Taking revenge is something we might fantasize about, but most of us would never actually do it, since we know that vengeance is immoral and uncivilized. Today, though, revenge seems to be coming back in our politics and in the culture as a whole.
In her article for Politico, Let’s Get American Revenge, she shows how revenge has come back in politics, social media, and the culture as a whole. She cites the new prominence of revenge porn, revenge travel, revenge dressing, and revenge impeachments. “Judges, journalists, politicians and their families have been targeted with violent reprisals,” she notes. “Corporate culture plays like a mud-pit production of ‘Measure for Measure.'”
She sees the shift towards revenge as beginning with the 9/11 attacks, which led us to take out our wrath in a war against Iraq, a country only tangentially-related to the terrorist assault. Predictably, she blames the current climate on Donald Trump, who, she says, “normalized revenge,” citing what he described as his favorite Bible verse, “an eye for an eye.”
Blumenfeld helpfully lists four conditions “that incubate” revenge. These are my descriptions of what she describes, except when I quote her directly:
(1) Shame. When we feel especially humiliated, we seek revenge. I would add that this is why “honor cultures” are especially prone to vendettas. The 9/11 attacks violated our national honor, so we had to hit back against somebody.
(2) Memory. We dwell on the injury and refuse to forget it. Whereupon it festers. One example of the fixation on the past she gives is the tearing down of statues in our recent “racial reckoning.”
(3) The Law of the Jungle. “In the jungle, the roles are clear,” Blumenfeld writes. “There are aggressors and victims. No animal can hope for a mediating agent to swoop in and order a predator to retreat.” There is no trust in laws or institutions. You have to settle it yourself. “As public trust erodes, private justice emerges.”
(4) Simplicity. “Revenge is sweet when the recipe is simple: The weak become strong and the strong become weak,” she says. “To serve someone his just deserts, you eliminate nuance, and distill complicated truths into ingredients that are blindingly simple. Enemies and friends. Oppressors and oppressed. Do not add empathy.”
Revenge, of course, is not only destructive, it is self-destructive.
And yet, the desire for revenge is also a desire for justice.
The Bible addresses revenge: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19).
This would seem to rule out personal revenge, while still promising justice.
This will be the topic for tomorrow’s post.
Illustration by Juan Hermida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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