Posted on 07/09/2025 8:50:56 PM PDT by P.O.E.
We don’t usually think of anger and resentment the way we think about drugs or alcohol. But growing evidence suggests that, for many people, the craving for revenge follows the same patterns as substance abuse and addiction, triggering powerful biological urges that can spiral out of control and destroy lives.
Recent neuroscience discoveries show that your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs. Real or imagined grievances (perceived mistreatment, humiliation, shame, victimization) activate the anterior insula — part of the brain’s “pain network.”
In response, your brain activates its reward circuitry, causing dopamine to flood your brain, producing short-lived bursts of pleasure.
(snip)
But an even more powerful revenge addiction strategy exists inside our brains — forgiveness.
Recent neuroscience studies show that when you simply imagine forgiving a grievance, your brain’s pain, craving, and reward circuitry shut down and your self-control circuitry activates. In other words, forgiveness takes away the pain of past trauma, eliminates revenge cravings, and restores smart decision-making.
James Kimmel, Jr. says that forgiveness acts as “an even more powerful revenge addiction strategy.
It’s not a gift to the person who hurt you — it’s a gift to yourself.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
An interesting take on the motivations behind many of the news stories we see everyday.
I especially like his take on forgiveness.
James not Jimmy, I presume.
I think forgiveness means reconciliation. You agree to work together and be together, but you won’t forget, either.
What I think one can do is “letting go.” You don’t have true reconciliation and won’t renew your relationship, but you agree to let God work it out and you agree to yourself you won’t initiate hostilities toward this person who wronged you.
Sometimes you can most “hurt” someone by simply not being there to help, where you once could have been there.
Sometimes bad people need to hit rock bottom. You don’t have to fix everyone around you.
“Why it’s time to start treating revenge as the potentially deadly addiction that it is”
If they’re against Third World immigration, why don’t they just say so?
pUT cOMEY AND PRISON-FACE bRENNAN IN gAOL, AND THEN GIVE THEM LIP-SERVICE FORGIVENESS.
The scales of justice only present for those with the resources to use them.
I find it decidedly convenient that this manipulating sob - self-described ‘armchair expert’ - omits any mention of justice whatsoever from his rant.
I will have mine: It’s a moral imperative.
Justice has certainly been skewed over the past few decades.
Good Points
Nice Catch !
At least I hope it’s a different James Kimmel and not that obnoxious libtard late night host.
So if revenge is a vice like smoking, drinking, and gambling, which the government regulates and taxes, hiw soon before I can pay my sin tax and pick up a pack of Revenge?
I thought it was an interesting to look at revenge from a neurological perspective.
Does this have anything to with the rape and prostitution gangs (groomers) in the UK and soy daddies not able to do anything about what happens to their daughters?
Please don’t give them any ideas on new things to tax :)
From one perspective, I agree.
But it’s grossly incomplete and manipulative.
Gaslighting.
I couldn’t agree more. For many years I craved revenge against one particular individual and it took learning of something truly terrible that had happened to him to break it, something that I wouldn’t wish on anyone and left me terrified. I can say from first-hand experience that craving revenge is utterly poisonous to your soul.
“Seek revenge and you should dig two graves, one for yourself.”—Confucius
They are not being deterred by the government systems, conversely simply speaking out about it is punished.
The greatest revenge is outliving your adversary.
Maybe it's just me, but I see it as psyops.
"Revenge" has been in the news lately when the LAAP-dog media frames the Trump administration investigations into Biden's autopen abuses and the Comey/Brenner/Clapper investigations.
The entire Democrat mantra of "looking forward" is a deflection that essentially says what I've been calling the "kick me" syndrome -- Democrats get to throw the first sucker punch at Republicans, but if the Republicans dare to retaliate, it's revenge, or whataboutism, or escalation.
This sentiment codifies the Democrats' self-given right to a first strike, while demanding that Republicans be powerless to stop it or respond in kind.
-PJ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.