Forgiveness/letting go or justice/revenge? What's better?

Post Reply New Topic

Having been the victim of some pretty rotten stuff over the years, here's my 2 cents.

There is always a desire for revenge. We can call it justice, and certainly, you will always feel conflicted about "forgiving" someone who will only go on to hurt others if nobody stands against him/her, but any desire to make the bad person pay is rooted in a desire for vengeance.

The problem is that you forgive others/let go for the purpose of YOUR healing. By forgiving and forgetting the transgressions of others, you refuse to let the pain become your master. When you crave justice/revenge, you feed your anger and focus on your pain. If your oppressor is talented at evading punishment, he only continues to hurt you by your own hand.

I, for one, endorse vigilante justice wholeheartedly. I have enough experience to know the legal system, by and large, DOES NOT punish wrongdoers or end the reign of many clever criminals. People who are criminally minded are skilled at knowing where the boundaries of the legal system extend and are careful never to give a prosecutor enough material to build a case against them.

I've yet to take matters into my own hands. The most I did of late (last 10 years) is file a detailed complaint against the other person with several state and federal authorities. Probably caused him some serious headaches, but in the end, the officials ultimately ruled that he did nothing patently wrong but that it was clear something had happened. If I had well-documented every transgression he made against me when they happened, I might have built a better case, but ultimately, that's how he got away with it....innocent until proven guilty.

Ironic since I lost my job because he threatened to file false complaints against me and my boss let me go in an effort to protect me from the fallout of those complaints.

Forgiveness

An eye of an eye only leads to the whole world being blind.
Its better to forgive & let go as it saves you carrying a heavy backpack on your back for the rest of your life.

Justice involves a number of different facets, none of which can stand alone as a substitute for the others:

1) Punishment -- At root, criminal behaviour is an offence against public order, and the imposition of punishment is a manifestation of public repudiation of misconduct. To avoid punishment is to make a mockery of the other aspects of justice--but to be exempted from punishment may better serve other aspects in particular circumstances. Not the different voice--"avoid" is active, implying the offender is the active agent in avoiding punishment, whereas "to be exempted" is passive, implying that a different authority has made the decision.

2) Restitution -- When criminal behaviour results in a loss to a victim, the restoration of the victims to the positions that they would have been in but for the criminal conduct is a desirable (if often unattainable) state. Here, perhaps, is where we fail the most. We have offerred up the notion that conviction and punishment give "closure" to victims of crime. We determine that offenders will forfeit the proceeds of their crimes, but we will go no farther to see that victims are restored. Is it any wonder that when the criminal justice system leaves victims out to dry with nothing to hope for but conviction and punishment that victims are angry when those things fail?

3) Specific Deterrence -- The criminal justice system should work to dissuade an individual from committing crime when the opportunity or perceived necessity presents itself.

4) General Deterrence -- The criminal justice system should work to dissuade the population in general from committing crime.

5) Rehabilitation -- The criminal justice system should work to mitigate against the likelihood of recidivism.

Every element of the criminal justice system: crime prevention; detection; investigation; prosecution; trial; punishment; interim release; victims' services; etc. should be evaluated within the sphere of all of these lenses.

So, when we speak of "foregiveness/letting go" and "justice/revenge" as our two options, I think we have it wrong. Revenge has no place in the criminal justice system at all, and justice should not be seen as mutually exclusive with forgiveness.

When you are the person to whom harm was done, you find it better for yourself if you can seriously forgive and let go, than if you have a need for justice / revenge. The problem with the later is that it is often hollow.

And, well, there really is this kind of cosmic karma in this universe. Somewhere down the line I often learn that horrible person X had horrible thing Z happen to them, and through that I've ended up with this sense that what a person spreads around, truly does come back around. No need for me to go down to their level to make justice or revenge happen; it just, does.

Even better was the time I had to rescue the only firm to ever fire me from it's horribly foolish mistake. Oh that was sweet. When I got assigned to that project, I didn't tell anyone the history, and neither did they. They were told I was the one who could fix it, they accepted that, and I did fix it. But I know they remembered exactly who I was, and when they had to admit I'd been brilliant, and they were forever in my debt, well, that kind of made my year

About the word "justice" - it's a funny word. When it's prefixed with something, ie, "restorative justice" or "social justice", it implies a type of goodness, but when you say it in the sense of "bring them to justice", you are referring to a legal sort of revenge.

People can feel sorry for what they've done without being forgiven.

In general, I don't think it's the place of anyone other than the victim to forgive. That makes it pretty hard to forgive a murderer.

Here Jesus Christ's take on it:
1. Don't get revenge but rather be kind to the one who hurt you(Matthew chapter 3, verses 38-42)
2. Don't count the times that you forgive someone(Matthew chapter 18, verse 22)(in other words don't stop forgiving the people that wrong you)