Karen Horney on “The Value of Vindictiveness”

I first came to appreciate the special value of Karen Horney's work while doing research for a study of revenge as a literary theme. Through an exploration of writings on power and punishment I progressed a certain distance with a general theory of revenge. I came to see that the main feelings underlying revengeful acts were shame, violation, and the sense of injustice. I concluded that revenge had three main aims, often intermixed, but each with its own strategies, satisfactions, and dangers.

First, revenge aims to restore personal integrity and self-esteem. The person who must accept injury or insult over a prolonged period without being able to retaliate may come to feel severe self-contempt, a loss of bearings, and crippling fearfulness; his intellectual and moral perceptions may become warped if he rationalizes the injustice perpetrated against him or overvalues his injurer. Such was often the case in German concentration camps, Bruno Bettelheim¹ has reported; similar observations have been made about hostages and other victims of violent crimes. One aim of retaliation, then, is to stave off such reactions by proving one's strength to oneself; through striking back, we hope to restore the integrity-the sense of wholeness and unity-that may have been damaged through our injury.

However, a danger of revenge is that it may, in itself, cause a warping of integrity which may be more damaging than the original injury. The revenger may neglect his own legitimate interests to pursue revenge; he may feel himself to be-and may actually become-no better than his injurer.

The second aim of revenge is to change the perceptions and attitudes of the injurer. By committing deliberate harm, the aggressor has demonstrated contempt for his victim, a feeling that the victim is weak, inferior, or deserving of injury. The revenger acts to change that perception, both in the aggressor