, you are committing the fallacy of Ad Hominem. I like all this, I think it's neat and great.
Not to misconstrue that I don't feel and live the power of emotion. It is a great source of feeling life itself; it is a thing that can make you feel happy, and also sad, along with all the other myriads of feelings, which enrich human life.
But on philosophy forums, and in intelligent debate, I only value logic.
You appear to be addressing my post but you’re really just talking to yourself. This is so much easier to do and gives you more immediate comfort. Such is the seduction of logic, because it means you are always right.
For instance it’s highly unlikely that all the Christians in the world are stupid, logic would tell you that. Christian dogma, as you call it, is not necessarily contrary to common sense, or to reason. Logic might not be able to explain belief, but that may very well be a failing of logic.
You believe logic is the only thing to decide debate with. But I can think of many events in world history where pure logic has governed and led to tragic outcomes.
Successful outcomes in the real world are decided by many things, not just logic.
Your post only confirms my feelings about the seduction of logic.
Yes, it gets tricky to decide whose intuition to follow, but pretending that it is not a faculty we have and that some have it better than others and that there are limits to what logical analysis can do, we are turning the whole planet into a hunk of garbage.
I’m glad you brought that up because intuition had somehow slipped my mind. Intuition, to me, is also
connected to common-sense, but not logic. Those things not conducive to the seduction of logic are branded as emotion. This is not to say there is anything wrong with logic, only that there are those who shut down debate with the sanctity of logic, as if it’s perfect, almost God-like.
Even logic, in application, depends on intuition. First because the premises are made up of language and language is floppy. We can't logically analyze all the assumptions in the specific semantics of our premises and conclusions. We check them, intuitively. We may take on many parts logically, but there will still be stuff we do unconsiously. Then there are process uses of intuition. I look at my premises and think I have checked enough (which is a kind of quale) to be be confident. I check the conclusion to see if somehow I am slippling in something not implied by the premises. This can be partly logical, but the checking will also be handled by intuitive 'senses' that I checked enough, that my history of checking shows I know when to stop, when I have done enough. In and around logical reasoning there is all sorts of supportive and necessary intuition used. Then there is paradigmatic intuition. All the stuff we assume is true about reality. Before qm it could have been argued that something cannot both be a particle and a wave at the same time. That would be logical. Whereas it is logical only given that certain premises in the current paradigm were incorrect. Logical arguments all come out of assumptions.