Don't Confuse Revenge With Justice: Five Key Differences

Revenge can masquerade as justice, but it frequently ends up perverting it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201402/don-t-confuse-revenge-justice-five-key-differences

The terms revenge and justice often get muddled. And that’s hardly surprising. In the course of history, the two have been frequently used interchangeably. You may even be familiar with the phrase “just revenge.” Still, as meanings alter and evolve over time, the connotations of these two words have increasingly diverged. It’s now uncommon to see them used synonymously. And doubtless, revenge has borne the brunt of the various semantic changes that have transpired.

Yet certain overlaps between—and ambiguities within—the two terms do exist. Before delineating the chief distinctions that can usefully be made to separate them, let me at least hint at what some of these inconsistencies might be.

1. Revenge is predominantly emotional; justice primarily rational.

2. Revenge is, by nature, personal; justice is impersonal, impartial, and both a social and legal phenomenon.

3. Revenge is an act of vindictiveness; justice, of vindication.

4. Revenge is about cycles; justice is about closure.

5. Revenge is about retaliation; justice is about restoring balance.


In order to promote mental health, I'm posting this to keep our sanity, not to cause it. Some will surely disagree with me, but here it is anyway.

worth while read.