Justice or revenge?

[Nintii]

Both words mean pretty much the same thing.

Except that revenge has an undertone of being more aggressive in it's approach

in making right the wrong.

 

In Afrikaans for instance there is the phrase, "Hy was dors vir wraak" ... "He was

thirsty for revenge".

This phrase carries a heavy undertone of determination to extract vengeance and

make the transgressor pay.

 

Justice on the other hand is more legal in it's approach and dispenses with the vulgarity

that the word revenge carries.

Even though the outcome of both might be the same.

[kvnchrist]

To identify justice or revenge as the only two possible choices to address what some see as “wrongs” identifies that one segment of society has successfully instilled onto other segments of society the belief (or perhaps the fear) in what is immoral, unethical and unjust to justify the enforcement of unrealistic, unfair and prejudicial laws in order to further their own interests.

Justice is an act of revenge performed in a manner that a segment of society finds acceptable and as a means to control and oppress another segment of society. Anyone who examines the morale and ethical guidelines that supposedly keep society from turning on itself realizes that the whole system is corrupted and one sided and has nothing to do with establishing a just, moral or ethical society, it is a means to punish and to control others by fear of punishment.

I think you are the only person who has said anything about the idea of justice or revenge as the only posible choices to address anything. I just wanted everyones veiws on what seperates the two. I thank you've already told me your ideas about that and I thank you for that, but the rest is more ideological than anything. That I welcome as well, but I'd like to know what you would put inplace of our judicial system to make it less coruptable.

 

Wealth and power are the two forces that have corupted everything in America as it has everywhere else in the world.

 

How can a legal system work that can't be corrupted, sense it is human beings that will run it and many aren't exactly immune to the sway of big money.

[Tidus44]

The original post identified two choices or alternatives – justice or revenge - and asked what separates them and what guidelines could be used to address wrong doings but not breach the morals and ethics set by society.

No other alternatives were identified, thus justice or revenge were the only choices as a means to address wrong doings within the limitations identified.

Justice is legal revenge, thus they are not separate issues, cannot be separated and are not alternatives society accepts as a means to achieve “justice”.

 

I do wonder though that on one hand the thought that justice and the concepts of morality and ethics in society are corrupt is viewed as ideological, but then on the other hand, that wealth and power have corrupted everything, everywhere in the world is an accepted fact. However, it is no surprise, as the wealthy and powerful were once held as something everyone should emulate, but within the life time of these inspirations they have become something to be reviled. Society is fickle and self destructive and generally stupid with a herd mentality.

 

The means to achieve a just, moral and ethical society are known and could be implemented, but only if there was a will to do so. Sadly there is no motivation to do so as most individuals are blind to what they may gain by being concerned only with what they might lose in the measurement of materialistic wealth.

Those who die with the most toys…. are dead anyway, so what did they win?

[kvnchrist]

The original post identified two choices or alternatives – justice or revenge - and asked what separates them and what guidelines could be used to address wrong doings but not breach the morals and ethics set by society.

No other alternatives were identified, thus justice or revenge were the only choices as a means to address wrong doings within the limitations identified.

 

 

The OP states "WHAT SEPERATES THESE TWO ISSUES?" that being justice and revenge. No other options where discussed because I was concentrating on these two alone.

 

I asked what guidlines to use to give free reign for someone else to expand further.. I never said these were the only options to use for guidelines.

If I was sugesting that would I not have used the term "these" as in "Which one of these can be used as a guideline?"

 

 

I do wonder though that on one hand the thought that justice and the concepts of morality and ethics in society are corrupt is viewed as ideological, but then on the other hand, that wealth and power have corrupted everything, everywhere in the world is an accepted fact. However, it is no surprise, as the wealthy and powerful were once held as something everyone should emulate, but within the life time of these inspirations they have become something to be reviled. Society is fickle and self destructive and generally stupid with a herd mentality.

 

 

 

Wealth does not in itself corrupt anything. It is the placing a pricetag on ones honor that does that. Politicains, judges and juries that bow to the dollar are the ones that are corrupt and it is they who work the system.

 

 

The means to achieve a just, moral and ethical society are known and could be implemented, but only if there was a will to do so. Sadly there is no motivation to do so as most individuals are blind to what they may gain by being concerned only with what they might lose in the measurement of materialistic wealth.

Those who die with the most toys…. are dead anyway, so what did they win?

 

 

Not all follow the pull of money and those that do need to be revealed by the media.

[Nintii]

Well Kvn after trying to make sense of what you're saying, I've reached the following conclusion;

 

Justice is far preferable than revenge ... take for instance the following scenario.

 

Two men were found to be guilty of rape and then murdering the victim, an enraged mob found their whereabouts

and hauled them into the street and their clothes were removed.

The first man was beaten to a pulp and his genitals are sawn off with a blunt instrument.

The second man was then also beaten and was about to be emasculated at which point the police arrived and rescued

him just in time.

 

At first I began to clap my hands when I heard this - as it is a true story - "Yay the bastards got there just reward, what

the hell do they think we are ?

That will teach them a lesson, I hope they catch more of them and treat them the same".

 

All my friends began jumping and saying the same thing ... and most people would feel this way as well because the

so-called justice system sometimes gives criminals a slap on the wrist and let's them go.

Because all the criminal needs is a good lawyer to sow "reasonable doubt" in many cases and away you go.

 

However, if people are free to take matters into their own hands and mete out their brand of justice/revenge then

civil society would crumble into ruin.

As much as I hate to say it, whether it be flawed or not, in the interests of maintaining order in society, WE HAVE TO

submit to the legal justice system.

 

What if you're falsely accused by a neighbour for something you didn't do or perhaps you drove into her postbox or your

dog messed on her lawn and you had an argument and now she wanted revenge ... in the mob scenario you could

be falsely accused of a multitude of heinous crimes which could result in your death.

Would anyone want to live in a society like that if that was legal ?

Obviously not.

 

So I choose justice, legal court authorised justice, flawed or not, because the revenge of the offended will always

carry an emotional, irrational sense of hurt and mete out an emotional justice and who knows what "penalty" that

will carry.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Nintii

[Syco21]

Justice seems to be a subjective word. Everyone has their own opinion of what it means. But it seems to me that most people can agree in most cases that justice is proving guilt before exacting punishment.

 

Revenge is exacting punishment before proving guilt. It's emotion based, whereas justice is evidence based. To say they are the same thing because they can sometimes have in the same end result is like saying that trains are the same thing as cars because both can get you from Austin to Houston.

[HeyYou]

Well Kvn after trying to make sense of what you're saying, I've reached the following conclusion;

 

Justice is far preferable than revenge ... take for instance the following scenario.

 

Two men were found to be guilty of rape and then murdering the victim, an enraged mob found their whereabouts

and hauled them into the street and their clothes were removed.

The first man was beaten to a pulp and his genitals are sawn off with a blunt instrument.

The second man was then also beaten and was about to be emasculated at which point the police arrived and rescued

him just in time.

 

At first I began to clap my hands when I heard this - as it is a true story - "Yay the bastards got there just reward, what

the hell do they think we are ?

That will teach them a lesson, I hope they catch more of them and treat them the same".

 

All my friends began jumping and saying the same thing ... and most people would feel this way as well because the

so-called justice system sometimes gives criminals a slap on the wrist and let's them go.

Because all the criminal needs is a good lawyer to sow "reasonable doubt" in many cases and away you go.

 

However, if people are free to take matters into their own hands and mete out their brand of justice/revenge then

civil society would crumble into ruin.

As much as I hate to say it, whether it be flawed or not, in the interests of maintaining order in society, WE HAVE TO

submit to the legal justice system.

 

What if you're falsely accused by a neighbour for something you didn't do or perhaps you drove into her postbox or your

dog messed on her lawn and you had an argument and now she wanted revenge ... in the mob scenario you could

be falsely accused of a multitude of heinous crimes which could result in your death.

Would anyone want to live in a society like that if that was legal ?

Obviously not.

 

So I choose justice, legal court authorised justice, flawed or not, because the revenge of the offended will always

carry an emotional, irrational sense of hurt and mete out an emotional justice and who knows what "penalty" that

will carry.

People are falsely accused in any event.

 

Just recently here (Michigan, USA), a man was accused of molesting a 4 year old girl, (not his daughter) by his ex-girlfriend, shortly after he broke up with her, to get back together with his wife. (and his own children.) At the time, the girl was then 5 years old. In an interview, she as much as stated "Mommy told me to say.....". But, as this paricular crime carried a mandatory 25 year sentence, if convicted..... and the prosecution succesfully suppressed the childs responses in the interviews, the man was forced to plead guilty to a lesser charge, to avoid a long prison term. (he got five years instead) And he was innocent.

 

Any system can be gamed. Here in the US, the criminals have more rights than the victims. The old 'innocent until proven guilty' no longer holds. Especially in crimes against children.

 

So far as I am concerned, the two rapists in your story got almost exactly what they deserved. In my view, they should not have survived it.

[Hyacathusarullistad]

Thread is pretty much a tl;dr one for me right now. But I'ma share my two cents anyway.

 

I think the primary difference between Justice and Revenge is in who enacts it. The victim of a crime, or those with an emotional involvement in it, cannot enact proper justice. Certainly not in the heat of the moment, when instinct and self preservation kick in. The vast majority of people just aren't capable of compartmentalising their emotions and their reasoning. Their revenge could be seen as justice from the outside, and may even be labelled as justifiable by the community, which is why we have such a thing as justifiable homicide. But the emotional involvement makes it revenge, plain and simple. That's why we have a system that in theory is unbiased, impartial, and emotionally distanced from the event in question, and can thus enforce a rational and reasoned response.

 

Now, the trouble is that many crimes - such as rape, murder, or crimes involving children - instill an emotional reaction in pretty much every member of a community. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't find the act of having sex with a child, for example, repugnant. We're hard wired to react negatively to such things, either through generations of societal conditioning or just base animal instinct - take your pick, the result is the same. Finding a judge and complete jury who aren't going to go into a child molestation case feeling on edge about the subject matter just isn't possible. So while the "justice" system is in fact the body examining the event and passing sentence of the accused, whether the sentence is true justice or base revenge is impossible to actually say for certain.

[HeyYou]

Thread is pretty much a tl;dr one for me right now. But I'ma share my two cents anyway.

 

I think the primary difference between Justice and Revenge is in who enacts it. The victim of a crime, or those with an emotional involvement in it, cannot enact proper justice. Certainly not in the heat of the moment, when instinct and self preservation kick in. The vast majority of people just aren't capable of compartmentalising their emotions and their reasoning. Their revenge could be seen as justice from the outside, and may even be labelled as justifiable by the community, which is why we have such a thing as justifiable homicide. But the emotional involvement makes it revenge, plain and simple. That's why we have a system that in theory is unbiased, impartial, and emotionally distanced from the event in question, and can thus enforce a rational and reasoned response.

 

Now, the trouble is that many crimes - such as rape, murder, or crimes involving children - instill an emotional reaction in pretty much every member of a community. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't find the act of having sex with a child, for example, repugnant. We're hard wired to react negatively to such things, either through generations of societal conditioning or just base animal instinct - take your pick, the result is the same. Finding a judge and complete jury who aren't going to go into a child molestation case feeling on edge about the subject matter just isn't possible. So while the "justice" system is in fact the body examining the event and passing sentence of the accused, whether the sentence is true justice or base revenge is impossible to actually say for certain.

I agree. Justice, and revenge are simply two sides of the same coin. The ONLY difference being who is performing the act.

[Hyacathusarullistad]

Not an entirely accurate summary of what I was saying, but it's close. It feels incomplete to me, though.

 

Prison and police custody are as much for the safety of the accused as it is for that of the public, or for the sake of punishment. What the System decides to do with an accused, even if they find them guilty, doesn't always meet what those who are emotionally invested in the case would want. A judge could decide that a murderer gets life in prison instead of the death penalty, because he's "sorry". And let's say he truly does regret what he did. Many would say that putting him in prison for 25-30 years, without the possibility for parole, is Justice. But the victim's spouse, parents, etc. certainly aren't likely to agree, and they could very well want him to be put to death. And sometimes they may take matters into their own hands after the System has "failed" them.

 

The opposite can also be the case, albeit not often. Say the aforementioned murderer was the victim's brother, and he's sentenced to death for his crime. But the family may very well want to avoid losing both of them, and try to have the sentence reduced. If they're unsuccessful, which can in fact happen - let's say the judge on the matter is a hard right, tough-on-crime kind of guy - then the System has exceeded the expectations of the emotionally invested. Which was achieved here then, and by whom: Justice or Revenge?