In some situations I think definitely.
Where someone has knowingly harmed you without good reason (e.g. for their own personal pleasure) I don’t have a problem with it if you really need it, provided innocent people aren’t hurt in the process (don’t go after their family).
Many of the arguments I see involve the idea that people do bad things because they have been exposed to that themselves. I don’t disagree, this can sometimes be the case and I’ve met and can feel sorry for people like this.
However I’ve also met people who enjoy hurting others because they can, or because people like them for it. Sometimes the big bully in school isn’t the guy who was abused by his parents, but the spoiled kid who has learnt to enjoy tormenting people, or the friend you knew in the past who turns on you to impress a girl. Maybe this doesn’t feel fair or right, but this is the truth some of us have to accept.
I see a lot of, imo stupi* (based on their arguments) people on the internet who are against revenge, and I say that because their reasoning is usually:
1. “it makes you as bad as them”
2. “its bad for society”
3. “revenge helps no one”
“It makes you as bad as them”
No it doesn’t. this is what I find so ridiculous - there’s a major difference between hurting an innocent person for a laugh/for popularity/to distract yourself from another problem, and hurting somebody who hurt you to provide a deterrent/to try to remove the pain they caused.
“its bad for society”
First of its great to see the compassion for somebody who may have been badly hurt here. Now I understand seeking revenge over someone forgetting your name, rejecting your advances, is bad - but notice neither of these events fit my definition above so I don’t consider it a good reason for revenge anyway, I’m talking about situations where someone has been badly hurt for no reason.
Sure, breaking the law isn’t helpful to society, however I don’t think anybody can really say they are being hurt by someone else retaliating against a cruel crime, if society has not given them sufficient justice the who are we to stand in their way?
Society is not perfect. I’ve been hurt by people who knew and enjoyed what they were doing, I sought help and nobody stopped these people from doing it to others, nobody really punished them for what they did, and nobody helped me when I badly needed it, and from what I can see society continues to fail people in the same way. I don’t want anybody to live with the feeling of powerlessness that I’ve had to, and if you try to stop people from freeing themselves from this because you personally find violence abhorrent or because you don’t like people breaking laws, then maybe you should stop people hurting innocents in the first place.
“Revenge helps no one and makes no one feel better”
this one comes presumably from not having a personal taste for revenge. Some people just have a strong aversion to hurting anybody (nothing wrong with that) whereas others enjoy it under certain circumstances, or are so hurt affected by what happened to them that they lose that aversion.
Personally I’ve enjoyed it, it made me feel better. Maybe you don’t share that taste but you’ve got no right to tell us it won’t help us when in some cases it really will.
Is revenge healthy? Not always, obviously obsessing over it is going to hurt you while not having any effect on them. Focusing your energy on someone else rather than being happy isn’t good either.
But I think no longer feeling powerless over a situation, knowing that if a similar thing happened again you can fight back is a good feeling, and I don’t begrudge people for taking it.
