On Revenge
My father advocated state-sponsored Sadistic murder, only he called it “the death penalty”, so I agreed with him until I grew up. When he said Reagan and Bush should be shot as traitors for selling arms to Iran after saying they didn’t deal with terrorists; funding the Nicaraguan contras after the U.S. Congress passed a law forbidding them from doing so; then lying about it (“I just don’t recall”), I agreed. As an adult, I came to understand that employing the awesome power of the state to kill someone already in custody therefore no longer a threat to Society was nothing more than murder for pleasure. I opposed it in all cases.
However, I read The Count of Monte Cristo when I was nineteen, which showed that revenge was not always wrong. It is always wrong when someone has been pronounced guilty of a crime in a court of law and sentenced to some form of remediation by society, but in Dumas’ story, the perpetrators are not pronounced guilty. They are free men, and their victim manages to survive, thrive, and exact his own form of revenge. This validated my own feeling that there was nothing wrong with revenge per se, that the blanket condemnation of revenge is a Christian policy designed (as all its other policies are designed) to weaken and control us all.
If we make the distinction between in custody and out of custody, we may declare that all deaths in custody are wrong and must not be pursued in any case for any reason, except perhaps those cases of assisted suicide for terminal illness — unrelated to crimes committed. The rest of this essay will discuss revenge out of custody.
The most famous American case of serial revenge, a “feud”, was that of the Hatfields and the McCoys. It is understandable that when someone is hurt, that person feels anger and a desire to revenge her- or himself upon the perpetrator. And we all know that if we allow feelings of anger to control us and commit violence in revenge, the cycle of violence may continue and come down on our own heads again. This to me is the best argument against revenge: that it can cause violence to continue rather than end. But the key word is “can”. Yes, it can, but there is no guarantee, there is no way to know. It is the same as dealing with a bully. The two schools of thought on dealing with a bully are “Stand up to the bully, as force is all he understands” and “Report bullying to authorities and let them handle it, as doing otherwise could lead to unintended consequences.” And the truth is that every bully is different. Some bullies will back down when challenged, others will only get worse. Due to percentages and sheer probability, the best policy is to let the authorities handle it.
If we extrapolate that to grownups, we can infer that the best way to handle physical violence as a grownup is to let the authorities handle it, and I believe that. I do not recommend revenging oneself upon perpetrators of violence, at least not via violent means. I think my biggest difficulty with this topic comes from the fact that it is impossible to generalize. I think blanket prohibitions on any course of action are wrong. I also think that there are times when any given course of action is the right one. We cannot rule anything in or out.
When I look at Hamas and Israel, I see a terrible situation in which both sides perpetuate violence. Both sides suffer then commit more violence. My father said there was no point getting involved in the Middle East. “They’ve been killing each other for thousands of years. They’ll be killing each other for thousands more,” was his view. But the only thing worse than participating in such madness would be to observe it and allow it to continue. If we had the power to stop it, we would be obligated to do so. The United Nations, however, lacks the power. Israel is still in violation of U.N. Resolution 242, passed in 1967, ordering it to give up the land it captured in the Six-Days’ War. And the Arab World remains enraged. All fighting exists against this backdrop. I don’t know why anyone in Israel sees trading land for peace as weakness when the UN has already ordered Israel to relinquish the land regardless of peace or war. Give up the land because it is the right thing to do, whether you wish to do it or not.
It is just amazing to me how many people think the solution to violence is more violence. Yes, I support revenging oneself, but to me this does not mean violence. The saying “Living well is the best revenge” comes close to my idea of revenge. However, my idea of revenge also includes telling the World what the perpetrator did. I see no reason to keep secrets for those who harmed me, and it is neither libel nor slander to speak the truth. If I speak of someone wronging me, that person wronged me. If you do not wish me talking about it, don’t wrong me. Many people have wronged me. If anything, I have been too quiet and kind.
“You reap what you sow” is still true, whether that be violence or the loss of reputation. If you shoot unarmed children in the street, fire missiles into residential neighborhoods, and drive tanks through refugee camps, you might piss people off enough that they attack you physically. You might also make them feel so hopeless that they feel they have nothing left but to perform a suicide bombing.
That is not a justification for violence, but human beings are human, and if you take away their water, food, shelter, power, schools, doctors, families, and hope, they will turn to revenge and their reward in the afterlife. That is just logic. That is what human beings in desperate conditions do. You cannot expect them to behave perfectly because they fear disappointing you if they don’t. You don’t get to take everything from them and expect perfect calm and equanimity. And if they crack from the pressure you are applying, you don’t get to call their attacks “unprovoked”.
Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo, befriended those who destroyed his life then destroyed them. He also told them who he was. This is the most important part of the revenge: if I were to ruin men professionally who had destroyed my life, I would wish them to know who had done so and why. I would wish them to understand they had set in motion the chain of events that had brought about their own ruin. To me the goal of “revenge” is really education, to teach a moral lesson, hopefully to cause the villain to see the error of her or his ways if not before acting harmfully at least after. Better late than never, no? And if the villain understands her or his own responsibility in the affair, there is always the possibility that she or he might come to see that error, to feel remorse, to learn, to grow. That is the goal: to get the perpetrator never again to commit harmful acts.
Of course, that is in the best of cases, and as we know with bullies, it does not always work that way. Best to stick with compassion and kindness, never punishment. There are too many variables. If your goal is to kill your tormentor, you have risen no higher than she or he.
At this late stage in my life, I no longer think “revenge” is even the right word. I think “therapy” is. I wrote the story “Separation” about this. We should provide compassionate correction to all who need it. To those who cannot be helped, we must provide a safe, comfortable separation from Society to the extent necessary — no more than necessary. I think we need to treat and educate all perpetrators to make them and our society better. I say “must” and “need” because this is the only way to prevent more problems. Unless we do this, we create more. And anyone who thinks the answer to violence is more violence is not only no better than the perpetrator, she or he lacks imagination.
Edmond Dantès even takes pity on and spares one of his targets. The lesson? We can afford to be generous.
