Can Payback and Justice be Interchangeable?

When we feel we've been wronged and seeing red, it can seem that getting revenge for what's happened to us is justified. Even if we would normally advise others to choose the virtuous road of forgiveness, there's something unique about experiencing betrayal that makes us feel that our situation is different, therefore warranting vengeance.

Popular culture gives us countless examples of protagonists getting their special brand of payback. (Payback with Mel Gibson is a personal favorite of mine. So many one-liners!) It's such a rush to see people get their karma handed to them in a tangible way that The Punisher logo has become one of the most recognizable symbols of our time.

Let's break them down and contrast payback and justice. Spoiler alert: They're quite a bit different.

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1. Payback is, by nature, personal; justice is impersonal and impartial.

The driving force behind payback is to get even, to carry out a private vendetta, or to achieve what might be described as personal justice. If successful, the one perceiving themself as gravely injured experiences considerable gratification: their retaliatory goal has been achieved. The other side vanquished or brought to its knees. Just or not, the avenger feels justified. Their quest for payback has “re-empowered” them and from their biased viewpoint, it’s something they’re fully entitled to.

On the other hand, justice is impersonal. It revolves around moral correction in situations where specific ethical and vital principles have been violated. When justice is successfully doled out, the particular retribution benefits or protects the individual and society.

2. Payback is an act of vindictiveness. Justice is an act of vindication.

The intense effort to avenge oneself or others can quickly become corrupting, morally reducing the avenger’s status to that of the perpetrator. Two wrongs do not make a right and never can. Even if a kind of justice might be served through an act of revenge, it could still be argued that there’s nothing particularly admirable in retaliating against a wrong by committing a “like” wrong. Or to behave vengefully is to take the low road to justice.

Opposingly, justice is grounded in assumptions, conventions, and doctrines concerning honor, fairness, and virtue. Its purpose isn’t vindictive. Bloodlust has no part in codes of justice. It’s based on established law, and its proceedings are designed to deliver to individuals precisely what is deserved: nothing more, nothing less.

3. Payback is predominantly emotional. Justice is primarily rational.

Payback is mostly about “acting out” negative emotions. At its worst, it expresses an overwhelming desire for bloodshed. As perverse as it may seem, there’s an actual pleasure experienced in causing others to suffer for the hurt they’ve caused the avenger or self-perceived victim, however sadistic.

As logically, legally, and ethically defined, justice isn’t about “getting even” or experiencing spiteful joy in retaliation. Instead, it’s about righting a wrong that most members of society would agree is morally culpable. The presumably unbiased moral rightness of such justice is based on cultural or community standards of fairness and equity. Whereas revenge has a certain selfish quality, justice is selfless in that it relies on non-self-interested, established law.

4. Payback is about cycles. Justice is about closure.

Payback has a way of relentlessly repeating itself and ever more maliciously. It typically begets more retribution. Unlike tic-tac-toe, tit for tat is a game without end. One side gets satisfaction, the other is driven to get its satisfaction, and then, perpetually. There can be no resolution, no compromise. Each faction (ie. Israel and Palestine) has its agenda and its own sense of right and wrong. And the rigid righteousness of each side usually demands that some trusted outsider intervene if matters are ever to be settled.

Justice, in contrast, is designed to offer a resolution far more likely to end in closure. And when justice is done, so is the conflict that led to it. So-called “vigilante justice” isn’t really justice at all, though at times it may appear to be. Taking matters into one’s own hands may sometimes seem justified, but it hardly meets the more rigorous criteria of community justice.

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

The motive of revenge has mostly to do with expressing rage, hatred, or spite. It’s a protest or payback, and its foremost intent is to harm. In and of itself, it’s not primarily about justice but about victims affirming their inborn (but non-legal) right to retaliate against some wrong done to them. And because it’s so impassioned, it’s typically disproportionate to the original injury. The punishment may fit the crime, but it’s often an exaggerated response to another’s perceived offense.

Justice is concerned with dispassionately restoring balance by bringing about equity. Not driven by emotion, restorative justice handed out by a court of law seeks to be as objective and evenhanded as possible. It’s not, as revenge is, about doing the other side “one better” but about equitably, or adequately, punishing wrongdoing.

I attended church with a woman who had lost her grown daughter to a drunk driving accident a few decades earlier. The impaired man who hit her that night was convicted of vehicular homicide and sent to prison. Though experiencing great personal anguish, she embraced her charge as a Christian to forgive him. "It didn't happen overnight." she regaled, "It was a daily, continuous and intentional decision not to allow my feelings over what happened to my daughter to affect my ability to bring others to Christ.". She would write and visit him throughout his incarceration. I asked her if she felt she'd make the same decision again, given the chance. She replied, "I had peace after putting down my hatred. I'd never change that."

This isn't a blog about forgiveness, though I believe it's the spirit I want to end with. The desire for justice rather than payback must be guided by a moral compass that cannot only come from reason. Search your motivation when the situation arises and ask yourself: Is there virtue in your response?