July 27, 2004
Sweet Revenge
Acts of personal vengeance reflect a biologically rooted sense of justice, geneticists say, that functions in the brain something like appetite. Payback Time: Why Revenge Tastes So Sweet [NYTimes.com]
Alternately voracious and manageable, it can inspire socially beneficial acts of retaliation and punishment as well as damaging ones. The emerging picture helps explain why many people who think they are above taking revenge find themselves doing nasty, despicable things, and how unconscious biases pervert what is at bottom a socially functional instinct.
This sounds more like sociology than science to me. But the truth is the same; revenge is an endorphin and, like all emotions, both serves a social function and can get carried away, beyond its usefulness. So F.U.R.B.
Posted by glenn
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