Revenge and Conflict: Social and Cognitive Aspects - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 78

There are also cases in which it is not possible to repay the wrong suffered in
a corresponding way, because there is nothing comparable with the wrong suffered
and no reaction can be fair enough . Compensation strictu sensu is not possible when
the symbolic dimension is at stake. Honor, respect, and esteem cannot be taken back,
but destroying the aggressor's honor is a way to put him or her on the same ground
of his or her victim, rebalancing the situation at least in terms of damages. Going
back to the Brunello example, destroying wine was not a way to get back the job, or
to restore one's own good name, but it was just aimed at inflicting a comparable, in
the eyes of the avenger, damage:
To fail to retaliate homicidally in many contexts used to result in severe damage to one's
honor, in that the disapproval of the tribal moral community was so intense that it became
almost intolerable. [ ::: ] Osveta is something born into a man. It has to do with wounds to
the soul and the heart. [ ::: ] His (of the Montenegrin) is not highly enough developed so
that he fully anticipates the consequences of osveta and bloody deeds, but rather he wishes
to satisfy his own haughty pride [ ::: ]. If a Montenegrin does not take vengeance ::: ,he
has no place and no honor among the rest of the Montenegrins. (Boehm 1984 , p. 58-59)

We posit that, in order to wreak revenge on someone, an individual should believe
that:

• The offense he received was intentional ( belief about the kind of harm ).

• The offender was the main or the unique responsible for it and then liable for

punishment ( belief about the perpetrator ).

• There is a material and/or symbolic dimension to be restored in front of the

offender but also in front of the audience ( belief about the audience ).

The above set of beliefs represent the epistemic state which is preliminary to
motivations and goal setting. According to our cognitive analysis, there are three
distinct goals the avenger wants to achieve:

• The goal of damaging the target and reducing his or her power, either at the

material or at the symbolic level. Achieving this goal means that the avenger
is able to even the score and to go back to the power relationship before the
aggression, when the individuals were equal under some respect.

• The goal of making the target suffer, thus changing his or her beliefs about the

avenger. In this way, the target becomes aware that the avenger does not passively
accept the aggression and he or she is able and willing to strike back at the
aggressor (influencing the target). Paying back only the material harm would be
useless if the avenger would not be able to even the score in terms of suffering,
thus reconstituting the power relationship.

• The goal of changing audience's representations about the avenger. In revenge

the audience plays a crucial role because the damage suffered is not only material,
but it usually has a strong symbolic component. Honor, for instance, is an
intangible asset that can be threatened by the aggressor and that can be restored
only if there is an audience in front of which the retaliatory action is performed
and that recognizes that action as an attempt of restoring the initial situation.