Comments on: The Vengeful Animal http://blog.khudari.net/2007/11/03/the-vengeful-animal/ things that interest me Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:35:01 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Dan Weinreb http://blog.khudari.net/2007/11/03/the-vengeful-animal/#comment-11232 Dan Weinreb Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:04:36 +0000 http://khudari.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/the-vengeful-animal/#comment-11232 I think other primates also exhibit revenge behavior. E.g. see "Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), by Frans B. M. de Waal. And there is behavior among orang-outans that has been interpreted as laughter by some researchers. I would guess that our ancestors were "better off" with revenge than without it, in the sense of "evolutionary success". And I'm not sure it's such a bad thing even in modern life. Knowing that someone else is vengeful can deter misbehavior before it happens, thus encouraging everybody to be nice to everybody else. What you have to avoid is endless cycles of revenge. Have you ever read (about) the Eddas, the great epic Old Norse poems? Apparently, they can be interpreted as an argument for zoning laws! :) That is, their ultimate message is that we're all just going to keep fighting one another forever until we figure out how to agree on who owns what land. (This is from a review in The New Republic.) I think other primates also exhibit revenge behavior. E.g. see “Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), by Frans B. M. de Waal. And there is behavior among orang-outans that has been interpreted as laughter by some researchers.

I would guess that our ancestors were “better off” with revenge than without it, in the sense of “evolutionary success”. And I’m not sure it’s such a bad thing even in modern life. Knowing that someone else is vengeful can deter misbehavior before it happens, thus encouraging everybody to be nice to everybody else.

What you have to avoid is endless cycles of revenge. Have you ever read (about) the Eddas, the great epic Old Norse poems? Apparently, they can be interpreted as an argument for zoning laws! :) That is, their ultimate message is that we’re all just going to keep fighting one another forever until we figure out how to agree on who owns what land. (This is from a review in The New Republic.)

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