Post by michaelw on Feb 11, 2021 7:01:27 GMT -5
I stumbled across a book recently which sounded really interesting. It's called Payback: The Case for Revenge, by Thane Rosenbaum. I haven't yet gotten my hands on a copy, but I did find this description on Amazon...
This is good stuff.
In particular, I think I'd be curious to know what he thinks qualifies as commensurate. Because, while I can see the desire for commensurate revenge as--at least arguably--a healthy emotion, the actual practice of it is an action, not merely an emotion. And that's where I think this topic gets a bit complicated.
Take something like the torture and murder of Junko Furuta, for example. (I'll link to the Wikipedia page, but with a heads-up that the article is pretty disturbing and might be hard to stomach. The TLDR version is that Furuta was VERY brutally tortured--even that feels like putting it too mildly--and then ultimately murdered).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta
What would commensurate revenge look like, in that kind of situation?
It might be argued that the Japanese government couldn't (realistically) be expected to torture someone in a similar fashion, and that therefore, any response would be unavoidably incommensurate to some degree. (And even if they could, there may also be real psychological harm inflicted on the hypothetical person who has to carry it out.)
Maybe the best justice system has to simply accept that, sometimes, attempts at justice are going to lack true proportionality?
Thoughts?
We call it justice—the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the incarceration of corrupt politicians or financiers like Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff, and the climactic slaying of cinema-screen villains by superheroes. But could we not also call it revenge? We are told that revenge is uncivilized and immoral, an impulse that individuals and societies should actively repress and replace with the order and codes of courtroom justice. What, if anything, distinguishes punishment at the hands of the government from a victim’s individual desire for retribution? Are vengeance and justice really so very different? No, answers legal scholar and novelist Thane Rosenbaum in Payback: The Case for Revenge—revenge is, in fact, indistinguishable from justice.
Revenge, Rosenbaum argues, is not the problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly healthy emotion. Instead, the problem is the inadequacy of lawful outlets through which to express it. He mounts a case for legal systems to punish the guilty commensurate with their crimes as part of a societal moral duty to satisfy the needs of victims to feel avenged. Indeed, the legal system would better serve the public if it gave victims the sense that vengeance was being done on their behalf. Drawing on a wide range of support, from recent studies in behavioral psychology and neuroeconomics, to stories of vengeance and justice denied, to revenge practices from around the world, to the way in which revenge tales have permeated popular culture—including Hamlet, The Godfather, and Braveheart—Rosenbaum demonstrates that vengeance needs to be more openly and honestly discussed and lawfully practiced.
Fiercely argued and highly engaging, Payback is a provocative and eye-opening cultural tour of revenge and its rewards—from Shakespeare to The Sopranos. It liberates revenge from its social stigma and proves that vengeance is indeed ours, a perfectly human and acceptable response to moral injury. Rosenbaum deftly persuades us to reconsider a misunderstood subject and, along the way, reinvigorates the debate on the shape of justice in the modern world.
Revenge, Rosenbaum argues, is not the problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly healthy emotion. Instead, the problem is the inadequacy of lawful outlets through which to express it. He mounts a case for legal systems to punish the guilty commensurate with their crimes as part of a societal moral duty to satisfy the needs of victims to feel avenged. Indeed, the legal system would better serve the public if it gave victims the sense that vengeance was being done on their behalf. Drawing on a wide range of support, from recent studies in behavioral psychology and neuroeconomics, to stories of vengeance and justice denied, to revenge practices from around the world, to the way in which revenge tales have permeated popular culture—including Hamlet, The Godfather, and Braveheart—Rosenbaum demonstrates that vengeance needs to be more openly and honestly discussed and lawfully practiced.
Fiercely argued and highly engaging, Payback is a provocative and eye-opening cultural tour of revenge and its rewards—from Shakespeare to The Sopranos. It liberates revenge from its social stigma and proves that vengeance is indeed ours, a perfectly human and acceptable response to moral injury. Rosenbaum deftly persuades us to reconsider a misunderstood subject and, along the way, reinvigorates the debate on the shape of justice in the modern world.
In particular, I think I'd be curious to know what he thinks qualifies as commensurate. Because, while I can see the desire for commensurate revenge as--at least arguably--a healthy emotion, the actual practice of it is an action, not merely an emotion. And that's where I think this topic gets a bit complicated.
Take something like the torture and murder of Junko Furuta, for example. (I'll link to the Wikipedia page, but with a heads-up that the article is pretty disturbing and might be hard to stomach. The TLDR version is that Furuta was VERY brutally tortured--even that feels like putting it too mildly--and then ultimately murdered).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Junko_Furuta
What would commensurate revenge look like, in that kind of situation?
It might be argued that the Japanese government couldn't (realistically) be expected to torture someone in a similar fashion, and that therefore, any response would be unavoidably incommensurate to some degree. (And even if they could, there may also be real psychological harm inflicted on the hypothetical person who has to carry it out.)
Maybe the best justice system has to simply accept that, sometimes, attempts at justice are going to lack true proportionality?
Thoughts?
