Two wrongs don't make a right (the (ir)rationality of revenge) - also gun control

Hello, again.Just a random thought, but I would like to discuss revenge. I hear it almost daily, the ubiquitous justification for the old "eye for an eye".
"[Insert name] reneged on a promise".
"Well", says the friend, "do the same as they have done to you".I have friends, friends very dear to me, that utilize this same behavior. I hear from friends others that employ revenge upon them. We see in film the protagonist that is wronged, and devotes their life to fulfilling a vendetta.It's unnerving, until I feel wronged by someone, and experience the same caressing of revenge coaxing my conscience. I'm not perfect, but I rarely act on this urge, if at all.Does anyone else observe this behavior in others? Is anyone else cognizant of these same irrational feelings in themselves? Does anyone have any experiences they wish to share? Thoughts? Comments?Coffee house, please. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Changed topic title from ""Two wrongs..." to "Two wrongs don't make a right (the (ir)rationality of revenge)"Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add the "- also gun control" part to the topic title.

Thread copied here from the Two wrongs don't make a right (the (ir)rationality of revenge) thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Revenge is the other side of enforcing the "Golden Rule": "Behave toward others how you would like them to behave toward you."I wouldn't say it is completely irrational to want revenge, or to seek it in some way. The difference between revenge and justice isn't particularly clear.

My father said that revenge is the emotion that promises the most yet delivers the least. Still don't know what source or if original.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

Forgive me, but I must leave for work. I will respond to these posts later tonight. Sorry for the delay.

This is a topic that my wife and I have discussed from time to time, because we seem to have different levels of "revenge urge", or maybe it would be more accurate to say "a desire for justice". When she sees someone behaving badly, she want's there to be a consequence, and it makes her a bit upset if it doesn't happen. Not that she is in the habit of taking matters into her own hands, vigilante style. I, on the other hand, am an old softie and it doesn't bother me so much.It's not clear to me which of our positions is more "correct". Social consequences for social misbehavior is a necessary part of keeping things running smoothly in our more or less reciprocal altruistic societies, so in that regard her attitude is helpful and mine is not. On the other hand, her attitude is more likely to give her ulcers.

The problem with "an eye for an eye" is that everyone ends up blind.Cookie for the reference.The basic premise of "do unto others as they have done unto you" is inherently unstable in any human relationship, whether between two individuals or within a larger social structure. The motive of "revenge" does not serve a significantly useful purpose, but causes significant net harm.When you're cut off in traffic, reciprocation does not provide any objective benefit, but significantly increases the risk of an accident to yourself and others, including those not involved int eh original misdeed.Stealing from a thief simply continues to disregard any universal application of property rights. The thief should certainly be forced to pay for or return any stolen goods, but performing the same wrong to him achieves nothing.Further, "an eye for an eye" rarely results in measured responses in the real world. The motivation for revenge is by its nature an irrational emotion and tends towards excess. Retributive "justice" typically results in "punishments" far in excess of the crime. For example, recently in West Yorkshire a group of youths felt slighted when a woman asked them to quiet down at a movie. They proceeded to follow the woman and her family after the movie, eventually dousing her with bleach causing chemical burns and possibly-permanent eye damage. Clearly, this form of vengeance-seeking is massively disproportionate to any perceived slight. Other examples abound.When a thief enters your home and tries to steal from you, immediate emotional reactions tend toward violence - if you have a gun, shoot the thief. The revenge motivation overrides common sense - whatever goods a thief is trying to steal, none are worth a human life, whether yours or even that of the thief. The value of your goods is incomparable to a human life.This is part of the reason that most modern systems of justice shy away from revenge-based punishments. Their functionality as a deterrent can sometimes quench the thirst for revenge in a victim, but the practice of removing victims from sentencing procedures and outlawing cruel and unusual punishments at least partially works towards minimizing the net harm to society, while pure revenge simply perpetuates whatever initial harm was inflicted.Personally, I find that the most egregious examples of disproportionate responses are found in the common "internet tough guy" and his real-life counterparts. Immediate emotional responses to wrongs such as rape, theft, or even broken promises, coupled with the lack of real consequences when dealing with hypotheticals, frequently results in such exaggerated posturing. "If some guy treated my girl like that, I'd rip off his balls and shove 'em down his throat!" In a real-world circumstance, such posturing tends to fall apart. Particularly when violence is suggested, the risks of engaging in such an attempt at revenge clearly illustrate the fact that no good will come of such a course of action, but significant harm is very likely.The demand of "satisfaction" has always been a net detriment to any system of functional justice. It can function as a deterrent, but rarely is it an effective one. Killing murderers hasn't lowered murder rates in the US, even in Texas where executions are relatively common. All it does is remove another potentially productive member of society in exchange for the hollow emotional benefit of the victim's family and friends - hollow because inevitably the execution will not fill the hole left by the absence of their murdered loved one. The only rational argument for the death penalty is the protection of the rest of society from those who have proven to be dangerous to the lives of others by the permanent removal of the threat (this of course can be easily accomplished through life imprisonment at lower cost and without the risk of executing the innocent, but that sounds like a topic for another thread).I try very hard to separate my emotional reactions from my actual actions. I feel the same desire to "get back" at people who have wronged me in the past, but rationally I understand that reciprocation doesn't change what's already happened and simply causes me to perpetuate the same wrong for no actual benefit. I try to stick with the rational course of action rather than base animal instinct.

but 3 lefts do....(just to get that smartalacky remark out of the way)Jesus encourages us to turn the other cheek, but he may have just been referring to something the little cadre of 12 ambiguously gay men he had with him practiced (Mary Magdalene never had a chance - she was no Cosmo Kramer)....Revenge. A dish best served cold.Ah yes, the Golden Rule, which in a simplistic way had been stated "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". General Patton may have corrupted it by arguing that "you men shouldnt die for your country - you should make them die for their country!", or "Do unto them before they can do unto you!" (That's our Croquet Club motto, BTW)Curiously, the Golden Rule has been codified in some form or another in every single religion known to man. It may be the only thing that is common. In other words, if you put all the world's religions into your Venn Diagram (RAZD can give an example), the only thing in the overlapped center, the intersection of all sets as it were, might just be the Golden Rule.However, a BDSM fetishist might want to amend it......maybe we could rephrase it:Do unto them in a manner that they would like in kind to the way you would have them do unto you.There was a game not similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma, but brought up in the same conversation. I think it was showing how Tit-For-Tat was the best overall strategy. The idea is this - you initially assume everyone is good. Upon encountering a ripoff, your return the same tit-for-tat just the once and resume your pollyanna outlook. Repeat whenever it occurs again. In computer simulations this simple rubric seems to have won out in terms of surviving among denizens of the wilderness in terms of getting cooperation when you need it and also avoiding being victimized to extinction."I'd heard of a Saint who had loved you
So I studied all night in his school.
He taught that the duty of lovers
Was to tarnish the Golden Rule.
And just when I was sure his teachings were pure
He drowned himself in the pool.
His body is gone, but back here on the lawn
His spirit continues to drool...." - Leonard Cohen

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- xongsmith

In the scenario you mention revenge doesn't even enter the equation. When a thief enters your house, your 'fight-or-flight' mechanism is triggered and that's what leads to shooting the thief. Common sense has nothing to do with it, chemical reactions within your body do! Why?! what makes the thief's life so special? Please explain.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

Which is the point. Base instinct tends towards retribution in excess of what's actually necessary or wise. In the vast, vast majority of cases, the safest course of action in a home intrusion is to quietly call the police, and hide. The emotional "get him!" reaction is far more likely to result in greater net harm (ie, one or more people in need of medical attention or dead rather than simply stolen property that can be replaced) than actually accomplish anything beneficial. What makes your personal property so special that it's worth more than a human life?Property can be replaced. Human lives cannot. A thief if caught can be made to return the stolen property. If you shoot him, you can't take it back. If he turns and shoots you, you've lost your property and your life.

Ahem.If the choices are Hitler, Stalin, Bush II, Dick Cheney, Rumsfield, or my clothes pins (not even the premium models with metal springs), I'd choose the clothes pins.No contest.

I think we have a general tendency to desire retribution when we see someone benefiting unfairly, and this is not a bad thing if it has a deterrent effect, which I believe it does: if I cheat my neighbor and get caught, people in my community will have a poor opinion of me. The problem is, our desire for retribution is pretty much binary: either we have it or we don't for a particular situation; it doesn't tell us what level of punishment is appropriate for a particular offense. For that we have to rely on other things: experience, guidance of others, societal norms; and of course, our feelings. And our feelings are out for blood a lot of the time.

I'd include Bush I and a very long list of others along with those. But still, each of these people has the potential to be more useful to society than a set of clothespins. It's simply unfortunate that they were placed in positions that allowed them to perform so much net harm. I'd much rather see Bush/Cheney, for example, forced to perform manual labor helping to rebuild Iraq for the rest of their natural lives than to see them dead.In teh case of a common thief, though, we're talking about an individual who has presumably not directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians or bankrupted major nations in unnecessary religiously-inspired wars while lying to their own citizenry and the world at large.We're talking about someone who is ignoring your right to property for any number of reasons, whether that be hunger, drug addiction, or simple greed. Such a person could potentially negate the harm caused by returning the stolen goods and be rehabilitated into a functional member of society, as opposed to being killed.And whatever emotional grief you would feel over losing an object of significant monetary or even emotional value, the thief almost certainly has family and friends who will mourn his loss far more than you would mourn the loss of some possessions.Killing the thief causes no net gain for society - it simply prevents the loss of your property, while also causing significant grief for others and losing a potentially productive member of society (not to mention the risk of missing and hitting an innocent neighbor). The "fight" response, the revenge response, is very clearly the worst choice that can be made. Only when your own life (or that of another) is directly and immediately threatened is killing the thief the best course of action (and even then, incapacitation would be preferred if possible).

Interesting theory.But, I think I still choose the clothes pins because:1. Even if I bought a used package of inferior, grey-market, chinese-grade clothes pins, originally meant to be sold on the Myanmar border to illiterate peasants, I would still have SOME confidence that they would work as advertised. Using only the slimmest of benefit of doubt, their potential for good HAS at least SOME possibility.2. The potential that Hitler or Bush II would actually do good without costly armed guards constantly poking them is non-existent. Their past actions have fully established their negative-potential FOR humankind. There IS NO potential for good.Really, I would place my trust in the clothes pins. No contest.Regarding your thief scenario, yes, logically, I agree with you. Sorry, you didn't have to repeat your post. But, as Legend mentioned, in the heat of the moment in "protecting" my family, I could imagine doing something rather stupid. (Like shooting my daughter's face off)Luckily, in the US there are adequate gun laws to protect myself from doing stupid things. Edited by dronester, : clarity

It is a relatively recent concept, and one not universal, that a dead or seriously injured thief is an overall bad thing.