|
fucktoyprincess -> RE: Sadly, A Central Tenet Of Our Public Morality Is The Ethic Of Revenge (1/11/2013 5:56:26 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
quote:
ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
quote:
ORIGINAL: fucktoyprincess
So revenge would include things like someone beating someone up for having embarrassed them, or a father killing the person who murdered his child, etc. I don't see it as restricted in the way that you do.
I'd use similar examples to characterise 'revenge'. But an instant, outraged return of a punch with a punch of one's own? No, I'd say that fits with 'retaliation' - some primal drive that comes of anger which is there to preserve oneself (whether such anger and striking-back makes logical sense is another thing entirely, natch).
But revenge - no, I wouldn't call such a returned punch 'revenge'. I don't think the word 'revenge' is normally used in that way.
Even with your distinctions I still feel both of these things still come from primal urges. Just because something is spread over a longer temporal span does not mean it isn't primal. Primal has nothing to do with the instantaneousness of the response. Primal simply means essential; fundamental; relating to an early stage in evolutionary development; primeval. When people use the word "first" to describe primal they mean early on in origin, not "immediate reaction to a stimulus". Perhaps it the definition of primal that is actually at issue here.
Anyway, I stand by my statement that revenge in humans is primal and not taught.
I think that 'primal' does pretty much refer to the instanteousness of the response. If it's not primal, then it has to be something else - something that involves . . . time, ruminating about a harm done, recalling and replaying in one's head, frequently, thinking . . . lots of things, anyway, that most animals don't do. Or so I'd assume.
Whatever. If we all conclude that 'retaliation' is the same as 'revenge' - that, for instance, a dog biting my arm immediately after I've whacked it is the same as, for example, my hatching a plot over weeks, months or years after a man killing my sister, to kill him in return . . . then we need a new word for something that humans do that most (if not all) animals don't. And that would be a word that doesn't fit with 'primal' in anyone's use of that term.
Just as an aside - by 'primal', you don't mean 'necessarily good, and what humans should do', do you? It's just that if you do mean that, I shall either have to put up with a headache or stop talking to you here. [;)]
For example, sex is a primal urge. It doesn't mean every man just rapes a woman on the spot when he has a sexual urge. Sex in humans still involves time and effort on the part of men and women in all the activities that lead to sex - meeting, chatting, dating, etc. There is often a long time between the urge and the act. But sex still comes from primal urges. Again, I think your notion of primal and instantaneous response is not accurate.
And yes, primal does NOT always mean good. No scientist who studies behavior would ever use "primal" in that fashion. Primal just means urges that are deep rooted because they have been with the species since the beginning, so to speak. Violence is also primal. Doesn't mean I support every piece of violence that goes on in the world. In fact, it is rare that I can justify violence, even though it is absolutely primal. Much of civilization is actually designed to overcome the negative aspects of primal urges. Laws against murder, rape, and vigilantism are all laws designed to keep people in check from primal urges.
|
|
|
|
