Just the very idea of revenge kind of repulses me. There’s often this underlying gleefulness (for lack of a better word) about the nature of revenge, and that makes it ugly to me. Sort of like when people were dancing in the streets after Bin Laden was killed. That literally made me feel sick to my stomach. It’s not like I was sorry he was dead, but I certainly wasn’t celebrating it. If I ever actually took revenge on anyone, I don’t think I could live with myself afterward.
To be honest, I don’t really understand the impulse toward revenge. To the best of my recollection, I’ve never wanted revenge – not even for things that happened to me or my family. I mean, I might as well be the 3 year old @jca mentions, but I never even wanted revenge on my abuser. I did want him put away, but not as punishment for what he did to me. Just to prevent him from doing it to any more little girls – and only because I didn’t think he could be rehabilitated.
Which brings up an important point. The ‘justice’ we have is a lot more like revenge than actual justice. Real justice, to my mind, would result in the victim(s) being made ‘whole’ again, which really isn’t possible. The next best thing would be to rehabilitate the criminal so he could go on to be a ‘force for good’ in the world. (And let’s be honest…we don’t even really attempt to do that.) In cases where rehab just isn’t going to work, go ahead and lock ‘em up for life, but not unnecessarily in some horrible environment. The goal shouldn’t be to punish the criminal, but to protect society. However, our criminal justice system is all about punishment, and that seems an awful lot like vengeance to me. Don’t even get me started on the death penalty!