9 ms·

While law doesn't have place for revenge in a civilised society and rightly so, the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate. It's healthy to try

by hawk_ 6y ago

While law doesn't have place for revenge in a civilised society and rightly so, the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate. It's healthy to try to forgive but it's quite difficult, almost like you can't fool yourselves into thinking you aren't hungry.

hnarayanan 6y ago
Do you honestly believe revenge helps you?
- choonway 6y ago
  what about making sure the person who did it to you does not profit from it?
  - bschne 6y ago
    By itself, that seems like sunk costs to me - preventing someone else from profiting from a disadvantage they put you at does not necessarily remediate said disadvantage. But there's certain ways in which it could be "rational" - e.g. preventing them from doing you harm again in the future by scaring them off with your revenge, evening out some sort of competitive position so that you are on the same level again, or if your revenge actually re-balances some material loss you suffered at their hands.
    - waterhouse 6y ago
      Are you familiar with the game-theoretic definition of a threat? A threat is when I say that, if you do X (which I don't want), then I will do Y, and Y hurts both you and me. (If Y benefited me, then we'd expect me to do Y anyway, so the threat would make no difference.) Carrying out a threat is, therefore, always irrational. However, if I could make you believe that I would carry out the threat, then I could get you to not do X, which would be good for me. If I can modify my own mind so that, if you do X, then I am obsessively driven to carry out Y—"revenge"—and I make this obvious to you, then modifying my mind in that way is rational for me to do. (Of course, the only key part is making you believe that my mind works like this. But as a species, I think humans are not especially good liars—probably for good reasons, so that threats and promises are possible—and the most reliable approach to making you think I'm like that is to be like that.) I think this is why there is a built-in drive for revenge. Now, the drive for revenge doesn't always win. In the ancestral environment, carrying out revenge against the wrong enemy may simply get you killed. It's possible that "knowing when to back off" has been selected for. (Perhaps the neural circuitry sometimes perceived natural forces like rain, or stronger creatures like tigers (possibly the relevant evolving happened before we got good at hunting), as the "enemy".) Which then opens the door to trying to intimidate the other party even further so they don't try for revenge, or to bluffing that you're not intimidated, or to guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that the other side is bluffing, and so on. Anyway, that is the mess we are left with.
  - woko 6y ago
    You kind of answered the question: revenge does not help the victim. It might feel necessary, but it does not actually help.
    - SilasX 6y ago
      Just like masks don't help the wearer, for a sufficiently tunnel-visioned definition of "help" and "things I care about". (Yes, I know, masks aren't the perfect example because they do have a [smaller] prophylactic benefit to the wearer as well. But if they didn't, it would still be a good idea to wear them for disease containment, and "lol it doesn't benefit me" would be a dubious argument for the same reason.)
    - Waterfall 6y ago
      Let's say a man shot you. You don't want any petty revenge so you take no action and forgive. He now shoots you to death and the random occupant in your car. If only there was a way you could have signalled like a real life dislike button or a warning not to do it.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I don't know what definition of revenge everyone is using, but if revenge means consequences for the perpetrator, then it could help the victim by sending a message to future perpetrators.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        It could in principle, but in practice I think the situations where it would are very rare. If you discovered that coworker A took revenge against coworker B by sabotaging their project, would that make you more likely to deal with A fairly or just less likely to deal with them at all?
        waterhouse 6y ago
        Sabotaging their project has collateral damage to the company and to everyone else who was involved with the project or depended on it—unless it was a one-person project that didn't really matter. Collateral damage to innocents is bad form. If A's revenge took the form of damaging B's car (not while anyone was in it) and costing thousands of dollars in repairs... Well, it would depend on just what B had done to A, and what alternatives A had. But if B had previously inflicted the same magnitude of economic damage on A, and perhaps gloated that there was no way for A to prove it, then... I think the main thing I'd feel for A is respect.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  There are certainly cases where it can. In a repeating game, revenge can be a useful tool to signal to the other party that their actions were not acceptable and to impose a cost on present and potentially future actions of the same type. That's not to say it's typically a good idea.
- Waterfall 6y ago
  Yes. If you were stung by a wasp does it make you happy when you smack it to death and it never stings you again? Or do you forgive it as it continues to sting you and you gladly turn the other cheek to let it sting your other cheek too? Then when your facial cheeks are all stung, do you let it sting both your lower cheeks so when you sit down you can forgive them? Now the whole village is being stung by wasps and you taught everyone that revenge is not the right way and instead the village worships the wasps and builds more nests for them due to the ability to forgive. Do you honestly think revenge is useless?
  - ogurechny 6y ago
    You have just made a speech about non-Aryan sub-human pests… wasps. I'm not sure whether it is sad or funny.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >You have just made a speech about non-Aryan sub-human pests… wasps Are you hearing a dog whistle that I'm not? Wasps (the black and yellow flying kind, not the "control political discourse in the Boston-DC corridor" kind) in his example are obviously just a metaphor that's being used as a stand in for some thing that is uncontroversially considered harmful.
      - ogurechny 6y ago
        Well, wasps also consider some things harmful, and they, too, don't turn the other cheek. The outcome is well known. People, on the other hand, supposedly have a little bit of the brain to understand the situation better instead of slandering the “natural enemy”. “Cleansing” nature is no different from “cleansing” people.
      - shoes_for_thee 6y ago
        He's making a unfunny joke about white anglo-saxon protestants
    - non-entity 6y ago
- djrobstep 6y ago
  Yeah, it's awesome.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  As with all things in life it really depends on how you frame it. As a young man I encountered many people who were unkind, told me that my goals were impossible and mocked me for my ambition. Now that I have succeeded at those aims and continued to grow as a human being it is a great feeling to encounter those people in life and see that they haven't been as successful as I have. I can't help but think that I perhaps wouldn't of made it through all those hard years struggling had more people believed in me, the desire to prove them wrong and get my revenge remains one of my greatest sources of motivation.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    Proving someone wrong isn't revenge. Revenge would be if you used your newfound position of power to actively hurt them in some way.
    - purple-again 6y ago
      No that’s your definition of revenge. I agree with the OPs definition of revenge. The first step of any productive conversation is to make sure you have a meeting of the minds on the words being used to describe real world phenomenon.
    - willcipriano 6y ago
      It appears the difference is I'm using it as a noun and you are using it as a verb. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revenge https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revenge
    - waterhouse 6y ago
      I think we have evolved an obsessive drive to inflict harm on those who have wronged us—known as revenge. It seems willcipriano's brain has mapped its revenge drive into working hard and achieving good things. And we all benefit. Let us be grateful to willcipriano's brain.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      Revenge would be if you used your newfound position of power to actively hurt them in some way. There is much irony here. If you went ahead and hurt those who hurt you, they are supposed to let go, they are supposed to take the high ground and forgive you! So go ahead, rape, steal, murder and pillage, society will be you your side. We don't get very far if we confuse forgiveness with letting go. It's a dangerous notion that only enables and empowers bullies.
- scottious 6y ago
  If you take the high road while they consistently take the low road long enough, eventually you'll feel like a complete push over who lacks self-respect. I personally have reached a breaking point in which I realize that if I don't do something different, then the people who've abused me will continue abusing me while all while I take the high road and try to be the better person. I wouldn't call it revenge, because that sounds malicious. Let's call it tit-for-tat or "taking my ball and going home". If you repeatedly abuse me, you're out of my life. Call it revenge or call it whatever you want, but I'm simply not going to stand for it.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    I don’t think that is not taking the high road. When facing abuse, taking the high road is indeed not responding to the abuse with anything more than a firm, non malicious, self protecting establishment and enforcement of your personal boundaries. Refusing to respond at all and allowing abuse to continue can be construed as taking the high road but it isn’t the only way to healthily manage toxic people. (Revenge imo is when one actively moves to harm an abusive person.)
    - watwut 6y ago
      > Refusing to respond at all and allowing abuse to continue can be construed as taking the high road but it isn’t the only way to healthily manage toxic people. In my experience, this is what people usually expect when they talk about "taking the high road" or "being the bigger person". It has zero to do with "healthily managing toxic people" and everything to do with comfort of whoever does not want to deal with conflict at your expense. I had to unlearn these quite late, when I finally figured this out.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
billfruit 6y ago
I do think it is something which is greatly variables among individuals. I have felt that I have a dampened sense of anger, that people find it weird/strange that I did not become angry in such and such situations. This could be problematic in some situations including at work, sometimes if you don't have or show anger then your motives can be viewed with suspicion.
njacobs5074 6y ago
It does seem to be an innate part of our behavior. It's interesting because the interviewee strongly suggests that we forgive others when it no longer makes sense to hold a grudge. On the other hand, she also recommends that we cultivate that feeling because it often gives no benefit to not move on from the wrong that was visited upon us.
- mc32 6y ago
  Couldn’t it have a function of regulating social behavior such that by holding a grudge society is helped if this causes the perp to at least be aware of impropriety of their transgression?
brightball 6y ago
Anecdotal I know, but I tried for 2 years to forgive someone who had deeply wronged my family, but I simply couldn’t get past feeling like we needed to go to court to make it right and it was eating me up inside. My wife suggested I ask God to help, which I hadn’t tried and didn’t think it would make a difference but I tried it. And it worked. The next day the anger was just...gone and remains so to this day. I realize it’s anecdotal and I don’t expect most people to take it seriously but it changed my life.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chaoticmass 6y ago
  Reminds me of something my Dad sent me when I was dealing with grief over someone who wronged me. It's from the Alcoholics Anonymous book, but I found the advice worked anyway. Here's the scan from the book: https://imgur.com/a/XlkPGLp https://imgur.com/a/XlkPGLp
  - brightball 6y ago
    Thank you for sharing that. The line at the beginning of the last paragraph jumps out at me. "This great experience that released me from the bondage of hatred and replaced it with love is really just another affirmation of the truth I know..." Having really experienced hatred first-hand, the nearly obsessive state of ongoing anger... It bothers me every time I see people toss around the word "hate" with every disagreement or bias that they believe other people have. Without realizing it, these people are minimizing one of the most dangerous internal emotional experiences that we experience as humans by turning it into hyperbole that nobody takes seriously.
qwerty456127 6y ago
> the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate. Why? I can't imagine feeling this way for longer than some minutes.
- hawk_ 6y ago
  perhaps you haven't been wronged in a significant way, and i hope it stays that way.
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    That probably is a "personality type" thing or something. Some people seem to value "justice" (and this way may want to punish somebody) instinctively. I value comfort, security, freedom and avoid wasting energy on anything which is not a big investment in these. If somebody would wrong me I would only invest myself in punishing him if I had a good reason to believe that's really going to scare whoever might be planning to wrong me or somebody else in future. And I would not write about this if I wasn't curious about how does this work. Why do some people are the first kind and the other the second? Isn't energy conservation and danger avoidance a fundamental program of every living brain? Why would somebody really want to hurt somebody who isn't a threat any more? That feels so alien to me I become extremely curious.
snarf21 6y ago
I had a realization about hate quite a long time ago. When you hate someone, 99.999% of the time they don't know or they don't care. So the only one that ends up feeling bad 24/7 is you. You have to find a way to let it go and move on, forgiveness or not..
- zo1 6y ago
  That's why it's important to "verbally" punish them on some level (if you hate them because they've done you wrong). They need to know, or if they've done wrong in a work/shared social context, then others need to know as well. Otherwise, it's as you said, only you feel bad and they have no idea or don't care. Too much of the ills happening in the world today is (I would argue) due to us responding to bad things by appeasing, forgiving, or simply "letting it go" without confrontation/conflict.
jakear 6y ago
> you can't fool yourselves into thinking you aren't hungry Interesting take. Friends of mine who grew up in poverty would tend to disagree - from what I’ve heard it becomes very natural to ignore hunger to the point of it going away entirely. This is more or less the only way to have a semi-pleasant life, given you won’t be at a healthy nutrition level regardless.
- mattigames 6y ago
  Long time ago I went by without eating a few days, your body stops nagging you for food so much, peak hunger is about 24 hours later and then slowly but steadily you feel it less strongly, it never truly goes away, just less powerful.
  - jakear 6y ago
    > a few days For some friends, this was more like 10+ years in the core development phase of early childhood. I think the two experiences are more or less incomparable.
    - mattigames 6y ago
      I was telling everyone else how it works at small scale, not about the experiences being comparable or not.
- hawk_ 6y ago
  Yes absolutely. But this is subjective as well is part of my premise. Like some people may be genetically predisposed to not saying no to food etc... in my experience the desire to get revenge is hard to overcome for a fairly large part of the population. So teaching forgiveness is equivalent of asking people to diet or exercise... it's really difficult.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Interestingly, forgiveness plays a part of some systems of law (particularly in the Middle East). If, for example, you accidentally kill a person while driving drunk, you have the opportunity to publicly apologize, and the family of the deceased are offered an opportunity to publicly forgive (though from my understanding, they're under no obligation or pressure to do this, and I believe in an instance this egregious, it would be quite rare). If you're forgiven, the sentencing is less harsh than it would be otherwise.
- hawk_ 6y ago
  even in this woke era those legal systems can hardly be called civilised though. i mean the punishment for rape is being wed to the victim. also the "forgiveness" there is bought using wealth, kind of like out of court settlement but even for criminal matters not just civil.

by hawk_ 6y ago

hnarayanan 6y ago

Do you honestly believe revenge helps you?

choonway 6y ago
what about making sure the person who did it to you does not profit from it?
- bschne 6y ago
  By itself, that seems like sunk costs to me - preventing someone else from profiting from a disadvantage they put you at does not necessarily remediate said disadvantage. But there's certain ways in which it could be "rational" - e.g. preventing them from doing you harm again in the future by scaring them off with your revenge, evening out some sort of competitive position so that you are on the same level again, or if your revenge actually re-balances some material loss you suffered at their hands.
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    Are you familiar with the game-theoretic definition of a threat? A threat is when I say that, if you do X (which I don't want), then I will do Y, and Y hurts both you and me. (If Y benefited me, then we'd expect me to do Y anyway, so the threat would make no difference.) Carrying out a threat is, therefore, always irrational. However, if I could make you believe that I would carry out the threat, then I could get you to not do X, which would be good for me. If I can modify my own mind so that, if you do X, then I am obsessively driven to carry out Y—"revenge"—and I make this obvious to you, then modifying my mind in that way is rational for me to do. (Of course, the only key part is making you believe that my mind works like this. But as a species, I think humans are not especially good liars—probably for good reasons, so that threats and promises are possible—and the most reliable approach to making you think I'm like that is to be like that.) I think this is why there is a built-in drive for revenge. Now, the drive for revenge doesn't always win. In the ancestral environment, carrying out revenge against the wrong enemy may simply get you killed. It's possible that "knowing when to back off" has been selected for. (Perhaps the neural circuitry sometimes perceived natural forces like rain, or stronger creatures like tigers (possibly the relevant evolving happened before we got good at hunting), as the "enemy".) Which then opens the door to trying to intimidate the other party even further so they don't try for revenge, or to bluffing that you're not intimidated, or to guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that the other side is bluffing, and so on. Anyway, that is the mess we are left with.
- woko 6y ago
  You kind of answered the question: revenge does not help the victim. It might feel necessary, but it does not actually help.
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Just like masks don't help the wearer, for a sufficiently tunnel-visioned definition of "help" and "things I care about". (Yes, I know, masks aren't the perfect example because they do have a [smaller] prophylactic benefit to the wearer as well. But if they didn't, it would still be a good idea to wear them for disease containment, and "lol it doesn't benefit me" would be a dubious argument for the same reason.)
  - Waterfall 6y ago
    Let's say a man shot you. You don't want any petty revenge so you take no action and forgive. He now shoots you to death and the random occupant in your car. If only there was a way you could have signalled like a real life dislike button or a warning not to do it.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I don't know what definition of revenge everyone is using, but if revenge means consequences for the perpetrator, then it could help the victim by sending a message to future perpetrators.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      It could in principle, but in practice I think the situations where it would are very rare. If you discovered that coworker A took revenge against coworker B by sabotaging their project, would that make you more likely to deal with A fairly or just less likely to deal with them at all?
      - waterhouse 6y ago
        Sabotaging their project has collateral damage to the company and to everyone else who was involved with the project or depended on it—unless it was a one-person project that didn't really matter. Collateral damage to innocents is bad form. If A's revenge took the form of damaging B's car (not while anyone was in it) and costing thousands of dollars in repairs... Well, it would depend on just what B had done to A, and what alternatives A had. But if B had previously inflicted the same magnitude of economic damage on A, and perhaps gloated that there was no way for A to prove it, then... I think the main thing I'd feel for A is respect.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
There are certainly cases where it can. In a repeating game, revenge can be a useful tool to signal to the other party that their actions were not acceptable and to impose a cost on present and potentially future actions of the same type. That's not to say it's typically a good idea.
Waterfall 6y ago
Yes. If you were stung by a wasp does it make you happy when you smack it to death and it never stings you again? Or do you forgive it as it continues to sting you and you gladly turn the other cheek to let it sting your other cheek too? Then when your facial cheeks are all stung, do you let it sting both your lower cheeks so when you sit down you can forgive them? Now the whole village is being stung by wasps and you taught everyone that revenge is not the right way and instead the village worships the wasps and builds more nests for them due to the ability to forgive. Do you honestly think revenge is useless?
- ogurechny 6y ago
  You have just made a speech about non-Aryan sub-human pests… wasps. I'm not sure whether it is sad or funny.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >You have just made a speech about non-Aryan sub-human pests… wasps Are you hearing a dog whistle that I'm not? Wasps (the black and yellow flying kind, not the "control political discourse in the Boston-DC corridor" kind) in his example are obviously just a metaphor that's being used as a stand in for some thing that is uncontroversially considered harmful.
    - ogurechny 6y ago
      Well, wasps also consider some things harmful, and they, too, don't turn the other cheek. The outcome is well known. People, on the other hand, supposedly have a little bit of the brain to understand the situation better instead of slandering the “natural enemy”. “Cleansing” nature is no different from “cleansing” people.
    - shoes_for_thee 6y ago
      He's making a unfunny joke about white anglo-saxon protestants
  - non-entity 6y ago
djrobstep 6y ago
Yeah, it's awesome.
willcipriano 6y ago
As with all things in life it really depends on how you frame it. As a young man I encountered many people who were unkind, told me that my goals were impossible and mocked me for my ambition. Now that I have succeeded at those aims and continued to grow as a human being it is a great feeling to encounter those people in life and see that they haven't been as successful as I have. I can't help but think that I perhaps wouldn't of made it through all those hard years struggling had more people believed in me, the desire to prove them wrong and get my revenge remains one of my greatest sources of motivation.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Proving someone wrong isn't revenge. Revenge would be if you used your newfound position of power to actively hurt them in some way.
  - purple-again 6y ago
    No that’s your definition of revenge. I agree with the OPs definition of revenge. The first step of any productive conversation is to make sure you have a meeting of the minds on the words being used to describe real world phenomenon.
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    It appears the difference is I'm using it as a noun and you are using it as a verb. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revenge https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revenge
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    I think we have evolved an obsessive drive to inflict harm on those who have wronged us—known as revenge. It seems willcipriano's brain has mapped its revenge drive into working hard and achieving good things. And we all benefit. Let us be grateful to willcipriano's brain.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Revenge would be if you used your newfound position of power to actively hurt them in some way. There is much irony here. If you went ahead and hurt those who hurt you, they are supposed to let go, they are supposed to take the high ground and forgive you! So go ahead, rape, steal, murder and pillage, society will be you your side. We don't get very far if we confuse forgiveness with letting go. It's a dangerous notion that only enables and empowers bullies.
scottious 6y ago
If you take the high road while they consistently take the low road long enough, eventually you'll feel like a complete push over who lacks self-respect. I personally have reached a breaking point in which I realize that if I don't do something different, then the people who've abused me will continue abusing me while all while I take the high road and try to be the better person. I wouldn't call it revenge, because that sounds malicious. Let's call it tit-for-tat or "taking my ball and going home". If you repeatedly abuse me, you're out of my life. Call it revenge or call it whatever you want, but I'm simply not going to stand for it.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  I don’t think that is not taking the high road. When facing abuse, taking the high road is indeed not responding to the abuse with anything more than a firm, non malicious, self protecting establishment and enforcement of your personal boundaries. Refusing to respond at all and allowing abuse to continue can be construed as taking the high road but it isn’t the only way to healthily manage toxic people. (Revenge imo is when one actively moves to harm an abusive person.)
  - watwut 6y ago
    > Refusing to respond at all and allowing abuse to continue can be construed as taking the high road but it isn’t the only way to healthily manage toxic people. In my experience, this is what people usually expect when they talk about "taking the high road" or "being the bigger person". It has zero to do with "healthily managing toxic people" and everything to do with comfort of whoever does not want to deal with conflict at your expense. I had to unlearn these quite late, when I finally figured this out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

billfruit 6y ago

I do think it is something which is greatly variables among individuals. I have felt that I have a dampened sense of anger, that people find it weird/strange that I did not become angry in such and such situations. This could be problematic in some situations including at work, sometimes if you don't have or show anger then your motives can be viewed with suspicion.

njacobs5074 6y ago

It does seem to be an innate part of our behavior. It's interesting because the interviewee strongly suggests that we forgive others when it no longer makes sense to hold a grudge. On the other hand, she also recommends that we cultivate that feeling because it often gives no benefit to not move on from the wrong that was visited upon us.

mc32 6y ago
Couldn’t it have a function of regulating social behavior such that by holding a grudge society is helped if this causes the perp to at least be aware of impropriety of their transgression?

brightball 6y ago

Anecdotal I know, but I tried for 2 years to forgive someone who had deeply wronged my family, but I simply couldn’t get past feeling like we needed to go to court to make it right and it was eating me up inside. My wife suggested I ask God to help, which I hadn’t tried and didn’t think it would make a difference but I tried it. And it worked. The next day the anger was just...gone and remains so to this day. I realize it’s anecdotal and I don’t expect most people to take it seriously but it changed my life.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chaoticmass 6y ago
Reminds me of something my Dad sent me when I was dealing with grief over someone who wronged me. It's from the Alcoholics Anonymous book, but I found the advice worked anyway. Here's the scan from the book: https://imgur.com/a/XlkPGLp https://imgur.com/a/XlkPGLp
- brightball 6y ago
  Thank you for sharing that. The line at the beginning of the last paragraph jumps out at me. "This great experience that released me from the bondage of hatred and replaced it with love is really just another affirmation of the truth I know..." Having really experienced hatred first-hand, the nearly obsessive state of ongoing anger... It bothers me every time I see people toss around the word "hate" with every disagreement or bias that they believe other people have. Without realizing it, these people are minimizing one of the most dangerous internal emotional experiences that we experience as humans by turning it into hyperbole that nobody takes seriously.

qwerty456127 6y ago

> the need for revenge/retribution I suspect is quite innate. Why? I can't imagine feeling this way for longer than some minutes.

hawk_ 6y ago
perhaps you haven't been wronged in a significant way, and i hope it stays that way.
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  That probably is a "personality type" thing or something. Some people seem to value "justice" (and this way may want to punish somebody) instinctively. I value comfort, security, freedom and avoid wasting energy on anything which is not a big investment in these. If somebody would wrong me I would only invest myself in punishing him if I had a good reason to believe that's really going to scare whoever might be planning to wrong me or somebody else in future. And I would not write about this if I wasn't curious about how does this work. Why do some people are the first kind and the other the second? Isn't energy conservation and danger avoidance a fundamental program of every living brain? Why would somebody really want to hurt somebody who isn't a threat any more? That feels so alien to me I become extremely curious.

snarf21 6y ago

I had a realization about hate quite a long time ago. When you hate someone, 99.999% of the time they don't know or they don't care. So the only one that ends up feeling bad 24/7 is you. You have to find a way to let it go and move on, forgiveness or not..

zo1 6y ago
That's why it's important to "verbally" punish them on some level (if you hate them because they've done you wrong). They need to know, or if they've done wrong in a work/shared social context, then others need to know as well. Otherwise, it's as you said, only you feel bad and they have no idea or don't care. Too much of the ills happening in the world today is (I would argue) due to us responding to bad things by appeasing, forgiving, or simply "letting it go" without confrontation/conflict.

jakear 6y ago

> you can't fool yourselves into thinking you aren't hungry Interesting take. Friends of mine who grew up in poverty would tend to disagree - from what I’ve heard it becomes very natural to ignore hunger to the point of it going away entirely. This is more or less the only way to have a semi-pleasant life, given you won’t be at a healthy nutrition level regardless.

mattigames 6y ago
Long time ago I went by without eating a few days, your body stops nagging you for food so much, peak hunger is about 24 hours later and then slowly but steadily you feel it less strongly, it never truly goes away, just less powerful.
- jakear 6y ago
  > a few days For some friends, this was more like 10+ years in the core development phase of early childhood. I think the two experiences are more or less incomparable.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    I was telling everyone else how it works at small scale, not about the experiences being comparable or not.
hawk_ 6y ago
Yes absolutely. But this is subjective as well is part of my premise. Like some people may be genetically predisposed to not saying no to food etc... in my experience the desire to get revenge is hard to overcome for a fairly large part of the population. So teaching forgiveness is equivalent of asking people to diet or exercise... it's really difficult.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago

Interestingly, forgiveness plays a part of some systems of law (particularly in the Middle East). If, for example, you accidentally kill a person while driving drunk, you have the opportunity to publicly apologize, and the family of the deceased are offered an opportunity to publicly forgive (though from my understanding, they're under no obligation or pressure to do this, and I believe in an instance this egregious, it would be quite rare). If you're forgiven, the sentencing is less harsh than it would be otherwise.

hawk_ 6y ago
even in this woke era those legal systems can hardly be called civilised though. i mean the punishment for rape is being wed to the victim. also the "forgiveness" there is bought using wealth, kind of like out of court settlement but even for criminal matters not just civil.