Wikipedia defines revenge: “Revenge (also vengeance, retribution, or vendetta amongst others) consists primarily of retaliation against a person or group in response to a perceived wrongdoing. Although many aspects of revenge resemble or echo the concept of justice, revenge usually has a more injurious than harmonious goal. The goal of revenge usually consists of forcing the perceived wrongdoer to suffer the same pain that was originally inflicted.”
During my many years of psychotherapeutic practice; I have occasionally met someone who cannot move beyond the wish to cause pain to the person they see as having ‘rejected’ them. Intelligent people who normally have access to logic and can change their minds when shown new facts are unable to move from the sense of pain at the rejection. They realize that hurting the presumed injurer will not take away their hurt but confess it will make them feel better. They can accept, in theory, that the offender may have had to put boundaries on the relationship for their own needs, to avoid stress, and that they may have had no intent to injure but simply to save self. However, they may still not be able to move beyond their own sense of rejection....
From a blogger who writes as The Last Psychiatrist : “Narcissistic injuries have nothing to do with sadness. They are always and only about rage. The narcissist says, "I exist." A narcissistic injury is you showing him that he does not exist in your life”….” Nor am I suggesting this isn't "treatable"-- anyone can change. It may not be easy, but it is always possible. And I also do not mean to imply that all narcissists will kill everyone who injures them. The point is rage. They may never act on it, or they may break a window, or attempt suicide, etc.”
This also is contained in the notion of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth from the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was King of Babylon, 1792-1750BC. The code survives today in the Akkadian language. Used in the Bible, Matthew 5:38 (King James Version): It may seem odd that some people behave in this way today since these sources are archaic. However, if one examines the behavior closely, it is a response to a narcissistic injury in someone who would not fit the DSM-V criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. I do not mean to write a psychological treatise on this subject here but would welcome responses from people who may have thoughts on their own or someone else’s behavior that fits this profile.
The passage from self-absorption to altruistic joy can be a short trip or a trip that never happens. Daniel Goleman, a psychologist asks the question, “Why aren’t we all good Samaritans?” It is our empathy that separates us from being sociopaths. There is zero correlation between empathy and those who are able to turn that part of ourselves off. More worrisome are those for whom pity is never turned on.
These, though they believe the logic that the other party may have had no intent to injure, that they will be no less ‘rejected’ after inflicting pain they may even entertain it will only reinforce the decision of the person who inflicted the initial separation that the cut off was a necessary one ,
Thus, it is my belief that Bush allowed himself to go to war with
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