Revenge

So what do you think? Is there a point where vengeance is warranted? Is vengeance different from revenge and are both different from justice? How do you think this sort of action could be justified - and do you believe that there is potential for harm because of this sort of action? I'd love to see a discussion of this topic using the article, the source for the article, and any other solid sources you feel like looking up an reviewing hat are available pout there. Opinion pieces are great, but it's always nice to see discussions forming around evidence-based inquiry as well. (i.e. let's see if we can meld our emotional world with legitimate studies into this topic).

"eye for an eye" goes back to Hammurabi's Code

the idea here being (as it was with moses) that there should be an authority responsible for overseeing punishment, rather than each person who feels that they have been wronged taking revenge according to their own judgement

afaik that is the standard distinction between formal justice and personal revenge

we ALSO have an abstract idea of "justice" as a sort of "standard of fairness" where we would say "the punishment should fit the crime"
and according to this abstract standard, sometimes we feel that some particular person "gets off easy", or that the system really "throws the book at them" and we can say "justice wasnt served"

but the justice system is about predetermined punishments for common crimes, and determining appropriate punishments in new situations, under the administration of official bodies, with he hope or intention of being fair, but if it ever comes to a choice between "fair" and "official" the emphasis will always go to "official"

one of the more interesting aspects of the question to me is: in the absence of a FAIR authority, when the authority is reliably partial, is personal revenge justifiable?"

this isnt just an issue of "if the judge let this one go can I kill him myself?" but rather "if most of the judges in the land let most of the criminals go, can I take justice into my own hands?"

personally, i believe YES because i believe that when the ruling system reaches a certain threshold of corruption then it can no longer be counted on at all to rule - its only going to promote further injustice

but theres also a valid argument for conforming to a corrupt system as well - as long as a system exists there is hope that it may be changed

the more you disrupt the system, even if it is corrupt, the harsher the system is going to become in its efforts to maintain order

and when a corrupt system deliberately increases the severity of its enforcement and punishment policies, it invariably increases the level of injustice

so by acting outside of the system, a claimant may likely contribute to the further deterioration of the system and thus be responsible for increasing the injustice of the land

but of course that's no consolation to the one who isnt seeing justice done in on their behalf to begin with

I can't currently access the article (I'm at work ) so my post will be just opinion, sorry. As such I'll keep it brief. My thoughts on this come back to two quotes basically.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" and, from the end of the 2006 Punisher movie, "This is not vengeance. Vengeance is an emotional response. This is punishment." The key to that last part is that vengeance is emotional, punishment must not be. Now Frank Castle may not be the best role model when it comes to Jedi views on vengeance :laugh: but I do love that quote.

I do not believe that vengeance, the emotional response, is ever a good thing. I believe that punishment is. But that's why the victim's families don't serve on juries or make final rulings on sentencing. The legal system is supposed to be impartial.

That's a tough one. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a drive and a strength in Vengeance that is so much more easier to access and even more less accountable . I have had my fair share of "dark side " moments and have learned a great deal from my losses as well as my wins. The attention, the intent will always be the main "idea" of the results. I have learned if the motive is not hatred, jealousy, anger, my results are a bit more longer lasting and worth better character and worth building on. There is strength in so much and there is so much available. Character is some times forgotten in revenge and motive.
You tell a apple tree by its apples
...We are often seen by our actions, and in such by controlling our intent and actions we are seen by the control and intent we display rather than the " our feelings"... The Human potential some times is the act of not acting.

so here is an article from Concordia University on the potential for bitterness to cause illness

http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/releases/2011/08/09/can-blaming-others-make-people-sick.html

in general there is also a nearly endless amount of anecdotal evidence that feeding and regularly returning to a state of resentment leads to all kinds of problems in life, from direct health issues associated with elevated stress levels primarily to strained social relations at every level - its hard to be loving when youre bitter and people in general dont find it appealing to get close to someone who is down and angry all of the time

here is an article from Berkley on forgiveness

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_science_of_forgiveness_an_annotated_bibliography

some highlights from each

Concordia:

Bitterness as a medical disorder?
It is one thing to suggest that bitterness may cause sickness, quite another to propose that it be recognized as a mental illness. Such is the proposal that was first made by Michael Linden, head of the psychiatric clinic at Free University of Berlin in 2003.

Linden argues that bitterness is actually a medical disorder and should be categorized as post-traumatic embitterment disorder (PTED). He estimates that between one and two per cent of the population is embittered and by giving the condition a proper name, people with PTED will receive the therapeutic attention they deserve.

The jury is still out on this proposal. Wrosch and Renaud say bitterness can be avoided, if people who experience failure can find other ways to fulfil their goals. If they can't, the researchers stress, it’s essential to disengage from the fruitless effort (e.g., to get promoted, to save a marriage) and reengage in something that’s equally meaningful (e.g., a new job or passion).

Called self-regulation processes, disengaging and reengaging can be necessary for a person to avoid bitter emotions. “Any effective therapeutic intervention,” says Renaud, “hinges on the affected individual finding ways to self-regulate.”

In some cases, overcoming bitterness demands more than self-regulation. When bitterness arises from blaming other people, then recovery may involve others. "In order to deal with bitter emotions there may need to be something else required to enable a person to overcome the negative emotion — that something is forgiveness," says Wrosch.

Berkley:

What is forgiveness?
Although we all feel we intuitively know what forgiveness is, it has proven to be a theoretical challenge to define it. Consider the following questions.
Is forgiveness an emotion? Is forgiveness a behavior?
Imagine your friend emails you to apologize for forgetting your birthday but you still feel angry with him. Nevertheless, you don't want to make too big a deal out of it, so you immediately hit the reply button and say, "I forgive you." Has forgiveness occurred?
Researchers Julie Juola Exline and Roy Baumeister have proposed that forgiveness has both internal (emotional) and external (behavioral) elements. Sometimes, we might choose to tell people we forgive them, even if we are still angry inside. Or, we might not be angry anymore, but we might not want to tell the offending person this so they don't think they have a license to walk all over us. Which of these is forgiveness? Exline and Baumeister do not seem to prefer the private aspects over the public aspects, but merely point out that forgiveness can involve one or both. However, little research has been done on this interesting and important distinction between private and public forgiveness.


The Berkley article especially was really worth reading if you have a few minutes

If revenge is placed on the far end of an imaginary spectrum, what would be its opposite?

I took these notes from Chapter 4 of The Wisdom of Forgiveness by the Dalai Lama and Victor Chan:

The Dalai Lama meets Desmond Tutu. They appear to be nearly twin souls, capable of having fun and laughing about the most mundane things almost instantly. I know almost nothing about Apartheid in South Africa, and the stories are horrific... yet Desmond Tutu, who has had to confront it, can face life with optimism. He says that in order to heal, he had to forgive the perpetrators. Forgiveness is not cheap and reconciliation is not easy. By learning to forgive, we open the door a little wider to letting ourselves and others break loose from the past and into a new future.

Ubunt: when I want to praise you, the highest praise I can give you is to say you have "ubuntu". "This person has what it takes to be a human being. This is a person who recognizes that he exists only because others exist. A person is a person through other persons." When we say you have "ubuntu", we mean you are gentle, you are compassionate. "My humanity is caught up in your humanity. When I dehumanize others, I dehumanize myself. We can only be human, we can only be free, together."

In prison a monk named Tenzin realized that being consumed by hatred, by focusing on revenge for his Chinese captors and torturers, he would drive himself insane. They could hurt him physically, but they couldn't take his mental health. The only way he could suffer psychologically was through his own attitude. So he learned to forgive them and learned to feel compassion for them.

Learning to forgive your enemies is spiritual progress. To reduce hatred and other destructive emotions, you must develop their opposites: compassion and kindness.

Revenge does nothing but drive us further apart and breed more hatred and revenge (what else is going to happen besides them trying to return the favor?) and teaches nothing. Empathy heals. Those people who angrily hurt you are already damaging their humanity enough by lashing out at you... helping them heal is so much better for you and them.

Instead of being philosophical, I'd like to hear from people who have been seriously wronged and managed to forgive the people who have hurt them. Explain to me how you've turned your pain into peace.

Streen wrote: Instead of being philosophical, I'd like to hear from people who have been seriously wronged and managed to forgive the people who have hurt them. Explain to me how you've turned your pain into peace.

You'll have to read my journal (somewhere around Lesson for the boring facts. I don't want to relive it all by posting it again, and I hate walls of text in any forum post. Believe me when I say that learning to feel compassion was the solution. I still struggle sometimes, like everyone does. But it's there, whispering sometimes, but it is there.

And I can be philosophical about it because I've lived it. It's the only reason I feel I have any right to talk about it at all.

I imagine anyone here being able to say the same. We've all been wronged, it's part the experience of being human. It's what we do with it that matters.

My mother left our family for another man that she met in the clinic , she was in en out of Psychewards , when i was 11, for years i kept anger in my heart for her because she did not want to be involved in our lives as my father had to bring up 5 kids , but then i decided to be a good daughter , this because i have a daughter that i wanted to give the right example. I took the time to get to know my mother again , and gained a lot of peace in my heart . I knew i loved her , and i do now even more. It brought us together again , and even if that would not have happened , i would have had peace , because i am a good mother and daughter and i have a good daughter who will be a good mother one day ... I dont know if this answers your qeustion ?

I dont really believe in revenge ...