Hardwired for revenge
Revenge is a multi-billion dollar industry, aimed at everyone from jilted lovers to employers fearing retributive sacked employees. Websites are dedicated to people wanting to send dead flowers to unfaithful partners; tabloid newspapers run daily 'kiss and tell' pieces; and dumped political leaders have shown that revenge makes for reasonable book sales. Despite religious and social modelling teaching us from a very early age that we should let bygones be bygones, revenge is the new black.
Corporate revenge costs the international workforce millions. From disgruntled employees taking excessive sick leave, to more serious infractions like theft or corporate espionage. Personal revenge similarly costs tax payers millions. Custody claims lodged by feuding parents, and vexatious litigation, regularly clog courts for reasons other than law.
The psychological notion of “revenge” is not only an inherent human need, but an evolutionary by-product according to Senior Lecturer in psychology at Australia's Macquarie University, Dr Julie Fitness.
Fitness, an international expert in the field of revenge, says that were it not for the human characteristic of revenge that individuals would not have survived.
“Humans are hardwired for revenge,” she said.
“And invariably the revenge will need to be bigger and harder than the initial action.”
“When somebody hurts us, our urge is to hit back and to hit back really hard, which makes sense as if humans had never defended themselves, or acted in a way to deter others from hurting us then we wouldn’t have survived.
“We have to be able to show that we shouldn’t be ‘messed with’.”
However, Fitness acknowledges that the juxtaposition of the constraints of the legal system and the emotional expectations of the victim and society can lead to vengeful vigilantism.
“I think individuals can often feel frustrated with the legal system, and feel like it hasn’t actually done the job…as it seems that legal systems have been put in place generally as an attempt at restraining this need for revenge that we have,” she said.
According to Fitness, the “arithmetic of revenge” is an escalation pattern in direct proportion with the harm perceived by the victim, more so than the actual harm created by the persecutor, and so without an avenue to have interpersonal harm acknowledged and redressed, vigilantism is a natural by-product.
One of Australia's top legal watchdogs, Steve Mark, agrees that the legal system and justice are at times diametrically opposed when dealing with the emotional needs of individuals.
Appointed to the position of NSW Legal Services Commissioner in 1994, Mark specialised in criminal, immigration and human rights law before taking on NSW’s top job, and is a frequent speaker about the need for our legal system to raise its emotional intelligence (EQ).
“What ‘justice’ means to me is what I feel I deserve… but that does not necessarily equate what will be available from the courts.
“The courts are arbiters of law, not of justice. The law may not be just… you may be able to get justice with a baseball bat, but it’s probably not lawful,” he said.
While Mark acknowledges that legal practitioners require pragmatism to focus on legal process rather than the emotional outcome-driven expectations of individuals, he is also critical of this dispassionate role.
“Justice in the courts, and the law generally, does not deal with emotions and it is perhaps its greatest failing,” Mark said.
Mark recognises that the legal system’s adversarial nature has to create a winning and a losing side.
“What I think we need in our legal system is the acknowledgement that it has to deal with the emotional and spiritual wounding of the individual, and while ever we cannot deal with those issues we will continue to have a dissatisfaction with the law, and the problem we have with that is that if people continue to be completely dissatisfied and disillusioned with the law, they tend to become lawless.
“We believe in justice, we’re taught to believe we grow up in a just society, and so when justice is not achieved, we believe we have to go off and fix it,” he said.
While our legal system may not be keeping up with our emotional needs, the internet has given rise to literally thousands of virtual resources all aimed at quelling our inner bunny-boiler.
http://www.thepayback.com/
http://burnoutrevenge.ea.com/
Corporate revenge costs the international workforce millions. From disgruntled employees taking excessive sick leave, to more serious infractions like theft or corporate espionage. Personal revenge similarly costs tax payers millions. Custody claims lodged by feuding parents, and vexatious litigation, regularly clog courts for reasons other than law.
The psychological notion of “revenge” is not only an inherent human need, but an evolutionary by-product according to Senior Lecturer in psychology at Australia's Macquarie University, Dr Julie Fitness.
Fitness, an international expert in the field of revenge, says that were it not for the human characteristic of revenge that individuals would not have survived.
“Humans are hardwired for revenge,” she said.
“And invariably the revenge will need to be bigger and harder than the initial action.”
“When somebody hurts us, our urge is to hit back and to hit back really hard, which makes sense as if humans had never defended themselves, or acted in a way to deter others from hurting us then we wouldn’t have survived.
“We have to be able to show that we shouldn’t be ‘messed with’.”
However, Fitness acknowledges that the juxtaposition of the constraints of the legal system and the emotional expectations of the victim and society can lead to vengeful vigilantism.
“I think individuals can often feel frustrated with the legal system, and feel like it hasn’t actually done the job…as it seems that legal systems have been put in place generally as an attempt at restraining this need for revenge that we have,” she said.
According to Fitness, the “arithmetic of revenge” is an escalation pattern in direct proportion with the harm perceived by the victim, more so than the actual harm created by the persecutor, and so without an avenue to have interpersonal harm acknowledged and redressed, vigilantism is a natural by-product.
One of Australia's top legal watchdogs, Steve Mark, agrees that the legal system and justice are at times diametrically opposed when dealing with the emotional needs of individuals.
Appointed to the position of NSW Legal Services Commissioner in 1994, Mark specialised in criminal, immigration and human rights law before taking on NSW’s top job, and is a frequent speaker about the need for our legal system to raise its emotional intelligence (EQ).
“What ‘justice’ means to me is what I feel I deserve… but that does not necessarily equate what will be available from the courts.
“The courts are arbiters of law, not of justice. The law may not be just… you may be able to get justice with a baseball bat, but it’s probably not lawful,” he said.
While Mark acknowledges that legal practitioners require pragmatism to focus on legal process rather than the emotional outcome-driven expectations of individuals, he is also critical of this dispassionate role.
“Justice in the courts, and the law generally, does not deal with emotions and it is perhaps its greatest failing,” Mark said.
Mark recognises that the legal system’s adversarial nature has to create a winning and a losing side.
“What I think we need in our legal system is the acknowledgement that it has to deal with the emotional and spiritual wounding of the individual, and while ever we cannot deal with those issues we will continue to have a dissatisfaction with the law, and the problem we have with that is that if people continue to be completely dissatisfied and disillusioned with the law, they tend to become lawless.
“We believe in justice, we’re taught to believe we grow up in a just society, and so when justice is not achieved, we believe we have to go off and fix it,” he said.
While our legal system may not be keeping up with our emotional needs, the internet has given rise to literally thousands of virtual resources all aimed at quelling our inner bunny-boiler.
http://www.thepayback.com/
http://burnoutrevenge.ea.com/
