This post will lay out the reasons that—both ethically and pragmatically—your viewpoint on revenge should be decidedly negative.
1. Revenge Is Primitive, Barbarous, and Savage. That is, there’s something not quite civilized about it. And it really can’t be validated as either ethical or sensible—at least not for individuals who wish to see themselves as cultivated or evolved enough not to “act out” feelings of animosity and risk making a bad situation worse. For to violate the golden rule and blindly follow one’s own boorish impulses isn’t anything to be proud of. Take, for example, the first (“unenlightened”) quote below:
I'm a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I'm no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won't hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat. ― Muhammad Ali To me, this quote suggests the adolescent mentality of someone who believes that revenge is somehow synonymous with personal honor and self-respect (and dangerously confuses revenge with justice). To kill your adversary's innocent pet just to “get even" with him for slaying your own merely supports the dysfunctional belief that two wrongs make a right. Clearly, they don't: The second wrong only exacerbates an already bad situation, significantly subverting your own humanity in the process.
May the fleas of a thousand camels invade the crotch of the person that ruins your day. And may their arms be too short to scratch. — Keisha Keenleyside
2. The Material, Psychological, and Spiritual Costs of Revenge Can Be Devastating. So, consider this group of quotes:
There is some comfort in killing that which has hurt you, but it is cold comfort. It'll destroy things inside of you that the original pain wouldn't have harmed. ― Laurell K. Hamilton
“Someone once said that nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge,” ― Haruki Murakami
A society built upon a foundation of vengeance is a society doomed to destroy itself. — Richelle E. Goodrich
An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. ― Mahatma Gandhi [This is one of the best known—and most damning—verdicts on revenge.]
Someone wrongs us, we rarely (if ever) want to do the same thing back. Why? Because we want to do something more harmful. Likewise, when someone insults us, our instinct is to search for words that will be more insulting. Revenge always escalates. ― Rob Bell
3. Wreaking Revenge on Another Is Either Corrupt or Corrupting. It degrades the one pursuing revenge. Fighting evil with commensurate evil (i.e., “an eye for an eye”—or worse) certainly doesn’t engender virtue in the avenger; it seriously undermines it. Endeavoring to repay in kind some injury done to you ultimately makes you no better than the one toward whom you're so compelled to discharge your venom . So, as many writers have pointedly expressed:
Revenge is an infection of the spirit. ― Jonathan Maberry
All we achieve by exacting revenge is to make ourselves the equals of our enemies, whereas by forgiving we show wisdom and intelligence. ― Paulo Coelho, Aleph [a point that anticipates my final section, on the remedies for revenge]
4. Calculating and Carrying Out Revenge Is Foolish, Self-Defeating, and Even Stupid.
“Fool that I am," said he, "that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself.” ― Alexandre Dumas
Revenge only begets more pain, because hurting people never has resulted in happiness or relief. ― Bar Refaeli
Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you. — Austin O'Malley
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. ― Confucius [This is one of the earliest (and most popular) criticisms of revenge—and I don’t think it’s ever been surpassed.]
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. — Francis Bacon
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer. ― Laura Hillenbrand
If one wishes for revenge, before you know it, a hurt as bad as the one wished for will come upon the wisher. ― CLAMP
5. In the End, Revenge Accomplishes Nothing: It’s Both Fruitless and Futile. Note the overlap here with #4. Still, the earlier negative assessment stresses more the density or dim-wittedness of revenge; this one it's hopeless ineffectuality or uselessness:
I've learned that from a war ignited by revenge, nothing can be born, but sorrow. ― Ohtaka Shinobu
Blood doesn’t wash away blood. — Persian Proverb
Disappointment is the end of revenge; the drops of blood in the blade, the painful tears in the cheek, and the hollowness in the heart. ― M. F. Moonzajer
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves. — Alexander Pope
Revenge proves its own executioner. — John Ford
The tree of revenge yields no fruit. ― Lili Wilkinson
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing. ― J.R.R. Tolkien
1. Assert Your Honor and Rectitude by Foregoing Revenge.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. ― Marcus Aurelius
No revenge is more honorable than the one not taken. — Spanish Proverb
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior. —Francis Bacon
For man to be redeemed from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Life can be savored only if you look to the future and leave vengeance. ― David Gemmel
I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it [!]. ― John Steinbeck [And finally—not to say, ironically]:
When someone does you wrong, don't get obsessed with revenge. You might find that "wrong" was actually "right", just disguised in a wicked wrap. ― Joan Marques [yes! ‘that’s what a later analysis might just reveal.]
2. Transcend Revenge Through Forgiveness
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares forgive an injury. ― E.H. Chapin
Any story about revenge is ultimately a story about forgiveness, redemption, or the futility of revenge. — Nick Wechsler
There is no revenge so complete [as in, I’d think, resolved] as forgiveness. — Josh Billings
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. — Martin Luther King, Jr
May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge . . . but rather to thoughts of mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds. — Marianne Williamson
3. Re-Channel Your Anger to Focus on Your Goals—Whether They Relate to Love, Success, or Achieving a State of Well-Being. The energy for revenge is rerouted so as to optimize yourself.
However much wronged they may feel, they make no effort to retaliate directly against their tormenter(s). And by successfully realizing their ambitions, they put their opponents in their (secondary) place.
Revenge might be good for you
Let's start our understanding of revenge by talking about a feeling that often gets overlooked. It's called "embitterment." We all know about basic emotions such as fear and joy and guilt, but there are less well-known and more complex states as well, and embitterment is a perfect example. Embitterment is a sense of having been let down, coupled with a desire to fight back. Embitterment can happen, for example, in a long property rights feud with a neighbor, in the aftermath of a marital affair, after a protracted dealing with an insurance company. We have all, to some extent, had the types of fantasies that accompany embitterment: sometimes they are about getting back at the jerk who cuts you off on the freeway and sometimes they are about reclaiming your dignity from a verbally abusive woman or so called boss. Don't like that boss, face like a weasle. Don't like that woman, looks and behaves like a pig.
What is so interesting about these fantasies is that they are functional. They are not, as people commonly believe, the dangerous aggressive tendencies of people who are too petty or too incapable of forgiving others. Nor are they immoral mental habits of people who are too petty to know right from wrong. Instead, revenge fantasies have been shown to have a number of psychological benefits. In one study, soldiers experienced more positive emotions when they imagined the suffering of their superiors (who, presumably, had heaped some suffering on the soldiers in the past). At first blush this may sound like vindictiveness but the real lesson is in how these mental images affect our mood. It may be that revenge fantasies serve to buffer people against the negative feelings associated with victimization. In a second study, Markus Denzler and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which participants who were presented with a hypothetical scenario describing a cheating lover were given the opportunity to fulfill a revenge goal by stabbing a voodoo doll. Doing so made them less-not more-- aggressive because their feelings of retribution had been borne out.
In a third study, Mario Gollwitzer and his colleague examined which aspects of the revenge fantasy are so psychologically tonic. The researchers tested two candidate hypotheses: In the first case, victims might like revenge because they see an offender suffering through an unpleasant activity (such as having to look at and rate gross photographs). In the second scenario, the victims might find revenge sweet because the offenders actually "learned their lesson" (in this scenario the offender knew that they had been assigned to the gross photographs because of what they had done wrong!). The researchers found that it is not simply witnessing the suffering of the offender that feels good to the victim. The real power of revenge is in teaching a lesson; in the offender coming to understand, personally, that their actions were wrong.
These studies present a new look at the old concept of revenge. Rather than being a sign of an unhealthy mind it could be that revenge fantasies play an important protective role for victims. To be certain, acting out a revenge and fantasizing about revenge are two very different things. If you find yourself doing the latter, however, don't beat yourself up.... You're perfectly healthy.
1. Revenge Is Primitive, Barbarous, and Savage. That is, there’s something not quite civilized about it. And it really can’t be validated as either ethical or sensible—at least not for individuals who wish to see themselves as cultivated or evolved enough not to “act out” feelings of animosity and risk making a bad situation worse. For to violate the golden rule and blindly follow one’s own boorish impulses isn’t anything to be proud of. Take, for example, the first (“unenlightened”) quote below:
I'm a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I'm no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won't hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat. ― Muhammad Ali To me, this quote suggests the adolescent mentality of someone who believes that revenge is somehow synonymous with personal honor and self-respect (and dangerously confuses revenge with justice). To kill your adversary's innocent pet just to “get even" with him for slaying your own merely supports the dysfunctional belief that two wrongs make a right. Clearly, they don't: The second wrong only exacerbates an already bad situation, significantly subverting your own humanity in the process.
May the fleas of a thousand camels invade the crotch of the person that ruins your day. And may their arms be too short to scratch. — Keisha Keenleyside
2. The Material, Psychological, and Spiritual Costs of Revenge Can Be Devastating. So, consider this group of quotes:
There is some comfort in killing that which has hurt you, but it is cold comfort. It'll destroy things inside of you that the original pain wouldn't have harmed. ― Laurell K. Hamilton
“Someone once said that nothing costs more and yields less benefit than revenge,” ― Haruki Murakami
A society built upon a foundation of vengeance is a society doomed to destroy itself. — Richelle E. Goodrich
An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. ― Mahatma Gandhi [This is one of the best known—and most damning—verdicts on revenge.]
Someone wrongs us, we rarely (if ever) want to do the same thing back. Why? Because we want to do something more harmful. Likewise, when someone insults us, our instinct is to search for words that will be more insulting. Revenge always escalates. ― Rob Bell
3. Wreaking Revenge on Another Is Either Corrupt or Corrupting. It degrades the one pursuing revenge. Fighting evil with commensurate evil (i.e., “an eye for an eye”—or worse) certainly doesn’t engender virtue in the avenger; it seriously undermines it. Endeavoring to repay in kind some injury done to you ultimately makes you no better than the one toward whom you're so compelled to discharge your venom . So, as many writers have pointedly expressed:
Revenge is an infection of the spirit. ― Jonathan Maberry
All we achieve by exacting revenge is to make ourselves the equals of our enemies, whereas by forgiving we show wisdom and intelligence. ― Paulo Coelho, Aleph [a point that anticipates my final section, on the remedies for revenge]
4. Calculating and Carrying Out Revenge Is Foolish, Self-Defeating, and Even Stupid.
“Fool that I am," said he, "that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself.” ― Alexandre Dumas
Revenge only begets more pain, because hurting people never has resulted in happiness or relief. ― Bar Refaeli
Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you. — Austin O'Malley
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. ― Confucius [This is one of the earliest (and most popular) criticisms of revenge—and I don’t think it’s ever been surpassed.]
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. — Francis Bacon
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer. ― Laura Hillenbrand
If one wishes for revenge, before you know it, a hurt as bad as the one wished for will come upon the wisher. ― CLAMP
5. In the End, Revenge Accomplishes Nothing: It’s Both Fruitless and Futile. Note the overlap here with #4. Still, the earlier negative assessment stresses more the density or dim-wittedness of revenge; this one it's hopeless ineffectuality or uselessness:
I've learned that from a war ignited by revenge, nothing can be born, but sorrow. ― Ohtaka Shinobu
Blood doesn’t wash away blood. — Persian Proverb
Disappointment is the end of revenge; the drops of blood in the blade, the painful tears in the cheek, and the hollowness in the heart. ― M. F. Moonzajer
To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves. — Alexander Pope
Revenge proves its own executioner. — John Ford
The tree of revenge yields no fruit. ― Lili Wilkinson
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing. ― J.R.R. Tolkien
1. Assert Your Honor and Rectitude by Foregoing Revenge.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury. ― Marcus Aurelius
No revenge is more honorable than the one not taken. — Spanish Proverb
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior. —Francis Bacon
For man to be redeemed from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Life can be savored only if you look to the future and leave vengeance. ― David Gemmel
I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it [!]. ― John Steinbeck [And finally—not to say, ironically]:
When someone does you wrong, don't get obsessed with revenge. You might find that "wrong" was actually "right", just disguised in a wicked wrap. ― Joan Marques [yes! ‘that’s what a later analysis might just reveal.]
2. Transcend Revenge Through Forgiveness
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares forgive an injury. ― E.H. Chapin
Any story about revenge is ultimately a story about forgiveness, redemption, or the futility of revenge. — Nick Wechsler
There is no revenge so complete [as in, I’d think, resolved] as forgiveness. — Josh Billings
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. — Martin Luther King, Jr
May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge . . . but rather to thoughts of mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds. — Marianne Williamson
3. Re-Channel Your Anger to Focus on Your Goals—Whether They Relate to Love, Success, or Achieving a State of Well-Being. The energy for revenge is rerouted so as to optimize yourself.
However much wronged they may feel, they make no effort to retaliate directly against their tormenter(s). And by successfully realizing their ambitions, they put their opponents in their (secondary) place.
Revenge might be good for you
Let's start our understanding of revenge by talking about a feeling that often gets overlooked. It's called "embitterment." We all know about basic emotions such as fear and joy and guilt, but there are less well-known and more complex states as well, and embitterment is a perfect example. Embitterment is a sense of having been let down, coupled with a desire to fight back. Embitterment can happen, for example, in a long property rights feud with a neighbor, in the aftermath of a marital affair, after a protracted dealing with an insurance company. We have all, to some extent, had the types of fantasies that accompany embitterment: sometimes they are about getting back at the jerk who cuts you off on the freeway and sometimes they are about reclaiming your dignity from a verbally abusive woman or so called boss. Don't like that boss, face like a weasle. Don't like that woman, looks and behaves like a pig.
What is so interesting about these fantasies is that they are functional. They are not, as people commonly believe, the dangerous aggressive tendencies of people who are too petty or too incapable of forgiving others. Nor are they immoral mental habits of people who are too petty to know right from wrong. Instead, revenge fantasies have been shown to have a number of psychological benefits. In one study, soldiers experienced more positive emotions when they imagined the suffering of their superiors (who, presumably, had heaped some suffering on the soldiers in the past). At first blush this may sound like vindictiveness but the real lesson is in how these mental images affect our mood. It may be that revenge fantasies serve to buffer people against the negative feelings associated with victimization. In a second study, Markus Denzler and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which participants who were presented with a hypothetical scenario describing a cheating lover were given the opportunity to fulfill a revenge goal by stabbing a voodoo doll. Doing so made them less-not more-- aggressive because their feelings of retribution had been borne out.
In a third study, Mario Gollwitzer and his colleague examined which aspects of the revenge fantasy are so psychologically tonic. The researchers tested two candidate hypotheses: In the first case, victims might like revenge because they see an offender suffering through an unpleasant activity (such as having to look at and rate gross photographs). In the second scenario, the victims might find revenge sweet because the offenders actually "learned their lesson" (in this scenario the offender knew that they had been assigned to the gross photographs because of what they had done wrong!). The researchers found that it is not simply witnessing the suffering of the offender that feels good to the victim. The real power of revenge is in teaching a lesson; in the offender coming to understand, personally, that their actions were wrong.
These studies present a new look at the old concept of revenge. Rather than being a sign of an unhealthy mind it could be that revenge fantasies play an important protective role for victims. To be certain, acting out a revenge and fantasizing about revenge are two very different things. If you find yourself doing the latter, however, don't beat yourself up.... You're perfectly healthy.
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