Revenge is being talked about. This notion used to be a permanent part of the rhetorics of extremist terror organizations, but the US propaganda action against the main enemy Bin Laden has made it fashionable in the socalled democratic and liberal West. The enemy was killed, so what had been done to the Americans by him 10 years ago was brought to "justice".
What has been brought to balance? None of the dead of 9/11 has risen, none of the traumatized people has recovered from his symptoms, none of the bereaved has been healed from her wounds. What has been brought to balance was something in the neurotic structure of the ego. The huminilation which the sould of the "West", of the USA or of whomsoever has suffered from the terror assaults was corrected - obviously two wars with millions of victims (against Afghanistan and Irak) and the execution of another main enemy (Saddam - who by the way has been proven of not being involved in the main humiliation) have not been enough; the evil behind all evil must be extinguished.
What has been brought to balance? None of the dead of 9/11 has risen, none of the traumatized people has recovered from his symptoms, none of the bereaved has been healed from her wounds. What has been brought to balance was something in the neurotic structure of the ego. The huminilation which the sould of the "West", of the USA or of whomsoever has suffered from the terror assaults was corrected - obviously two wars with millions of victims (against Afghanistan and Irak) and the execution of another main enemy (Saddam - who by the way has been proven of not being involved in the main humiliation) have not been enough; the evil behind all evil must be extinguished.
In this scenario, we can see our inclination for personalising complex conflicts as they seem to be resolved easier and terminal on that level: I kill my opponent, so the conflict is out of the world. We know from blood revenge how naiv this assumption is. The spirale of revenge and counter revenge is principially endless. In some cases, a deescalation happens over time, in some other the escalation moves on (a terror attack is followed by a war). In any case, the actions of revenge keep the conflict going, especially the highly symbollicaly loaden actions against prominent persons of the opponent side. And it is clear that this institutionalisation of the conflict serves various interests, and some in the back scene could be observed smiling at the growth of their wallets.
What is sick about revenge? Is it not a natural reaction that we want to take revenge when bad things have been inflicted upon us? Do we not have to pay back when our partner had an affair with someone else? Do we not have to talk bad about a person who has been reported talking bad about ourselves? Revenge is swett, why should we refrain from this pleasure which we can enjoy when our enemy suffers?
When we realize that it is "just" our ego which stabilizes itself by revenge, it becomes probably easier for us to reflect our impulse for revenge in more depth. How could this happen?
We retaliate evil with evil and we cannot turn anything to the better by this. We meet with our enemy on his own level, so we make ourselves equal with him, and his mischievousness is exactly our mischievousnes.When we accept this honestly we are already a step further. We have realized that we are no better than the other who has done us wrong. We are as human as he is. This is what Nietzsche meant: "A small revenge is more human than no revenge at all."
We retaliate evil with evil and we cannot turn anything to the better by this. We meet with our enemy on his own level, so we make ourselves equal with him, and his mischievousness is exactly our mischievousnes.When we accept this honestly we are already a step further. We have realized that we are no better than the other who has done us wrong. We are as human as he is. This is what Nietzsche meant: "A small revenge is more human than no revenge at all."
It is not our self esteem we strengthen by actions like that but our self devaluation, as we enforce those parts of ourselves which belong to our shadow. Our self esteem cannot grow with actions which inflict damage on others, and an honest inquiry on our conscience shows that we cannot be proud of such actions. On the contrary, we narrow down inside and becloud our soul. Our ego might take pride in such actions and experience joy but our soul has received another harm which makes us suffer on the longer term: Not that we have made ourselves equal with a person we hate or despise, but simply that we have damaged a brother, a sister, a fellow human being.
Moses and Paul report: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord." (5 Mos 32,35; Röm 12,19). They mean that we should leave all actions of revenge to the Lord, he would take care of bringing balance to the harm that has been done to us. As long as we are goverend by our hurt and fight for the needs of our ego, we are not able to establish justice in this world. And how God would establish that justice and by which means (with rage, with love or with anything else) is up to him. By acknowledging that we have taken a major step our of our personalised ego consciousness.
Let us consider the following quote from a medieval poem to motivate ourselves for a leap like that: "To repay evil with good, is a fairly generous revenge." (Ruodlieb) When could be read as pious devotional advice show a backside meaning which leads us to systemic thinking: By breaking the chain of revenge and counter revenge, (which Paul Watzlawick called "interpunction in the course of events") then a new element comes in: generosity or magnaminity, which means expansion of the soul. For when taking such a step, I need another quality of courage as when I hit someone in the face.
In this understanding, revenge gains a new meaning: It balances something which is bigger than our ego. It breaks the vicious circle and creates space in which new things can evolve. It ends the destructive dependency goverened by our death urge and opens the gates for growth and liberation.
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