Dear Mrs. Maier, a long time ago I found your book " Revenge is a dish that can be enjoyed cold " reviewed. For this book I now want to ask some questions.
Helga King : is revenge for a "pleasure" or how I should interpret the title of your book?
 |
| Katharina Maier |
Katharina Maier : If revenge is a pleasure, then a very bitter. The show actually almost all the stories that are presented in my book. Revenge can probably give the Avenger a high level of satisfaction, but it also demands a high price always. So it is an expensive dish! The title of my book, I mean really more in terms of revenge stories which it treats. These stories make us think, but you can also enjoy easy - and with a less bad conscience as a real vengeance.
Helga King : How do you define revenge?
Katharina Maier : Revenge is an act which injures the victim of an injustice to those who this injustice to him - or his loved ones - has committed to achieve a kind of compensation for the question wrong, the will not be achieved - in other ways - for example through the legal system. It is a kind of punishment, only that they of the victims of injustice or his representative is performed in person. But it is in turn itself a kind of injustice, because they were the perpetrators to the victim makes.
Helga King: Why in your opinion it does nothing to suppress revenge impulses?
Katharina Maier : revenge impulses are part of our humanity, our culture and perhaps even biological evolution. Anyone who fights back when he is doing something, or may provide only convincing fight back that he has seen the evolutionary greater chance of survival because it is less it is probable that he will ever attacked. Same time, the idea of a 'right to revenge' deeply rooted in our cultural thinking. To deny that each person has revenge impulses, because they 'simply can not', is the psychological sense of displacement. This destroys the revenge impulse not go away, they become only in our psyche in other destructive impulses against the self, but can also be directed against them. suppress not revenge impulses in this sense, although not the same as to give them safely. I admit that I feel hurt and take revenge on someone would prefer, and I concede that this is a human and understandable reaction is one thing. live out this impulse without scruples and therefore cause damage to someone else is another. Revenge of stories over the centuries to show us how problematic it is.
 |
| Helga King |
Helga King : How do you feel about the Christian and Buddhist perspectives in terms of pardon and forgiveness?
Katharina Maier : I must confess that I am in Buddhist thought is not very well versed. But if I understand correctly, is Buddhism in terms of forgiveness, and forgiveness, not far removed from Christianity, yes, probably even more consistently, what the love of all life and the forgiveness of your guilt and other concerns. These concepts are of course the exact opposite of revenge. The call to forgive, our neighbors and our enemies, yes, love them, go with a vengeance mentality do not mix. I myself am rooted in the Christian faith and believe in the forgiveness as an ideal. I'm just not sure whether it is a truly human ideal. to award each of our borrowers is a goal we should strive to, even if It might not be reached. I can understand that there are things that one is unable to forgive. killed What do I do if someone has harmed my child, it may be injured, raped,: For example? Can I forgive someone like that? Is it not human, if I can not? Should I be the avenger of those who I love? - To such questions there are no easy answers, and you must tell the whole story to try to answer at least.
Helga King : How do you evaluate the revenge of the Nibelungs, which indeed led to basically just scorched earth?
Katharina Maier : Kriemhild's revenge in the "Nibelungen" is excessive and unconscionable. It sets the welfare of two nations - the Burgundy and Hungary - on the line to avenge the death of one man - and the treachery that was perpetrated against her. Of ethical and moral perspective, this is not acceptable. Point. As I argue in my book, however, has the "Nibelungenlied" just beyond this extreme, destructive revenge on the person Kriemhild. She is the personification of the feminine, and it has been done wrong by men - and so little revenge and cruel beyond measure, says us the "Nibelungenlied". But this is the story not just a verdict on the Avenger, which is outside the socially accepted mechanisms (they could call for a legitimate family feud in response to Siegfried's death, which cost some lives, but do not as well as total destruction with it would ). The Nibelungenlied also condemns those structures that have made possible the wrongs that led to the absolutely destructive revenge. As a narrative tool here is the "scorched earth" extremely effective and "well done". But that's the difference between fiction and reality.
Helga King: Do you think that revenge can lead to positive results?
Katharina Maier This question is difficult to answer. What is positive in this case? If someone has done something the avenger, a punishment shall be that we regard as fair? As can be such a negative development in any case not really describe. Maybe you have to answer this question of the "epic" Revenge situations that I cover in my book, go away. In everyday life we have it - at least in our immediate Reality of life - often to do with revenge. Maybe we avenge ourselves just because someone has wronged us. If we hit back then, maybe a trick play to the guilty, and he thus comes to the realization that he has acted wrongly, then that's probably a positive effect of revenge. - Intellectually I can not imagine such a situation, in which vengeance could lead to an objectively desirable outcome. From a practical point, I can not personally think that such situations occur frequently. When I think of someone revenge, even for little things that mean more, that I add to him in any manner which could damage, even It "only" emotional. And so I personally have a real problem.
| |
| Helga King |
Helga King : Hold down the throat of the protagonist in "visit to the old lady" justified "and if so, why
Katharina Maier : No, I think the revenge of the protagonist is unjustified, you have a right to know that the truth comes to light - that it was then slandered as a young pregnant woman. and was therefore expelled from the society. The satisfaction of seeing exposed those who have done this to her, would you treat everyone well. But she has no right to be put to death the man who has slandered the time. Yes, he has destroyed their lives. But he alone bears the blame because it has become a prostitute, men eater, and a caricature of a man? Hardly. And the penalty, which it calls is excessive. Because it requires that someone from the town of the man she once loved, killing, destroying an entire society and cuts in the foot because the man in question still loves her. - Well, Claire revenged on the whole world that has made possible as a whole, that their injustice has been done. Such a thing may be so even comprehensible. But it is not justified.
Helga King: Do you think that revenge may be a necessary condition for path to peace?
Katharina Maier : revenge may well lead to great satisfaction. But it is the question of whether it is an acceptable way. For revenge always demands a price. What I must do to avenge me - do other people something - even changed me whatsoever, even if I am successful. Maybe I am prepared to accept that to gain my satisfaction, such as Ruth in "The Devil". But can this kind of satisfaction I get to be very expensive. If you look really, really leaving your revenge story with a bitter aftertaste. I believe that completely satisfying revenge scenarios in which the debtor happens to my just punishment and I can gallop full satisfaction victoriously into the sunset, are pure fantasy - and not in the same direction as the revenge stories in my book!
Helga King : How do you evaluate the family feuds on Crete, and Sicily?
Katharina Maier : Family feuds are probably one of the oldest problems of humanity. It is, therefore, that there was before the development of national, religious or simply groups jurisprudence no other means to ensure that a victim comes into its own when that family members took the matter in hand. In any culture, are practiced in the family feuds, they are well established and have something to do with positive values such as occupied cohesion and protection. One should never condemn a culture and its practices from outside the board. But family feuds are a curse that is passed from generation to generation and all Hope can destroy the future when the cycle is somehow broken. That tells us even the ancient Greek thinkers in the "Oresteia," and tells us with Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". I see no reason to object to them, including and especially not today. Just because something is culturally understand, that does not mean that it shall be approved, especially if it forces innocent people actually only about concepts such as honor and tradition to do harm to others any harm, so, to take their lives, and therefore constantly lost lives. And this chain of vengeance and revenge re never stops. This is at no time and in any place 'good' - Certainly not from a humanistic-Christian point of view, to which now form one of our Western values.
Helga King : Is revenge archaic in your opinion, and for civilized man a rather undignified action, if so, why?
| |
| Katharina Maier |
Katharina Maier : I have in my book, often the term "archaic", to "original" company as to describe the Homeric warrior, or the world of mass migration. I would understand that concept but not "civilized" as contrary to, but those people were "civilized", they had only partly different values than we do. - So far away front. If a person who has access to thousands of Western-humanist values and culture, can not rein in his revenge impulses? Probably. But I think revenge as a motive far less barbaric than, say, greed, jealousy, hurt pride, power, hunger, ignorance, contempt for human life and much more. An Avenger is always a him or his loved ones out injustices. It may be that only he feels an injustice has happened - perhaps because his pride is hurt. But the injustice is often seen "objectively" as such. And seek revenge for suffering, is perhaps not commendable, but in my opinion much more understandable - and probably even "human" - than any other above listed subjects.
Lady Maier, thank you for the enlightening interview.
your Helga King
0 comments:
Post a Comment