Justice Versus Revenge

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1. Choosing Compassion It’s easy to decide on compassion as long as the conversation is theoretical, often much more difficult when we are actually wronged. The common response is the thirst for revenge, often dressed up as the desire for justice, with all the associated negative thoughts and feelings. But we believe that if we can cause suffering […]...
2. Depression Versus Anxiety Depression and Anxiety Are Incompatible States We’ve heard many people complain about having depression and anxiety at the same time but that’s impossible because the states are fundamentally incompatible with one another. In the existential sense, to inhabit one precludes the possibility of inhabiting the other. Where depression is blunted affect anxiety is heightened affect. […]...
3. Eye For An Eye “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” -Gandhi When we think of justice what we usually think of is balance, that the perpetrator should have the same punishment inflicted onto him as he inflicted onto the world. Things haven’t changed that much since Hammurabi coded his laws. From a psychological point of […]...
4. Racism We’ve never really been content with the definition of racism as power plus prejudice. It’s a social justice trope that explains the how of racism at a macro level without ever explaining the why. Plus how do we define power? In terms of the power plus prejudice paradigm what seems to be meant is the […]...
5. Trying to Convert People to Your Faith Do you really think that a God of infinite love and wisdom would be so petty and cruel as to deny entrance to the kingdom of heaven based on a person having different religious views? The absurdity of this idea strikes us as a sign of arrested intellectual and emotional development. If we must entertain […]...
6. Love And Hate “Psychoanalytic investigation has shown that in mental patients excessive affection often turns to violent hostility.” – Karl Abraham How often have you heard of couples who started out passionately hating each other only to fall madly in love? And how many divorcees, once madly in love, now hate each other with a violent passion? How […]...
7. Forgiving Wrongdoing When we feel that we’ve been wronged the instinct is to seek revenge, to punish the perpetrator for that wrongdoing. But of course we don’t usually call our revenge fantasies revenge, we call them justice. More often than not those white hot revenge fantasies cool off and turn into slow burning resentment and hostility, which we carry […]...
8. Communism And Narcissism Everyone is a communist. The only real question is how far out their primary narcissism allows them to draw the lines of communal inclusion. Within those lines communism flourishes, outside of those lines their consciously held ideologies flourish. We could say that primary narcissism at its most pronounced sees members of the immediate nuclear family […]...
9. Trying To Punish Others By Making Them Feel Guilty When kids feel wronged or like their needs aren’t being recognized by parents or other authority figures they will often secretly fantasize about getting revenge by dying in tragic circumstances, imagining with glee the burden of guilt these people would have to carry around, distraught and mourning at their funeral. They think to themselves “That […]...
10. Acceptance Most people are familiar with the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. From our existential point of view the paradigm could be whittled down to the duality of non-acceptance and acceptance. Grief is a kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Denial, anger, bargaining, and depression are only a small […]...
11. Psychology Of Seeking Revenge Seeking revenge appears to be about righting a past wrong but it’s actually about mitigating a present hurt. Although the events happened back then those hurt feelings are still very much alive right now. And so from the psychological point of view while revenge is almost always consciously rationalized as simple justice, as giving the offending […]...
12. Id Versus Super Ego For Freud the Id was the representative of all the instinctive, elemental forces of human nature. Their satisfaction made the individual happy but at the expense of those around him, because these drives and motivations were supposed to be destructive. It was the job of the Super Ego, which represented the conglomeration of instilled norms, […]...
13. Narcissism Versus Love Narcissism makes a suspicious distinction between Self and Other. Anything considered the same as Self must be good while anything considered different from Self must be bad. The lines of narcissism can of course be drawn closer or further out in different individuals, and in this sense narcissism runs on a continuum, but the important […]...
14. Depression Versus Grief Depression and grief are both total responses to a given life situation. To use a poker analogy, we could say that whether you’re depressed or you’re grieving you’re all in. And the two syndromes have many symptoms that overlap, symptoms like despair, hopelessness, guilt, diminished interest in activities that used to seem pleasurable, inability to […]...
15. Narcissism Versus Depression Narcissism and depression as syndromes both keep people from accessing their authentic Selves because the syndromes include self-appraisals that are out of touch with reality, though these self-appraisals lie at polar ends from each other. With narcissism the self-appraisal is inflated. Narcissists fashion an idealized self-image that is almost godlike, omnipotent, where traits and abilities […]...
16. Growth Versus Deterioration One of Freud’s greatest contributions to psychology came at the tail end of his career when he opposed the life instinct to the death instinct, positing that at the unconscious level these competing forces vie for supremacy within the individual. Not surprisingly, his prognosis was pessimistic. He decided the death instinct is more powerful than […]...
17. Rationalization Versus Denial Rationalization is the preferred strategy to continue with maladaptive thought and behavior patterns in the face of mounting evidence that these patterns are leading to negative consequences in interpersonal relationships, work, and life. Of course denial is usually central too. And in a sense rationalization is denial. The difference is that denial flat out says […]...
18. Eccentricity Versus Insanity The line between eccentricity and insanity might be razor thin but from our existential point of view it’s monumentally important. The two states are fundamentally different. Where eccentricity is desirable and should be encouraged insanity is decidedly undesirable and should be treated. Actually any deviations from ‘normal’ are usually called eccentric. Those who deviate often […]...
19. Science Versus Religion Bitter enmity exists between many in the scientific and religious communities and the two sides believe that ultimately they cannot coexist. The most vocal proponents of science are quite condescending and contemptuous of religious views they see as archaic and as products of illiterate shepherds. What I find fascinating as a psychologist is that for […]...
20. Isolation Versus Solitude Isolation and solitude both imply being alone but that is where the similarities end. They are opposite states in every other important way. Solitude is usually actively sought after and is a personal choice that comes from an inner yearning. Isolation is usually actively avoided and is forced from the outside. Solitude allows for expansion […]...