Chocolate Cake
The book The Science of Revenge arrived in record time. True to its title, it is not so much a self-help book as a carefully researched investigation into one of humanity's most destructive impulses.
Author, lawyer, researcher, and Yale University lecturer James Kimmel Jr. goes to great lengths to document the atrocities committed in the name of revenge. He estimates that throughout history, approximately 336 million people have been killed as a result of revenge-seeking behavior.
"As you can see," he concludes, "we have overwhelming historical evidence of pathological revenge-seeking by human beings worldwide, from ancient to modern times. Revenge addiction is an ongoing pandemic that has lasted thousands of years and has been the source of incalculable tragedy and suffering. Entire civilizations have been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of people have been killed by it. - You might be thinking that this has got to be wrong. If revenge addiction is so widespread and so terrible, why hasn't anyone ever heard of it before or done anything about it? It just seems so implausible."
Then Kimmel makes the connection between revenge and justice.
“In 2023, Trump told his supporters,” I am your Justice.” What exactly does Justice mean in the 21st-century America? The answer isn’t as obvious as it may seem. Justice in America has developed a split personality, one benign and the other malignant. Dictionaries tell us that justice means equity and fairness with synonyms like equalitarianism, honor, uprightness decency integrity, righteousness, morality, virtue propriety trustworthiness. and incorruptibility. That’s the virtuous. Dr Jykell side of justice. But justice has a much darker side, a Mr. Hyde. This meaning of justice is a polite, politically correct term we use when we really mean revenge; as in the refrain after September 11 2001 terrorists attach on America. “Justice will be done,” they said. We all know what form of justice this means – and it’s not equity decency, virtue or morality. On May 1 when Bin laden was brought to justice, this did not mean that bin Laden was treated virtually decently or honorable. He was shot multiple time in the head. Unarmed. Without a a trail , American had finally gotten justice.”
"Justice is to revenge as OxyContin is to heroin," Kimmel writes, "consumer branding of a highly dangerous and addictive substance."
His words make me assess our own experience. Revenge was never part of my story. Cliff and I chose forgiveness almost immediately after Candace's murder.
Then I remember ..... a few days later, when a friend asked me what justice would look like after Candace's murder, I remember saying that there could never be enough justice for the murder of a child. It wouldn't be enough for that man to die. He would at least be dying for something he had done. Candace was innocent. Digging deep for a sense of justice, I said that ten child murderers would have to die. And when even that didn't satisfy me, and I said I would have to pull the trigger myself. .”The feeling was delicious,” I admitted. “like eating chocolate cake.
I laughed when I said it.
But what I never told anyone was this: every time I told that story afterward, I could taste the chocolate cake again. Simply telling the story rewarded me. It came with a small rush, a momentary pleasure, a dopamine fix.
Now I knew that Kimmel was right – the science of revenge applied to me.
But how does this fit into a biblical understanding of evil and forgiveness?
I remember a conversation with my daughter after I had written Forgiveness: The Power of Five. In that book I explored five powers of healing and wondered whether there might also be five corresponding evils. So I went back to the beginning. Back to the Garden. And there I found it. The story of Cain and Abel – a sibling rivalry that ended in murder. The fifth evil is revenge.
In the world we live in–– men keep going to war – women kill their unborn – now in social media we are killing each other with words like never before – the world is saturated with revenge.
James Kimmel claims that the solution lies in the science of forgiveness.
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love. Lord Byron
Author, lawyer, researcher, and Yale University lecturer James Kimmel Jr. goes to great lengths to document the atrocities committed in the name of revenge. He estimates that throughout history, approximately 336 million people have been killed as a result of revenge-seeking behavior.
"As you can see," he concludes, "we have overwhelming historical evidence of pathological revenge-seeking by human beings worldwide, from ancient to modern times. Revenge addiction is an ongoing pandemic that has lasted thousands of years and has been the source of incalculable tragedy and suffering. Entire civilizations have been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of people have been killed by it. - You might be thinking that this has got to be wrong. If revenge addiction is so widespread and so terrible, why hasn't anyone ever heard of it before or done anything about it? It just seems so implausible."
Then Kimmel makes the connection between revenge and justice.
“In 2023, Trump told his supporters,” I am your Justice.” What exactly does Justice mean in the 21st-century America? The answer isn’t as obvious as it may seem. Justice in America has developed a split personality, one benign and the other malignant. Dictionaries tell us that justice means equity and fairness with synonyms like equalitarianism, honor, uprightness decency integrity, righteousness, morality, virtue propriety trustworthiness. and incorruptibility. That’s the virtuous. Dr Jykell side of justice. But justice has a much darker side, a Mr. Hyde. This meaning of justice is a polite, politically correct term we use when we really mean revenge; as in the refrain after September 11 2001 terrorists attach on America. “Justice will be done,” they said. We all know what form of justice this means – and it’s not equity decency, virtue or morality. On May 1 when Bin laden was brought to justice, this did not mean that bin Laden was treated virtually decently or honorable. He was shot multiple time in the head. Unarmed. Without a a trail , American had finally gotten justice.”
"Justice is to revenge as OxyContin is to heroin," Kimmel writes, "consumer branding of a highly dangerous and addictive substance."
His words make me assess our own experience. Revenge was never part of my story. Cliff and I chose forgiveness almost immediately after Candace's murder.
Then I remember ..... a few days later, when a friend asked me what justice would look like after Candace's murder, I remember saying that there could never be enough justice for the murder of a child. It wouldn't be enough for that man to die. He would at least be dying for something he had done. Candace was innocent. Digging deep for a sense of justice, I said that ten child murderers would have to die. And when even that didn't satisfy me, and I said I would have to pull the trigger myself. .”The feeling was delicious,” I admitted. “like eating chocolate cake.
I laughed when I said it.
But what I never told anyone was this: every time I told that story afterward, I could taste the chocolate cake again. Simply telling the story rewarded me. It came with a small rush, a momentary pleasure, a dopamine fix.
Now I knew that Kimmel was right – the science of revenge applied to me.
But how does this fit into a biblical understanding of evil and forgiveness?
I remember a conversation with my daughter after I had written Forgiveness: The Power of Five. In that book I explored five powers of healing and wondered whether there might also be five corresponding evils. So I went back to the beginning. Back to the Garden. And there I found it. The story of Cain and Abel – a sibling rivalry that ended in murder. The fifth evil is revenge.
In the world we live in–– men keep going to war – women kill their unborn – now in social media we are killing each other with words like never before – the world is saturated with revenge.
James Kimmel claims that the solution lies in the science of forgiveness.
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love. Lord Byron
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