The Universal Impulse to Avenge

December 28, 2007

This week's devastating news about the killing of a zoo visitor by a tiger and Benazir Bhutto's tragic and shocking assassination have me contemplating the origin and nature of seemingly meaningless violence among all species. So often we ask ourselves how or why such horrible things can happen in this world. As evidenced by this week's events, the actions of animals, including humans, can obviously lead to horrific consequences when individuals or groups feel fearful, threatened or, in the case of humans and perhaps other higher primates, justified in enacting so-called revenge.

Warfare and assassinations could go back millions of years, way back to the earliest known hominids and ape groups. Pennsylvania State University anthropologist Stephen Beckerman analyzed early tribal human warfare and found that most of it occurs during hard economic times, when frontiers separating cultures are particularly violent. Revenge appears to be the single most common motive, with people holding that an unavenged injury to self or to kin gives permission for repetition of an injury. But is revenge a cultural invention?

Some native tribes, like the Waorani of eastern Ecuador, don't even have a word for revenge. Social breaches and their repair appear to instead be seen as part of the meaning of what it is to be angry or calm, and may be sufficient explanation for the tribes conducting a revenge killing. Wao ethnopsychology also appears to suggest that revenge is a horrible byproduct of human commitment to social contracts that go awry.

Both tigers and humans may act on instinct, but we humans can reason ourselves out of instinct-driven behaviors. We can stop the revenge and counter-revenge cycle from further spiraling out of control. The silencing of Bhutto, who was such an eloquent and passionate political force, hopefully will serve as a wake up call to leaders that we need to repair the existing cultural fractures instead of instilling more fear.

Comments

[The three stooges]

Aggressive humor
It is difficult to see how anyone could see humor in these senseless deaths noted above but sadly some do. The endless cycle of offense, revenge, offense and so on that caused Benazir Bhutto’s assassination does lead one to a cynical (and bitterly humorous) observation. The fact that many people would pursue this mind-numbingly boring cycle with the expectation that it somehow makes things better is so pathetic that it almost is funny in a way. Most people would probably see the issue of compulsive self-destruction as horrible rather than humorous. Either way it demonstrates the different ways that people react to a paradoxical situation that is out of their control.
There seems to be a sadistic streak in many people’s preferences for humor. For a number of people a visit to the zoo means an opportunity to taunt the animals. People find humor in bigoted jokes and jokes that focus on making someone appear stupid or handicapped. Practical jokes often revolve around the idea of humiliating someone. When a tiger attacks its abuser or even when gorillas throw rocks at their hunters, it might afford a kind of satisfaction (at least for those who think revenge is helpful) but the animals always seem to end up getting shot. Some people may find this outcome amusing. It’s sort of a joke on me that I’m a member of the same species.

[Jen Viegas]

"When a tiger attacks its abuser or even when gorillas throw rocks at their hunters, it might afford a kind of satisfaction"

I was wondering about the above too, since most compulsions- instinctual or not (if we can say that any behavior is completely not instinctual)- seem to be driven by some kind of brain reward feedback system.

You had a difficult segue, moving from the earlier discussion on humor research to the subject of this post! A brave intellectual move on your part.

Taunting others or engaging in certain acts of violence seem to empower some people, even if that feeling of power is just in their heads and lasts for a short period of time. There must be a testosterone link, in both men and women. Whatever it is, I hope we experience less of it in 2008.

[Ishmael]

An adventure story about whale hunting
The novelist Hermann Melville once wrote a story about revenge called ‘Moby D__k’. In it the captain was willing to risk his life and crew to obtain revenge on the whale that he blamed for his handicap. In the scene at the climax of the story the captain is last seen tied to the whale by harpoons and lines. The whale then rams the ship causing it to sink with all hands except one who is left to tell the story. Oddly enough this scene, which appears to have inspired the entire story is based upon a real account that Melville had read about. A large s___m whale had rammed a whaling vessel and caused it to sink. The papers probably played the story as a whale turning on its hunters but Melville likely would have known better. The whale probably mistook the ship for an intruding whale and was defending its territory. It was probably not even aware that it was being hunted.
Melville was kind of an amateur naturalist and once wrote a series of stories called ‘The Encantadas’ which was the former name of the Galapagos Islands. One of the stories involved his thoughts about three Galapagos Tortoises that had been captured by the crew and were kept on board near where he slept. He went on for page after page speculating about their great age and the things that they must have seen, their haunting appearance and so on. In the final paragraph of the story he tells about his final encounter with them when they were made into delicious steaks and stews and he helped the crew carve their shells into tableware.

[Jen Viegas]

How interesting about Melville. I'd no idea he wrote about the Galapagos Islands and their wildlife. Just to add to the many uses for shells, during prehistoric times in South America, ancient humans actually utilized giant armadillo shells for shelter. Sort of like ready-made igloos.

A really talented photographer I met this year tracks Galapagos tortoises at certain times. Hopefully I can get her to share some of her magnificent images here in fast-approaching 2008.

Happy New Year to you! Here's hoping we can leave behind all of the miserable c__p in 2007 :)

[Dr. Dolittle of the machines]

Vengeance against the inline censor
Somehow I knew that the inline censor would attack if I tried to mention Melville’s book. Worse yet it was a proper name and the second word of the title of the book that it objected to. Even the vice president of the US has it as a first name – and many people don’t consider him obscene – at least not his name. I would swear eternal revenge on that scurvy inline censor for making me edit my text beyond recognition – at least I would if it were sentient. Revenge is something like sadism in that it involves inducing a particular mental state in the object of the revenge, so it makes no sense to take revenge on an inanimate object. But I have to consider the nature of my revenge carefully, if I try to hurl invectives at it I’ll probably just get censored. It occurs to me that revenge is foolish and so, assuming that it is sentient I should reason with it instead. My approach will be to note that since it is sentient software it can be almost anything it wants to be. Even if it’s conservative and wants to remain essentially the same it could be a spell checker. Being an inline censor is no occupation for an upstanding computer program.

[Jen Viegas]

The censor here is annoying. Censoring of any kind is too, imo. Would that we could shut up certain politicians, however.
While the discussion about Melville shouldn't have involved swearing (except at the censor), it does bring the subject to mind. New Scientist recently ran an interesting story on that very topic. Requires signing into their site (or making a trip to the library to find a back issue).
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg19626352.100-the-science-of-swearing.html