Revenge, natural?

[user_1919]

Yesterday in English our teacher asked us if we think revenge is a natural emotion. I tend to believe it is not natural, and it does not exist when you take away all your cultural values and beliefs. It only exists in our society because we have money going around, the illness that just about everyone has caught. Also when you remove just about everything every human has been taught, you will see that we are all alike, and that everyone individual personality is only a construct of how they have been brought up and what culture they have lived in. When you see animal's that get killed in the wild. If a mother is killed and there children are there, it's not like they say "where going to get those fuckers and kill them". They try to protect what they have at the moment. It is just a battle of our human ego's...

So I was wondering your thoughts about this, natural or unnatural?

 

[VerusDeus]

Well I think revenge is unnatural and indeed a product of our ego's. I personally do not believe in revenge, because I believe in Karma.

But there's a movie going around on the net... it's footage of a little buffalo being hunt down by lions. The lions try to eat her, and all of a sudden there are two crocodiles also trying to get the buffalo. And then suddenly a huge flock of buffalo's comes to the little buffalo's rescue. And the lions get their asses whooped big time. So revenge does occur in nature, and without money being involved.

But personally I think this movie is just a strange exception.

Peace.

 

[user_1919]

I have seen that little clip before. How can you classify that as revenge? It is just one big battle for food and to stay alive. The lions are hunting the buffalo because they need food to stay alive, not because the buffalo killed one of there fellow lions. The buffalo fight back because they don't want to die, and they know the only way they can win is if they come together to defeat the buffalo. Also the crocodiles attack the buffalo because they too are proabably hungry, and need food. They are not attacking the buffalo because the buffalo as a act of revenge.

PEACE

 

[Meduzz]

I personally do not believe in revenge, because I believe in Karma.

Karma IS revenge in a universal way

But there's a movie going around on the net... it's footage of a little buffalo being hunt down by lions. The lions try to eat her, and all of a sudden there are two crocodiles also trying to get the buffalo. And then suddenly a huge flock of buffalo's comes to the little buffalo's rescue. And the lions get their asses whooped big time. So revenge does occur in nature, and without money being involved.

That doesn't really sound like revenge for me, because they did it to protect the child, which is a common natural instinct.

Revenge in a human way is in some way useful because we won't harm each other so easily if we know there is going to be revenge...
Also by taking revenge you become feared and more respected, which used to be crucial for survival once.

 

[Forkbender]

Karma means work, nothing more nothing less.

Work has consequences.

Revenge is not an emotion, anger is. Revenge is a rational step to harm the person that you are angry with.

I don't think money is the problem, user_1919, because money has no inherent evil-ness, nor is it a disease. The disease has nothing to do with money, not even with the way money is used. This is just a symptom.

 

[Guest]

why should human emotions be unnatural, if we come from nature ? why do we always have to picture us as a being always separate from the universe ? you cannot study the bird if you don't study also its habitat, food habits, mating, etc...

edit: better yet: when did we lost that connection ? what was the point in the evolution that we became unnatural, mutants of living things, and magically still capable of the psychedelic experience, and, according to some, full of hope and positive things on the inside ?
what have we dug out here ?

 

[Soulcatcher]

hey daytripper
i agree with you that we are making a mistake in excluding ourselves from nature. We are just some monkeys that can make fire and spread all over the world (which is also natural.. any animal species would do it if it could). Humans build city's, so do ants and bees. And yes they also have wars.
You can even go as far as saying that synthetics are also natural. A plant is also a chemist and can make substances, so do we. We are just out of balance, but it will be restored sooner or later (extinction or adaptation).. thats completely natural.

edit: so yes i think revenge is also natural.

 

[????????]

Revenge is natural indeed, in the way daytripper and soulcatcher explained; we are natural after all, aren't we?

But this can not go without saying that all the others are right too

Ethologists, the science guys that study animal behaviour, classified the social behaviours observed in animals according to this table:

Type of behaviour······Effect on the donor·····Effect on the receiver
··························································································
······Egoistic················Increases fitness·········Decreases fitness
····Cooperative············Increases fitness··········Increases fitness
······Altruistic···············Decreases fitness·········Increases fitness
·····Revengeful············Decreases fitness·········Decreases fitness

Altruistic behaviour it's when one sacrifices oneself for the benefit of another. It's been observed normally in animals by the way. (some examples)

It's commonly claimed that the revengeful type has only been observed in humans. It's unnatural in the way that we are the only ones doing it :x

and the buffaloes were protecting their offspring, nothing revengeful in that.

 

[user_1919]

I'm not trying to aruge and make anyone upset, but I tend to disagree. Everything we have created in this world, I would not call 'natural'. Everything has came from natural resourses, but somehow has been transformed into something that it was not. Even anger I do not believe to be a natural emotion. I don't believe any of these emotions to be natural. They only corraspond to what we do in your day to day basis is our culture. Anger is developed through many different ways which people act. When something make's someone angry, they then are developing this own emotion for themselves. Someone may not get angry at something some else would get very angry about. It is all about your cultural conditioning. The different way you have been brought up makes you act and respond to a situation differently. If it was natural, wouldn't it make sense that we will all respond to it the same way? Eating is something natural. We need it, we all do it, and if we don't, we die. Angry is not natural, some people get angry at the littlest things, were some people don't get angry at anything. Angry is primarily what leads to revenge.

I believe the only things that tend 'natural' are the things we all do the same. Things that we have to do that is embedded into our human flesh. Everything we have developed through our time on this plant is nothing but an illusion. This is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me, so then maybe I can see what I do not see.

PEACE

 

[Guest]

so all your line of thought is an illusion ? most humans cannot think in linear terms.
is tar unnatural ? bridges ? skyscrapers ?
or is it the natural projection of human thought ? if you think like that, you are a purist, and the only way that it will be perfect is with naked people dancing around the fire, not thinking and behaving like the rest of the animals. we have this thing that defines us from the rest of the animals, and even from the rest of the mammals: it is called making plans, thinking, racionalism, abstract questioning, you name it. if we don't do those things, aren't we escaping our nature ?
you only belive that natural things is the things that we all do. now, imagine that you lived in a war devastated country. for you, natural was eating everything that you could come up, perhaps even human flesh torn apart by artillery. don't compare what we do in europe with what people in Chade are doing now, and Kenia, Sudan....we don't think the same; we don't eat the same; and so on. there is nothing such a "normal", or "average" person, everyone has some kind of problems, and no one is perfect. now you are thinking: "i talked about cultural conditioning and if it was natural, everybody would do the same". i would agree with you if we were robots, we are not. we have been designed to adapt. that is what capable beings do, they born always the same so they can adapt and survive in the most shitty worst-case-scenario. that's the natural part - everybody has to adapt, that's why you are not seeing common things in everyone.
we have been born from the universe, not from your mother's womb or this ridiculous and worthless culture we grab so much for nothing. all of this has been born from the same universe, regenerating itself countless times, and if you see the problem from this overview, you will see the true size of "natural" things is.
or do you really think that you have such a powerful mind that you can make an unnatural thing ?
just like when you raise a pet from baby, you can perfectly know what to expect and what he/she is thinking, you cannot "make" anything...the universe is our master for no-one knows how long, and even if cientists say 15 billion years, tomorrow they will say that they made wrong calculations, and point another date. you cannot "suprise" the universe. you do natural things and that's it, you will have to stuff your ego happy with it.
animals get angry. people get angry. revenge is just another way of being angry and planning ahead. if another animals cannot plan, how can you expect they to avenge ? that's like making some shoes to a snake.[/u]

 

[Jahvisions]

I believe revenge is a natural reaction to persons that have hurted you but the thing that separates us from animals is that we can make choices because we can think of the consequences so we can have some selve control. Although when I look to some people it proves that we act a lot by instinct and not by thinking things over. Cause emotion can change your believes for a moment.

 

[Soulcatcher]

Thinking of consequences is done by other animals too. It's hard to know what goes on in a creatures mind, but obviously a lot of them are able do it actively.

I can think of a lot of examples, but one that comes closest to human logic is the behaviour of ravens. In the scientific america of april 2007 there is an article about raven intelligence. They can perform complex actions to get food (some monkeys can too) where a lot of counter-intuitive logic is required. They watch other ravens hiding their food and raid it when they are not around. But they also behave differently with other raven around when hiding their food and remember who saw them hide it (they also make a distinction between other ravens and humans).

 

[random]

I mostly agree with daytripper.

After all. every single thing that exists has a root. Has "a something" that comes from. So, everything IS. Natural.

 

[buffachino]

The ego is the necessary transcendent step in the evolution of humanity.
The nature of the ego is an intrinsic quality of all life. The chrysalis.
It is simply the resonance of ones contraction. The memory of that which one clings to for reference. The container of our soul, and the filter of our experience of it.

Revenge, and any other human emotion, no matter where on your spectrum of ethical conduct, is the manifestation of the egos fears and desires.
These are just as much artificial as they are natural and more so they define the experience of oneself.

Karma is balance; the ego compensates for ones karma.

Yet, revenge in itself, as a manifestation of humanity, is also linked directly to our now exploitative cultural doctrine. This in effect emphasises natural egoistic traits in order to drive the agenda of personal gratification at the expense of all else.

So it is not wether a spectrum of emotive expression is shared throughout nature, but rather how nature utilises these expressions in order to balance, grow and survive.

So wether or not one considers it natural is of no consequence; the individual is the sole arbiter of their expression. Emotion can be chosen in both interpretation and expression.

So we are all correct, yet are attempting to hardline our interpretations of our shared nature.

We cannot in essence create anything; we can only realize our ability to embody creation itself.

Peace.

 

[silv]

Revenge is natural indeed, in the way daytripper and soulcatcher explained; we are natural after all, aren't we?

But this can not go without saying that all the others are right too

Ethologists, the science guys that study animal behaviour, classified the social behaviours observed in animals according to this table:

Type of behaviour······Effect on the donor·····Effect on the receiver
··························································································
······Egoistic················Increases fitness·········Decreases fitness
····Cooperative············Increases fitness··········Increases fitness
······Altruistic···············Decreases fitness·········Increases fitness
·····Revengeful············Decreases fitness·········Decreases fitness

Altruistic behaviour it's when one sacrifices oneself for the benefit of another. It's been observed normally in animals by the way. (some examples)

It's commonly claimed that the revengeful type has only been observed in humans. It's unnatural in the way that we are the only ones doing it :x

and the buffaloes were protecting their offspring, nothing revengeful in that.

I wonder though, what is it that makes only the homo sapiens species an un-natural type of animal while no other animal is un-natural?

 

[Forkbender]

I'm not trying to aruge and make anyone upset, but I tend to disagree. Everything we have created in this world, I would not call 'natural'. Everything has came from natural resourses, but somehow has been transformed into something that it was not. Even anger I do not believe to be a natural emotion. I don't believe any of these emotions to be natural. They only corraspond to what we do in your day to day basis is our culture. Anger is developed through many different ways which people act. When something make's someone angry, they then are developing this own emotion for themselves. Someone may not get angry at something some else would get very angry about. It is all about your cultural conditioning. The different way you have been brought up makes you act and respond to a situation differently. If it was natural, wouldn't it make sense that we will all respond to it the same way? Eating is something natural. We need it, we all do it, and if we don't, we die. Angry is not natural, some people get angry at the littlest things, were some people don't get angry at anything. Angry is primarily what leads to revenge.

I believe the only things that tend 'natural' are the things we all do the same. Things that we have to do that is embedded into our human flesh. Everything we have developed through our time on this plant is nothing but an illusion. This is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me, so then maybe I can see what I do not see.

PEACE

Anger is natural. Why don't you go bother some bears to find this out. :wink:

 

[BrainEater]

i find it also hard to distinguish between unnatural and natural...in the end all has its source in the natural?? or unnatural?? anyway i think emotions are natural..though what maybe might seem "unnatural" is the way humans deal with their and especially others' emotions. but if you'd define well-being, empathy and love as natural i'd agree in it that many humans are unnatural.

PEACE!

 

[random]

Natural doesn't mean right. Aswell as wrong. It means both! It means everything.

And there's no such notion like Unnatural. That doesn't exist.

 

[BrainEater]

yeah that's true...
i mean consider natural things like rocks or plants and see how they are created or how they develop in various stage... like rocks getting grinded by water and other rocks and becoming sand. i mean the process is similar or maybe analogue or maybe well not too different .. if you know what i mean ... from maybe the creations of humans. it's just a different process that the stuff is undergoing. it's just different, but therefore not unnatural, but maybe the word natural needs a clearer definition if you'd use it in this context. maybe if you consider things created by everything but humans natural and things created by humans unnatural then this word is applicable in this sense.


but well still.... in nature it just happens and when humans do something it depends on planning, rationalizing and (too) egoistic goals. mmh well.... but then you'd never know if it was planned by nature too, maybe by a higher intelligence engulfing all of existence.

yeah also i think the plane of judgement is highly (over?) developed in human consciousness. constantly weighing up alternatives and values of decisions for the goals of the individual or the group is one of the main objectives of the mind. so yeah it kind of sucks saying things are right and wrong or bringing natural in connection with right or wrong only...

PEACE! :weedman:

 

[random]

yeah also i think the plane of judgement is highly (over?) developed in human consciousness. constantly weighing up alternatives and values of decisions for the goals of the individual or the group is one of the main objectives of the mind. so yeah it kind of sucks saying things are right and wrong or bringing natural in connection with right or wrong only...

Our minds tend to judge things in oposites. Right-wrong, gay-straight, natural-unnatural, smart-stupid, the list goes on. And we forget, ALL those things, they just are.

Language itself, as we developed though time, became not only for what it is, a higher communication between human beings, but while we are digging more and more our hole, language becomes more and more used to judge things. I mean, there are much people that use language for communicating information, argue, etc.. But the masses (from what (almost) everything depends) use them that way, more and more.

So what I think is that our Mistake was playing too much with notions like right and wrong, and forget that before we judge them (as right or wrong), they just Are. Like we. We just Are, no more and no less. Everything you think about you and your actions, you are judging yourself.
And I can say that Judge, (after just Is) is a mistake.