Revenge: good or bad?

[Delta40]

an incorrect interpretation. .

Thanks for agreeing with me Skasian

[skasian]

Thanks for agreeing with me Skasian

I beg your pardon? I said NO CHANCE of an incorrect interpretation. Unless this is a lame joke, you should read more carefully.

[Delta40]

I believe people do the same thing with partial extracts from the bible Skasian. They take them out of context. Thanks for assisting me.

[skasian]

I believe people do the same thing with partial extracts from the bible Skasian. They take them out of context. Thanks for assisting me.

Please tell me why you think this way, how does a person take out a small segment of extracts that can result in an entirely different interpretation? I have never been across this, nor the person who does this.

[Delta40]

matthew 5:38-5:39

Concerning Revenge

38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;

[Jozanny]

matthew 5:38-5:39

Concerning Revenge

38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;

Which creates a convenient martyr complex. We are sitting wherever we are sitting, on machines which were not even on the radar screen of our grandparents, connected by electric pulses or satellite signals, and a simple majority can do nothing more advanced with a moral issue, one that is covered by many great writers, even geniuses, than to toss around 2000 year old texts not even properly translated from ancient Hebrew into Shakespeare's English, let alone modern English.

It is stuff like this that makes it seem remarkable to me that the modern human lasted 100,000 years. Like language itself, we must be an evolutionary accident which evolution itself will correct within the next thousand years, if not less.

I am ashamed at what we cling to. I really am.

[Delta40]

I am not ashamed of the history of humankind. It loves. It learns. It errs. It aspires. It inspires.

[billyjack]

isnt the moral that is important?

there is no moral certainty in specific situations. you're looking for moral absolutes--which have a similar reality to that of the tooth fairy

Do you think violence is the way of things?

i dont think violence is the way of things. but it is a way. peaceful civil disobedience, for example, has it place, but its just one of many responses to violence. for instance: do you really think the world can deal with radical islam by way of peaceful resolution?

Do you think that a person must give up and surrender in bloodshed in order to finish a conflict? surely there must be a better method of dealing with conflict.

until we master jedi mindtricks, peaceful conflict resolution can only be an ideal to strive for, not the rule to live by.

[Dark Muse]

One thing I find interesting that I am starting to notice here, is the way in which revenge is automaticaly being tied into voilence. In my mind the two do not have to be synomouous with each other. While exmpales have been made, by myself included of extreme cases in which violence is used, this seems to be truning more into an argument of trying to justifiy the use of violence in some circumstances and moving more away from the act and nature of revenge in of itself.

You know there are ways in which a person can relitalite against another where no one is physcialy harmed, and where there need no be any bloodshed of violence. Revenge does not by default equal violence.

Just look at the things you could do to a person using computers and the interenet.

[Jozanny]

Dark has a good point--but I think how we act to some degree conditions the end result. I was interested in the posts of members who acted, (perhaps with a little extra-legality) and regretted it--which is why I posted a little of my story--to show that not acting has consequence, as my health and well-being has suffered--and not just by the cruelty of the institution, but by my inability to come to peace with it.

As I indicated, part of me wants to drop this, as there is always going to be internal dynamics under which a certain percentage of people get chewed up and spit out--and yet, in a way I know so much that my own feelings of principle says "fight to fix it."

I am not any saint. I have a terrible temper and have had my share of thriller fantasies where I get my power back at the point of a gun--which is at once laughable, but also corrosive to me, as violence strips us of positive civilizing influences.

But if I fight the right way, then maybe I too join the chorus that puts enough pressure on policy makers to change the rules which cater to the abuses.

Revenge, as a word, has a kind of onerous quality. I think previous posts have pointed this out, but vindication is more positive, and connotes victory has been achieved.

[Delta40]

I agree that revenge does not have to involve violence. Of course, your discussion opens up a can of worms there. What is violence?

[Dark Muse]

For the sake of this discussion I am decalaring violence meaning physically assulting another person. Causing physical injury and pain, or death.

[JacobF]

I agree that revenge does not have to involve violence. Of course, your discussion opens up a can of worms there. What is violence?

Violence is inflicting physical harm upon someone else. I don't see how that definition can be embellished upon, because I can't imagine violence as anything other than just that.

I guess we view revenge as a violent act because of the cultural connotations it carries. Almost all the mobster movies portray revenge as beating the victim to a bloody pulp. In Shakespeare, Hamlet wants to kill Claudius, Shylock wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, and so forth. It's just easier to imagine revenge being carried out as a violent act rather than, for instance, stealing.

[Dark Muse]

Yes that is true, but then look at highschool, which I am sure most of us has experinced. There revenge, generally tends to come in the form of gossip, and slander, writing phone numbers on bathroom walls. And today probably involves postings on Myspace and blogs.

While in Lieature and movies revenge generally tends to be about voilence, in the real world, I think revenge takes many forms. Runining someones reputation, trying to get someone fired, acts of vandilizim against property. Uploading emrbassing and damaging viedoes on the internet.

[NikolaiI]

Revenge doesn't have to be violence, it could also be destruction of property, etc.