Sunday, November 25, 2012

Retaliation is an Animal Instinct

The Goddess of wealth (metaphor for qualities that get you wealth), Lakshmi asks the devil of poverty (vices that lead to poverty) to stay outside the home until the latter mends her ways. In retaliation, the devil shouts at Goddess to "get out" when the Goddess is visiting, not realizing that she's the one who is losing. That summarizes retaliation. Retaliation is mindless - like all other sensual instincts, and can be worse than similar instinct stimulated crimes such as rape and rage.

Retaliation is a much bigger problem than it appears. Most of the crimes are indeed a result of retaliation. Unfortunately, it is not as cognizable by the current law as other crimes such as rape and rage. A spouse points out some serious shortcomings that need to be corrected by the other spouse. The latter, in retaliation, separates, breaches trust in as many ways as possible and does as much damage as legally possible under the law. The latter's retaliatory actions are not even cognizable under the "no-fault," accommodating law. A family is literally killed by these retaliatory actions and it is perfectly legal. We hear of police getting killed by criminals they arrest, purely in retaliation. Police did their duty, but there is no reason for the criminal to kill them other than for retaliation. Fortunately, this killing is cognizable by law, but not the killing of the unit of civilization that the family stands for.

The instinct to retaliate or serve tit for tat is only skin deep and animalistic. A deeper insight will reveal that the cause for the original action is no longer applicable at the time of retaliation, so an equivalent counter-action is not justified. Correct solution is to address the cause for the original action. If the cause is unjustified, address that one too, but do not retaliate by yielding to instincts without a deeper thought. The more the number of times these instincts show-up, the greater is the attachment to body and the happenings associated with it, the greater is the pain and the harder it becomes to self-control.