People Who View Rational Vengeance as a Positive or Neutral Thing

[Thalassa]

It's definitely cultural. I realized this sounded exactly like my forum behavior in the past (and of course forum societies are a reflection of a person's most obvious traits, even if other traits are obscured due to lack of ability to read tone, facial expression, and so forth on-line):

Once a culture of honour exists in a society, its members find it difficult to make the transition to a culture of law; this requires that people become willing to back down and refuse to immediately retaliate, and from the viewpoint of the culture of honour, this tends to appear to be an unwise act reflecting weakness.

This culture of honour is also shared by people who live in inner cities (i.e. what people would call honor amongst thieves, we treat insiders with honor, and outsiders like crap)...and this may be something I also shared in common with my ESFJ ex who grew up in Las Vegas, and often frustrated me with what I saw as ridiculous references to his neighborhood, but that's all he had, in sharp contrast to me, who has a whole historical culture and extended family history to ramble on about. I was too young and immature at the time we were together to even acknowledge that I was culturally more privileged in some ways than he was, because I viewed him as being so informally well-educated since he had such an interesting cultural background, and also his mother was a real flesh and blood European, and his taste in art and film in particular reflected this sophistication, which he said separated him from his Las Vegas peers growing up.

If this is true, then I feel most comfortable or safest with men who share values of cultures of honor, since my ex believed in personal integrity and personal vengeance (in kind of a ridiculous extreme in his case, though) and gender roles...and even recently I dated someone from Virginia, and I already mentioned JTG's perception of personal vengeance of honor, and me later realizing that this may have had to do with traditional Japanese cultural influence on his morality.

It could also explain why I am attracted to people who will most likely cause drama for me and mine, since people who believe in personal vengeance tend to resist the law.

People from cultures of honor resist the law and see submitting to it as a sign of personal weakness.

This would be interpreted on MBTI forums as Fi, most likely.

Right? RIGHT?

 

[Thalassa]

Re: cultural component

You know, my whole city and several neighboring towns and cities shut down for an entire day to find one man who is suspected to have set off an explosion which killed 3 and injured almost 200.

And now he is in the hospital, in custody.

Some people are praying for him. Some people hope he dies. Some people want him to survive so he can give more information/so he has to answer for his crimes. Most people I've encountered are glad that it's over and that they can go outside again. I think they are just grateful that he is no longer able to cause more harm.

I don't hate him but I do wonder if he's a sociopath because I can even feel his charm in his pictures, my first impression of him was literally that he looked so sweet butter couldn't melt in his mouth, and they're calling him "sociable" "sweet" and "relaxed" in one Guardian article, and sociopaths are excessively calm due to unnaturally high serotonin levels (that "I'm a stress free kind of a guy" tweet monstrously on top of it all pretty much cinches it) and tend to be attractive and charming.

There's something that doesn't add up or make sense about this, and for some reason a part of me wants to see him more empathetically and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

I mean something about him seems absolutely lovely. An absolutely lovely person that injured 175 people and murdered 3.

 

[FDG]

Meh. Vengeance is typically more hassle than it's worth in my experience.

Pretty much what I'm thinking. I only see its point if the person is likely to harm someone else afterwards. But again, nothing says their behavior won't get worse as a result of vengeance.

 

[gromit]

I don't hate him but I do wonder if he's a sociopath because I can even feel his charm in his pictures, my first impression of him was literally that he looked so sweet butter couldn't melt in his mouth, and they're calling him "sociable" "sweet" and "relaxed" in one Guardian article, and sociopaths are excessively calm due to unnaturally high serotonin levels (that "I'm a stress free kind of a guy" tweet monstrously on top of it all pretty much cinches it) and tend to be attractive and charming.

There's something that doesn't add up or make sense about this, and for some reason a part of me wants to see him more empathetically and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

I mean something about him seems absolutely lovely. An absolutely lovely person that injured 175 people and murdered 3.

I brought that up because you asked about cultural patterns of vengeance and this was my observation of responses from people in one culture (Massachusetts/Boston) in the face of a tragedy in the community.

Cannot speak to sociopath/not, but I'm sure more info will come out in the trial.

 

[Lark]

I agree whole-heartedly with this statement. Especially when people interpret the word "forgiveness" to mean tolerating, accepting, or allowing something to go on.

No. You can forgive someone while stopping them from their destructive actions, or parting yourself physically from their company to protect yourself, or still disapproving of their choices.

Yeah, forgiveness is not permission or validation.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Way to generalize, Professor; actually the worst ranked public school in the nation is in Chicago. Outside of Arkansas, most appear to be in the Midwest, or in urban inner cities.

I already mentioned that there are troubled pockets, and that's what I had in mind. I still maintain what I said about the south east as a general region, or whole states.

But this is the even more important point; those really uneducated urban areas basically have an honor culture. Inner city culture, including gang culture, is more a less a kind of honor culture, in many cases actually anthropologically descendant of the American south. Some people have observed odd similarities between north, urban black culture and the southern rural culture. It's not a coincidence. It's because the vast majority of blacks were in the south east for a very long time, and during periods like the 1920s, mass migrations of blacks to northern cities like Chicago took place, and they took southern culture with them.

The broader point here, however, is that it's not race or region that's really at work here. It has more to do with poverty and development. Impoverished, undeveloped places, be they big are small, are more prone to honor culture.

I went to high school at a high school that is now recognized as an International Baccalaureate school. We had the best choral department in the county, and the year after I graduated, my favorite English teacher won best teacher for the entire state. Of North Carolina.

I have no delusions that I represent any kind of norm where I came from.

Though Texas has the worst healthcare in the nation, the Texas is this weird South-Western outlaw kind of state, it's not at all the genteel old South, and you can get excellent health care in West Virginia; much better than Nevada, for example.

Whether or not Texas is truly southern in the culture sense, would you say it does not have an honor culture of any sort?

Also, it's much easier to buy a house and own property as a poor person in West Virginia than as a middle-class person in Los Angeles or San Francisco, CA.

Well, yeah... you can also by a house dirt cheap in Michigan, if it's the right part of Michigan. There's usually an increase in expenses as you move toward the city. The thing is, a lot of times cities with the highest living standards also have the highest living expenses, like Copenhagen.

You seem to have an usual bias against the South, a rather skewed one at that. Sure the South has its bad points, but it also has its good points, and it's not your bastard excuse for everything you hate about the U.S.

The U.S. South is a scapegoat. Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't really know what to respond to here. I guess you're making accusations which may or may not be true, though I'm inclined to think they are not true.

Honor cultures are a little of both, actually. They have good and bad points just like other cultures.

Everything has pros and cons. Very little has a perfect balance of pros and cons. Things are not all equal.

Start here.

I'm not sure why you bothered to give me this link, but the ultimate point remains the same. Vengeance is perhaps functional in a society small and simple enough that you know who is who and who did what and there's no where to run or hide. No one in the USA lives in a society that small and simple, and your own defense of the advancedness of the south is an admission that they don't live in a society that small and simple.

 

[Thalassa]

But this is the even more important point; those really uneducated urban areas basically have an honor culture. Inner city culture, including gang culture, is more a less a kind of honor culture, in many cases actually anthropologically descendant of the American south. Some people have observed odd similarities between north, urban black culture and the southern rural culture. It's not a coincidence. It's because the vast majority of blacks were in the south east for a very long time, and during periods like the 1920s, mass migrations of blacks to northern cities like Chicago took place, and they took southern culture with them.

The broader point here, however, is that it's not race or region that's really at work here. It has more to do with poverty and development. Impoverished, undeveloped places, be they big are small, are more prone to honor culture.

That's only one theory, actually. Another theory is just that honor cultures are smaller groups of nomadic people, and they have no (and are resistant to) larger forms of authority or government. Urban inner city black honor culture is NOT identical to Southern honor culture, and a lot of parallels between the Southern Americans and Japanese are actually positive, not negative, including a genteel overall cultural respect for others within the culture, a sincere sense of politeness and duty to others, and a kind of mixed bag attitude toward women where they are highly respected but also overprotected.

I have no delusions that I represent any kind of norm where I came from.

Your nasty attitude (suggesting I'm delusional because I'm saying there are good schools that exist in the South, and bad schools elsewhere, there doesn't seem to be any uniformity in stats at all pointing exclusively to the South) is unwarranted.

My point is just that: there are good and bad schools in different regions of the country, and there are no way focused in the South, in fact North Carolina is known for its stellar universities, including Duke (medical), UNC-Ch (Liberal Arts) and NC School of the Arts (Fine Arts).

Whether or not Texas is truly southern in the culture sense, would you say it does not have an honor culture of any sort?

It does have some sort of honor culture. So does China. And they aren't quite the same, are they, son?

Well, yeah... you can also by a house dirt cheap in Michigan, if it's the right part of Michigan. There's usually an increase in expenses as you move toward the city. The thing is, a lot of times cities with the highest living standards also have the highest living expenses, like Copenhagen.

My point is that poverty and standards of living are relative. My family actually lived in close approximation to the capital city, and even in the capital city in WV, and guess what? It's still 85% more expensive to live in L.A. than Charleston.

You can have huge swaths of land in West Virginia for the price some people pay for condos in L.A. ...and have better air quality, more peace and quiet, and less traffic.

In some societies, land ownership is considered real wealth, no matter the "standard of living" of the place. Are there benefits to being in L.A.? Naturally. But there are also other forms of wealth and quality of life to be had in West Virginia. It's honestly pretty relative.

I don't really know what to respond to here. I guess you're making accusations which may or may not be true, though I'm inclined to think they are not true.

Of course you do. Because you are the biggest ideologically rigid Beta who could never even admit that the South might have some good qualities or has been unfairly demonized, because in your personal narrative and rhetoric all you can hear in your head is "racism and poverty."

Everything has pros and cons. Very little has a perfect balance of pros and cons. Things are not all equal.

Start here.

I'm not sure why you bothered to give me this link, but the ultimate point remains the same. Vengeance is perhaps functional in a society small and simple enough that you know who is who and who did what and there's no where to run or hide. No one in the USA lives in a society that small and simple, and your own defense of the advancedness of the south is an admission that they don't live in a society that small and simple.

Ugh, you said you don't know about honor cultures, and I was providing you with a link.

Also in my further readings last night, I concluded Gammas are harsher and more vengeful than some of the other personality groups, so it also is compounded by personality as well as culture.

 

[Entropic]

I think as a whole I'm quite vengeful as a person in an 8-sense due to fixation point and connection to 8. Revenge does occupy a major part of my thinking and trying to plan it out when I feel that I or people I care for have been slighted. When I was younger I used to support the death penalty and I was very much for eye-for-an-eye logic. I'm not anymore. I've grown and matured and I realize that no one deserves to die because we all have the right to life. I don't care if we talk about Saddam Hussein or Hitler, or whether you show 100 people suffering in my face. It is not sympathy or forgiveness, but a realization that we as humans are ultimately extremely flawed and the more flawed we are, the worse the results of our actions.

Do I believe that people should accept the consequences of their actions? Yes, I do. We have justice systems for a reason to ensure that people are judged fairly in front of the law which at least works great in theory although not always in practice. Justice is when people accept the consequences of their actions but that doesn't mean they too must personally suffer. Then we're on a slippery slope kind of reasoning as has already been pointed out.

Also, it is clear to me that enneagram superego types are putting a superego spin on both these concepts. I can't agree with that necessarily and I do think that we always get what we give. We might say that the bad person was left to live, but there are many ways human beings can suffer that aren't visible to the naked eye. Furthermore, life's not fair and life will never be fair. That's a lesson I learned very early on. All actions have consequences - so do revenge- and justice-strategies or lack thereof.

As for discussing honor culture, you guys should be really careful to not stereotype groups of people based on their social structure. I could go further into this but I rather not because I think it should be so evident, but would you be curious I'd happily point you towards post-colonial theory --> that way.

 

[EJCC]

As for discussing honor culture, you guys should be really careful to not stereotype groups of people based on their social structure. I could go further into this but I rather not because I think it should be so evident, but would you be curious I'd happily point you towards post-colonial theory --> that way.

!

Thanks for bringing it back to type, too. It doesn't surprise me much at all that the people with more "vengeful" tendencies on this thread so far are counterphobic Sixes and Eights, the ones who don't have it at all are the Fives, and that the ones who deny it/suppress it/don't have it, but have strong opinions on it, are Nines and Ones.

 

[Thalassa]

As for discussing honor culture, you guys should be really careful to not stereotype groups of people based on their social structure. I could go further into this but I rather not because I think it should be so evident, but would you be curious I'd happily point you towards post-colonial theory --> that way.

I understand your sentiment, but I also think completely disregarding cultural impact on values and personality is idiotic.

 

[Entropic]

!

Thanks for bringing it back to type, too. It doesn't surprise me much at all that the people with more "vengeful" tendencies on this thread so far are counterphobic Sixes and Eights, the ones who don't have it at all are the Fives, and that the ones who deny it/suppress it/don't have it, but have strong opinions on it, are Nines and Ones.

You're correct, although 6s could also suppress a need for justice or revenge just like 1s being a superego type. I wasn't personally aware that I'm vengeful and I didn't see myself as such either in any particular way until a friend of mine who is also into enneagram theory pointed out that the tritype I claimed to be which was 549 at the time just didn't seem to fit; I was clearly too revengeful. And I don't deny my tendencies (although some 1s who accept being wrathful can be as justice-seeking as an 8 is vengeful), I'm just not seeing it as something that makes me vengeful as a person. If someone told me straight out that I'm vengeful my immediate response to that would be something like WTF.

I still don't understand how I'm unconsciously revengeful for most of the part in the sense my friend detected in me but I share many characteristics of how 8s justify their vengeance telling myself they had it coming, they deserved it and so on. When I feel that way the knee-jerk reaction is also so immediate I just kind of stop thinking of anything else than how I am going to plan out my revenge. It's truly reactive in the actual sense of the word and I will enact on it if I can.

My primary concern tends to revolve around those people not being able to hurt those I care about including myself anymore in any way. Then I actually don't care about others and this is how I'd separate the revenge-strategies of 8 from other types because my concern is only those I immediately involve myself with. That's why 8s are selfish and their integration point is towards 2.

Not because I'm saying I'm an 8, but my revenge-think is definitely driven in an 8-way. I am not sure exactly if a 5, logically speaking, would even concern himself with revengel from an intellectual standpoint. You would argue that it's too much of an effort to bother and the fear of engulfment would in most cases make the 5 act against any such impulses despite connections to 7 and 8, both being id types which arguably makes enneatype 5 the least morally inhibited out of the types in the withdrawn triad.

No wonder us 5s with a strong connection to 8 and/or 8 fix are likened to Mr. Scrooge/the Gringe (probably exaggerated by sx first which just lacks the smoothness of so and the more lurking attitude of sp), and the superego influence we do have in terms of competence can make us seem arrogant because it's driven by the 7 and 8 logic that we are at some level inherently right. Not in a morally right sense, but in a narcissist and lust-like sense. I know I'm right because I "love" my knowledge and I know I'm right because I get what I want.

But yes, for 5s, I suspect at least that their revenge/justice-strategies probably highly depends on wing, other lines of connections and tritype fixations as a whole. I doubt a 59X type would be overly concerned about revenge or justice as concepts.

It should be noted that my 6 wing although clearly overshadowed by 4, is counterphobic. I doubt that plays much of a role in my overall psychological makeup in this sense though, since I don't feel much superego influence from 6, but it definitely makes me more reactive. I'm probably as close as you can get to a reactive 5. I'm very reactive for a 5, anyway.

 

[Entropic]

I understand your sentiment, but I also think completely disregarding cultural impact on values and personality is idiotic.

I understand this which is why I said that you should be careful discussing the subject so it doesn't deteriorate into something which wasn't intended. Personally though, I don't think culture or upbringing has played a large role in how I view and understand vengeance. My family is as a whole very laid back and so is Swedish culture. Swedes don't like to create open conflict, it's not a part of our cultural behavior.

When I'm in revenge-mode though, I won't really care. I just act on gut impulse and stop thinking. I think the fact that you consider the relevance of community and how it shapes people is in a way, very 6-like logic.

 

[Thalassa]

I understand this which is why I said that you should be careful discussing the subject so it doesn't deteriorate into something which wasn't intended.

Thank you, pastor, for your advice, but I think I've got that covered, including in another thread with an even more touchy cultural subject.

Personally though, I don't think culture or upbringing has played a large role in how I view and understand vengeance. My family is as a whole very laid back and so is Swedish culture. Swedes don't like to create open conflict, it's not a part of our cultural behavior.

Does not matter. You absorb culture, even if you don't adhere to it, it's a part of who you are, and I do think it affects enneagram probably more than MBTI type, which can be absolutely varied in any culture...the Fe of a culture is the Fe of that particular culture, in that way, it creates a huge values-centered impact. Same with Si and personal subjective internalized experience.

That doesn't mean, though, that Se or Fi would go completely untouched by it, it just means that the SFJs of any given culture are more likely to embody it, and even if you're an INTJ counterphobic 6 who acts against it...you're still acting against it.

When I'm in revenge-mode though, I won't really care. I just act on gut impulse and stop thinking. I think the fact that you consider the relevance of community and how it shapes people is in a way, very 6-like logic.

I'm a huge fan of sociology, yes.

 

[Lark]

There's so called hot and cold revenge the same as there's hot and cold aggression, ie reactive and proactive aggression, some people are more self-aware and self-controlled in all their behaviour, carefully considering how best to respond to others behaviour.

The various sorts of "revenge lore" are popularly known, ie "dish best served cold", "dig two graves" etc.

They all council anyone considering it to realise that the long game rather than reactive responses are best in the service of revenge also that it is one of those things which can become all consuming or stimulate obsession which can be self-defeating.

 

[cafe]

Vengeance appeals to me, but I generally do not indulge the impulse. I have too strong a sense of self-preservation. And it is against my religion, which I try to honor.

There was this one time when someone did something pretty terrible to me. I wanted to get them back. The only thing I actually did was, when invited to a party put on for their spouse, brought a card which I signed "May God bless you as you've blessed me." After that, I felt like it was in the right hands and I could let it go. I think that's the worst vengeful thing I've intentionally done as an adult, if you want to call that vengeful.

 

[Rasofy]

The concepts of 'desiring justice' and 'desiring revenge' are usually more interconnected than people like to believe. Latter denomination sounds less noble and more selfish in comparison, but the actual results aren't necessarily different - the only basic difference is the level of arbitrariness - justice makes it sounds like there's a collective consensus supporting the fairness of the punishment, while the fairness of the revenge varies wildly, as the emotional involvement with the situation can easily pervert the proper notion of justice.

Still, revenge done strictly right, should be indistinguishable from justice.

And justice is good.

I guess.

 

[Entropic]

The concepts of 'desiring justice' and 'desiring revenge' are usually more interconnected than people like to believe. Latter denomination sounds less noble and more selfish in comparison, but the actual results aren't necessarily different - the only basic difference is the level of arbitrariness - justice makes it sounds like there's a collective consensus supporting the fairness of the punishment, while the fairness of the revenge varies wildly, as the emotional involvement with the situation can easily pervert the proper notion of justice.

Still, revenge done strictly right, should be indistinguishable from justice.

And justice is good.

I guess.

Why must desiring revenge sound less noble?

 

[Coriolis]

Why must desiring revenge sound less noble?

It is not that it must, it just often does. Revenge is highly personal and subjective. Justice is more impersonal and objective. Obviously, one can be dressed up as the other, but that is the main distinction.

 

[Animal]

[MENTION=6877]Marmotini[/MENTION]

If you asked me a year ago I would have said "I'm not vengeful." Studying enneagram really forced me to think and observe myself. I tend to observe, absorb and percolate rather than "think." I think about my fantasy projects, and pragmatic things, and I emote, but I don't plan revenge or think about what someone else deserves. I'm just too damn selfish. If I'm angry enough, I'll just cut someone off, and I won't bother with them anymore unless they get in my way, and then I'll do what I must to stop them from daring to cross me again. However, from examining myself further, I do relate, more than I'd like to admit, to the type 8 idea of revenge on the whole world. I do have the type of mentality like "the world is not going to hand anything to me and most people are selfish, so if I don't take what I want for myself, I'll end up with nothing." I also observe my patterns in the past and it's completely unconscious, and I can only see it in retrospect, but I've done some strange things like, when a boyfriend who I thought was the love of my life took my virginity and then cheated on me, I left him, and then took other peoples' virginity and refused to commit to them. I conquered other men - quite openly and shamelessly, with no remorse or guilt - as a revenge on the world for ruining my idea of what love is, or for making me vulnerable and subject to such pain. It's unconscious; it happens through my actions. If I sat back and thought about what I was doing, I'd never act like such a jerk, because it really is not my intent, but it is just the way I get when I'm unhealthy. Hopefully studying enneagram and really having a good look at this stuff will help me to recognize these patterns before they happen, so I can stop being a slave to my own compulsions.

 

[Entropic]

It is not that it must, it just often does. Revenge is highly personal and subjective. Justice is more impersonal and objective. Obviously, one can be dressed up as the other, but that is the main distinction.

And why would any act be more impersonal and objective than the other if they essentially operate on the same principles?