Payback

Payback PDF Author: Thane Rosenbaum
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226726614
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
We call it justice—the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the incarceration of corrupt politicians or financiers like Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff, and the climactic slaying of cinema-screen villains by superheroes. But could we not also call it revenge? We are told that revenge is uncivilized and immoral, an impulse that individuals and societies should actively repress and replace with the order and codes of courtroom justice. What, if anything, distinguishes punishment at the hands of the government from a victim’s individual desire for retribution? Are vengeance and justice really so very different? No, answers legal scholar and novelist Thane Rosenbaum in Payback: The Case for Revenge—revenge is, in fact, indistinguishable from justice. Revenge, Rosenbaum argues, is not the problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly healthy emotion. Instead, the problem is the inadequacy of lawful outlets through which to express it. He mounts a case for legal systems to punish the guilty commensurate with their crimes as part of a societal moral duty to satisfy the needs of victims to feel avenged. Indeed, the legal system would better serve the public if it gave victims the sense that vengeance was being done on their behalf. Drawing on a wide range of support, from recent studies in behavioral psychology and neuroeconomics, to stories of vengeance and justice denied, to revenge practices from around the world, to the way in which revenge tales have permeated popular culture—including Hamlet, The Godfather, and Braveheart—Rosenbaum demonstrates that vengeance needs to be more openly and honestly discussed and lawfully practiced. Fiercely argued and highly engaging, Payback is a provocative and eye-opening cultural tour of revenge and its rewards—from Shakespeare to The Sopranos. It liberates revenge from its social stigma and proves that vengeance is indeed ours, a perfectly human and acceptable response to moral injury. Rosenbaum deftly persuades us to reconsider a misunderstood subject and, along the way, reinvigorates the debate on the shape of justice in the modern world.

Payback

Payback PDF Author: Thane Rosenbaum
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226726614
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
We call it justice—the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the incarceration of corrupt politicians or financiers like Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff, and the climactic slaying of cinema-screen villains by superheroes. But could we not also call it revenge? We are told that revenge is uncivilized and immoral, an impulse that individuals and societies should actively repress and replace with the order and codes of courtroom justice. What, if anything, distinguishes punishment at the hands of the government from a victim’s individual desire for retribution? Are vengeance and justice really so very different? No, answers legal scholar and novelist Thane Rosenbaum in Payback: The Case for Revenge—revenge is, in fact, indistinguishable from justice. Revenge, Rosenbaum argues, is not the problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly healthy emotion. Instead, the problem is the inadequacy of lawful outlets through which to express it. He mounts a case for legal systems to punish the guilty commensurate with their crimes as part of a societal moral duty to satisfy the needs of victims to feel avenged. Indeed, the legal system would better serve the public if it gave victims the sense that vengeance was being done on their behalf. Drawing on a wide range of support, from recent studies in behavioral psychology and neuroeconomics, to stories of vengeance and justice denied, to revenge practices from around the world, to the way in which revenge tales have permeated popular culture—including Hamlet, The Godfather, and Braveheart—Rosenbaum demonstrates that vengeance needs to be more openly and honestly discussed and lawfully practiced. Fiercely argued and highly engaging, Payback is a provocative and eye-opening cultural tour of revenge and its rewards—from Shakespeare to The Sopranos. It liberates revenge from its social stigma and proves that vengeance is indeed ours, a perfectly human and acceptable response to moral injury. Rosenbaum deftly persuades us to reconsider a misunderstood subject and, along the way, reinvigorates the debate on the shape of justice in the modern world.

Vengeance of the Victim

Vengeance of the Victim PDF Author: Marilyn Schneider
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816615136
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Vengeance of the Victim was first published in 1986. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. More profoundly than any documentary record, the collected fiction of Giorgio Bassani—Il Romanzo di Ferrara — captures a very particular and powerful historical reality: Italian Jewish life under Fascism, especially between the passage of the so-called racial laws in 1938 and the end of World War II. Set primarily in the provincial city of Ferrara, Bassani's narratives interweave themes of death, victimization, betrayal, survival, and artistic production. His best-known novel, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis — and other works that concentrate on the crucial years of 1938-1945—stand at the center of the Romanzo.They are preceded by texts that look back on Jewish life in the liberal era of the Risorgimento, and followed by texts set in the liberated, democratic society of the postwar years. These framing narratives provide a space for remembrance and reflection. Marilyn Schneider's aim, in Vengeance of the Victim, is to uncover the symbolic layers — historical, spatial, topographical, mythopoeic, allegorical, and sexual — that five Bassani's texts their richness and ambiguity, and in so doing to achieve a full understanding of his work and its representation of the Italian Jewish experience. Death and victimization, which pervade these texts, set in motion a process of artistic renewal that is most fully embodied in the vibrant young Micol Finzi-Contini, Bassani's textual icon and a victim of the Holocaust. Schneider also finds that the narratives, especially the late ones, pay self-reflexive attention to the creation of the text, constructing an authorial persona engaged in an existential, moral, and artistic journey from symbolic death to rebirth. It is the writing subject's successful completion of the journey that constitutes the vengeance of the victim.

Revenge, Justice, and Law

Revenge, Justice, and Law PDF Author: Steven M. Eisenstat
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
In this article I examine the legitimacy of allowing crime victims' desires for revenge to serve as a factor when imposing criminal punishment upon wrongdoers. I argue that revenge is in and of itself a value neutral emotion; an emotion which simply describes a victim's desire to get back at his victimizer. For example, if the victim wishes to mete out punishment upon a person who actually committed a criminal wrong upon him, such a desire for revenge, I suggest, is moral. Furthermore, if the punishment inflicted by the wronged party is proportional to the harm suffered, I argue that such a punishment represents a just resolution of the criminal matter. In other words, I disagree with the notion that revenge is, per se, immoral or unjust.My article then examines the historical and religious reasons why revenge justice was supplanted by State imposed justice, and concludes that it was not because of a belief in the inherent immorality of the desire for revenge, but rather, was due to the very practical concerns that revenge justice often punished the innocent, and permitted disproportionate and inequitable levels of punishment. Revenge justice also frequently created an endless and escalating level of violence which threatened, and in some cases, actually destroyed early civilizations.Based upon the above analyses, the article critically examines the traditional theories of Retribution and Utilitarianism as justifications for imposing criminal punishment, and concludes that both theories are deficient in that they fail to recognize and address the victim's interest in assuring just punishment. Similarly, the article also criticizes the notions that traditional tort remedies and restorative justice models, provide adequate venues for victim involvement and redress.The article thus concludes that victims' desires for revenge deserve to be recognized as a legitimate factor when deciding what the level of punishment should be, so long as the ultimate sentencing authority remains with the State. I then offer a number of procedural mechanisms which would enhance the level of victim participation at the sentencing phase of criminal justice proceedings, including granting victims party status at all proceedings where sentencing decisions are rendered.

Of Vengeance

Of Vengeance PDF Author: J.D. Kurtness
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459743768
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Of Vengeance portrays the evolution of an innocuous girl into a brilliant, cold-blooded killer, whose painstaking preparation makes every crime untraceable, and whose faultless reasoning makes her all too sympathetic.

Revenge, Justice and the Law

Revenge, Justice and the Law PDF Author: Steven Eistenstat
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Punishment
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description


Swift Justice

Swift Justice PDF Author: Harry Farrell
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312089016
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Hailed in a starred Kirkus Review as "one of the most riveting, revealing, and intensely readable true crimers to appear in a long time", Swift Justice is Harry Farrell's unforgettable story of the mob violence that paralyzed the town of San Jose in 1933. Farrell reconstructs the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart and the lynching of his accused murderers days later. 8 pages of photos.

The Virtues of Vengeance

The Virtues of Vengeance PDF Author: Peter A. French
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"In the course of his study of vengeance as a moral concept, French exposes important distinctions between types of moral theories (karmic and non-karmic) and between people who are morally handicapped and those who are morally challenged. He examines concepts relevant to vengeance, such as honor, moral authority, and evil, and issues such as the rationality of revenge and proportionality in punishment."--BOOK JACKET.

Getting Even

Getting Even PDF Author: Charles K. B. Barton
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"In Getting Even, Charles Barton contends that revenge can be a form of justice that is constructive and healing for our society. Our current judiciary system, he explains, denies both victims and the accused an active role in the legal proceedings and resolution of their cases, reducing them to bystanders in what is essentially their own conflict. Barton does not argue for an individual's right to take the law into his own hands, but does show that the courts should recognize the revenge motive as legitimate and rational within the rules of justice."--pub. desc.

Vengeance and Justice

Vengeance and Justice PDF Author: Edward L. Ayers
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780195039887
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Exploring the major elements of southern crime and punishment at a time that saw the formation of the fundamental patterns of class and race, Ayers studies the inner workings of the police, prison, and judicial systems, and the nature of crime.

The Victim's Revenge

The Victim's Revenge PDF Author: Newton Mallory Curtis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : New York (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description