I think revenge can be healthy

Post Reply New Topic

Think about it. Is it really so bad? You get much better resolution than you would if you held it in and rationalized it. If the other person knows you're intentionally doing something bad to them, it might just wake them up from their chronic dick-headery, and they realize they can't dish it out without taking their own knocks. I think there are a lot of situations where it's inappropriate, but I've sought revenge before and strangely felt much healthier after it. There's something to be said for letting it go, yes, but aren't there scenarios where it sends a powerful message and leads to greater respect?

*shrug* Depends. Sometimes flinging more s**t just makes everything shittier.

It depends on what kind of revenge. Most of the time I think it's a waste of time and stupid. And doing things to people they deserve, I don't view it as revenge.

Isn't that what revenge is?

If they really deserve it, sure! But otherwise I let karma get them. You what they say "What goes around, comes around"

Revenge is not good or productive or a resolution or restitution to anything. You can fool yourself into thinking it accomplishes something through pathetic justifications; but, it's a lie that you spend more energy convincing yourself is true than if you'd just done the proper thing and moved on like an adult.

Well, in some societies it's required. If you don't take revenge on those who wrong you, you lose status because you are now seen as weak and inferior. In addition to that you leave yourself open to more wrongs because others know you won't even take the revenge you should. So yeah, I don't really listen to people who say revenge is always wrong. It's situational. Thinking you can always just walk away, or use the authorities, or 'be the bigger man'... that may be how life should be and how some people see life as absolutely having to be for everyone because life's just peachy and that always works, but it ain't always how it is in the murky grey reality many end up living with. In some places and some situations, standing up for yourself is taking revenge - and in other even rarer situations vise versa. It may be more rare now in western society, but it still sometimes happens and is needed simply for safety's sake. Though, probably not needed as often as some people do seem to think it is.

But I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt people. And I wouldn't pursue revenge unless it was needed for safety. Distinguishing between need and desire is important when you're dealing with actions that can blow up on you. A lot of people desire revenge, but most of us don't need it.

Well, that's your (idealistic) opinion. Just letting it go isn't so easy. You can sit there and type it- reality is harder. I'm honest with myself- I feel a lot better, and I wouldn't take it back.

So going around telling everyone what someone did to you is revenge? Okay.

I guess having people go on the news about their crimes is revenge or families who try and put the criminal behind bars who killed their loved one or raped them or molested their child.

Revenge can work for some people, although I don't like it personally.

Revenge is something we're taught ethically not to follow, it's like so many things in that although it is a natural human reaction to a situation we aren't all individuals but part of a society we really can't act on revenge...if we all did that we'd have chaos.

I think it can be positive.
Say for example there is one person in my life who I sometimes wish I could take revenge on for what she's done to me and to others. It may stop her screwing me over if she realises she'd pay for it, and depending on how I go about it revenge may also stop her trying to destroy other people's lives too. It would teach her a lesson as she's yet to get her comeuppance as once she screws one lot of people over she moves onto the next and claims she's the victim of the previous group so gets protection. Plus it would mean closure for me to know she has had comeuppance rather than knowing she's out there getting away with these things, continuing to try to get to me and people I know...and you know, there's a little part of me that'd like to see her suffer just a fraction of what she's put onto others.

But then I take the high-road - revenge wouldn't make me much better than her, besides I know she suffers in her mental little world.

Okay...so my personal sh*t got all up in here, but you see my point.

I actually did a blog post on Aspies and Revenge: http://wefunction.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... d-revenge/

Uh, yes, It's a form or revenge. If not? Well, what IS revenge then? I just googled "is revenge right" and clicked on some of the suggestions. In every message bored discussion I found, somebody posed the question, how do you define revenge? I'm honest with myself.

When an instructor treated me more horribly then any authority had in my life, I lodged a complaint with the dean and his direct boss. Revenge, although done in an appropriate fashion.

When somebody insisted on talking about me behind my back, even after I thought we had an understanding, I eventually just ignored their every word directed at me. They threw a fit, and got upset, but I didn't consider it my problem. Revenge, maybe a little childish.

When I caught some neighborhood idiot syphoning gas out of my jimmy, and I knew where they lived, I filled a container of gas and poured it on their paint job. They wanted gasoline- I gave it to them. Revenge, childish AND dangerous. This one I wouldn't do again. Idiotic on my part, even if I did feel good.

When somebody I played D&D with lost my borrowed book in their garbage pit of a house, and couldn't find it, I asked if I could search on my own. They didn't let me, understandably. They joked it was like finding a needle in a hey stack. I did want it back, so I suggested they do a little house cleaning. I tried to do so as gently as gingerly as possible. They got snide with me. Alright. You mean you borrowed MY sh*t, lose it in your pig sty, then get mad at me? I called CPS, because they had a kid, and I knew it wouldn't be good for them. I have to be honest with myself- I could have done it for the kid's sake, but I did it more out of spite. They didn't lose the kid, but they have some guy regularly checking in on them. Good.

I could go on, but I do see all those as a form of revenge. I think if it doesn't get out of hand, and endanger either party too much, but rather just sends a message, then what's the harm? In the case of the messy couple, I think it did some good.

a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye just leaves everybody toothless and blind.

So be it.

I once had a situation where my personal "revenge" and a sense of justice that could not have been achieved in any other way ran side-by-side. It was wrong of me to take matters into my own hands and I ended up in prison for what I did, but it was also wrong of society to just let the kind of thing that other man had first done to remain unpunished. In court, the prosecutor accurately pointed out my complete lack of remorse for what I had done, but then the judge silenced all editorial comment about that and showed much mercy to me while calling what I had done "a crime of passion".

Yes, but I think few people are able to do that without the result then even further encouraging them to personally continue on in trying to have all things as they believe all things should be.