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Video Archives - "Revenge and the Art of Justice" (2011)

12-04-2014

Thursday, April 7, 2011: “Revenge and the Art of Justice”

Participants:

Roger Berkowitz - Associate Professor of Political Studies and Human Rights; Academic Director, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, Bard College.

Roger Berkowitz gave a talk at Haverford College in April 2011. Focusing in on the conceptual relationship between revenge and justice, Berkowitz begins his talk with the story of the Massie trial, a 1932 criminal case which drew national attention. Thomas Massie’s wife was gang-raped by five men who were released by a hung jury in a Hawaiian court. After the trial, Massie conspired with his mother-in-law to kidnap and torture one of the rapists, who died during his violent interrogation. Clarence Darrow himself traveled to Hawaii to defend Massie from the subsequent charges brought against him. Darrow, in the course of his defense, makes two claims about revenge: first, though illegal, it can be just; and second, it is sourced in our animal nature and as such is a fundamental part of human life itself.

Berkowitz’s talk aims to identify something important in the former claim but demur on the latter. Revenge, says Berkowitz, can in fact teach us something about justice that is often repressed, but as far as being a natural force, Berkowitz would rather argue that the occasional justice of revenge is not rooted in nature but rather derives ultimately from an artistic act of justice; revenge appears just, in other words, because it strikes as beautiful and thus fitting. What the inquiry into revenge reveals is that justice has both an aesthetic and a moral foundation.

[caption id="attachment_14926" align="alignleft" width="300"]achilles A artistic depiction of Achilles' rage (Source: Harris Greenwell)[/caption]

To expand upon this point, Berkowitz visits German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s reading of The Iliad, in which revenge has a double-sense. It is an animalistic and natural power, but is at the same time the power of human freedom. Wrath is what unites heroes, including the famous warrior Achilles, with their true selves. Rage, eliminating all inner doubts, propels the hero to risk everything to right what is wrong. “Vengeance lends to rage the ennobling patina of justice” by linking anger and human will to produce a beautiful act. “If we think of punishment as just because it is rationally justified, and divine punishment as just without any justification,” says Berkowitz, “revenge exists in the liminal space between them.” It is a claim made by a human to be like God, to punish justly but also to act beyond rational justification. It is dangerous, in this sense, because it risks monstrousness. Yet when it works, it is heroic. This is how justice becomes more of an art than a natural law. Not everyone has the right to revenge because revenge is only just when it is beautiful, that is, when it is done well.

Moving on from this classical definition of revenge, Berkowitz identifies two modern examples of revenge that, in contrast to the Massie case, appear to most people as examples of justice. The first is the literary example of Edmond Dantes as the Count of Monte Cristo (in the eponymous Dumas novel). Dantes, having escaped from prison and having found an immense treasure, seeks to exact revenge on his former tormentors. In the hashish-smoking scene, Berkowitz notes, we get the clearest example of how Dantes’ decision to enact revenge on his own rather than go through the courts becomes an artistic act. “Reality must follow dreams, and then the dream will rule” is uttered in a haze—the dream of justice held by Dantes must be imposed on the world. Berkowitz is explicit in his belief that justice is in fact a dream. It is an idea—what Nietzsche called a “holy lie.”

[caption id="attachment_14927" align="alignright" width="300"]eichmann Adolf Eichmann in box during his trial (Source: Jewish Currents)[/caption]

The second example is that of Arendt’s critique of the Eichmann trial. The Israeli court decided to punish Eichmann as merely another criminal under the law without recognizing the singular evil of Eichmann’s actions. Arendt wanted the court to have dared to judge beyond the law, saying to Eichmann that he must die for no other reason than that we refuse to share the Earth with you.

In the end, Berkowitz argues that acts of revenge that are also acts of justice become political through their ability to bring people together around a common sense of the need that justice be done and that it be seen to be done. Justice, Berkowitz reminds us of the common maxim, must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. In order for reality to follow the dream of justice, the beauty of revenge must be confirmed in many eyes.

This talk feels especially poignant in lieu of events surrounding the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Analysis by Dan Perlman

(Featured Image: Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - "Ulysses' revenge on Penelope's suitors"; Source: Commons Wikimedia)

For additional reading on Arendt and the theme of revenge, please refer to these articles written by Roger Berkowitz:

You can view the entirety of Roger Berkowitz's talk below:

Roger Berkowitz - Revenge and the Art of Justice from Hannah Arendt Center on Vimeo.