From the child taunted by her playmates to the office worker who
feels stifled in his daily routine, people frequently take out
their pain and anger on others, even those who had nothing to do
with the original stress. The bullied child may kick her puppy, the
stifled worker yells at his children: Payback can be directed
anywhere, sometimes at inanimate things, animals, or other people.
In Payback, the husband-and wife team of evolutionary biologist
David Barash and psychiatrist Judith Lipton offer an illuminating
look at this phenomenon, showing how it has evolved, why it occurs,
and what we can do about it.
Retaliation and revenge are well known to most people. We all know
what it is like to want to get even, get justice, or take revenge.
What is new in this book is an extended discussion of redirected
aggression, which occurs not only in people but other species as
well. The authors reveal that it's not just a matter of yelling at
your spouse "because" your boss yells at you. Indeed, the
phenomenon of redirected aggression--so-called to differentiate it
from retaliation and revenge, the other main forms of
payback--haunts our criminal courts, our streets, our battlefields,
our homes, and our hearts. It lurks behind some of the nastiest and
seemingly inexplicable things that otherwise decent people do, from
road rage to yelling at a crying baby. And it exists across
boundaries of every kind--culture, time, geography, and even
species. Indeed, it's not just a human phenomenon. Passing pain to
others can be seen in birds and horses, fish and primates--in
virtually all vertebrates. It turns out that there is robust
neurobiological hardware and software promoting redirected
aggression, as well as evolutionary underpinnings.
Payback may be natural, the authors conclude, but we are capable
of rising above it, without sacrificing self-esteem and social
status. They show how the various human responses to pain and
suffering can be managed--mindfully, carefully, and humanely.
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