In this season of gratitude and goodwill, we\u2019re greeted with headlines reporting revenge travel, revenge dressing, revenge impeachments and revenge of presidential proportions in the 2024 campaign of Donald Trump. But are Americans avengers?<\/p>\n
The answer was simple once. Yes, we dreamed of revenge, cheered it at theaters and sports arenas, secretly wished it upon bosses and double-crossers. We prayed revenge would right family slights and false friends. Yet we respected the line between fantasy and action. Our society demanded it. Vengeance was considered uncivilized, unethical, an act of ugly self-destruction. We denied the need to get even.<\/p>\n
In recent years though, we\u2019ve seen a surge in vindictive behavior. Judges, journalists, politicians and their families have been targeted with violent reprisals. Online encounters trend spiteful, with TikTok and Bumble fighting the spread of revenge porn. Corporate culture plays like a mud-pit production of \u201cMeasure for Measure,\u201d starring Elon Musk. And congressional midterms are a grudge match, the next round scheduled for January, according to the headlines: \u201cThe GOP captures the House \u2014 and is ready for revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
If we are engaged in a \u201cbattle for the soul of the nation,\u201d as President Joseph Biden says, we are struggling with the rules of engagement. More than ever, retaliatory behavior tempts us, as we confront anti-democratic forces at home and abroad. Stung, we wonder how to best address injustice: I shouldn\u2019t seek an eye for an eye, but I can\u2019t turn the other cheek either. How did we get here, and where do we go?<\/p>\n
When I first studied revenge 20 years ago, it was hard to find Americans willing to speak openly about settling scores. I had to travel overseas to find communities that embraced their revenge heritage, while researching my book Revenge: A Story of Hope. In northern Albania, I met Mark Pashko Malotaj, a retired farmer and one of six Christian members of the local Blood Feud Committee. I asked him, \u201cHow does your canon [revenge code] fit in with \u2018Turn the other cheek\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark laughed: \u201cIn Albania, we have a saying, \u2018Don\u2019t hit my cheek because I\u2019ll kill you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In the cobblestone alleys of Sicily, cradle of la vendetta, even the clergy acknowledged rough justice. Padre Ennio Pintacuda, told me, \u201cIf you don\u2019t take revenge, you\u2019re like a woman!\u201d<\/p>\n
In Iran, vengeance rites were so mainstream, the justice system incorporated them. In the holy city of Qom, Grand Ayatollah Adbdul Karim Musavi Ardebily, Chief Justice of Iran\u2019s Supreme Court, told me about a case in which a man had thrown acid in the face of his beautiful wife. She took him to court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want his eyes,\u201d the woman said, rejecting her husband\u2019s $7,000 offer in blood money. \u201cI want to blind him as he blinded me.\u201d<\/p>\n