According to its commonsensical conception, revenge is at worst a corruptive and damaging explosion of the superego, and at best a useless fixation on loving-to-hate an object (“falling into hate” with it [1]). Sigmund Freud’s earliest account of revenge sounds quite uncommonsensical in comparison to this conception. Significantly, he mentioned revenge as the quintessential adequate cathartic reaction:

The injured person’s reaction to the trauma only exercises a completely ‘cathartic’ effect if it is an adequate reaction – as, for instance, revenge. (Freud and Breuer, Preliminary Communication, 1893)

At first, the adequacy of revenge seems to imply a quantitative accuracy, as in being not too much and not too little. But it might also imply the qualitative justness of the revenge, even its justice, as would be in (not a physical attack but) the symbolic abreaction of a social trauma, which might still be violent in the sense of “Gandhi was more violent than Hitler.” (Žižek)

To understand the adequate quality of revenge, let’s consider its exact opposite: The unbearable inadequacy that the ego experiences under the ferocious gaze of the superego. Since the ego-superego relation is marked by this fundamental inadequacy, revenging on behalf of either the ego or the superego would never bring any qualitative adequacy or justice.

This brings an interesting consequence: If Freud is right and revenge is the quintessential adequate cathartic reaction, then it is imperative that the revenge be against both the ego and the superego [2]; otherwise it would be inadequate and uncathartic and therefore not a true and just act of revenge, it would instead be a mere reactionary backlash. It would just be an expression of hatred and not a just expression of hatred (ex-pression fits here perfectly).

The ego and the superego are not symmetrical. Just as consciousness is often reduced to be the plaything of the unconscious, so the ego constructs its imaginary being in reaction to the real gaze of the superego. This reaction takes place in two ways:

1) An individual ego trying to appease or fight its own superego; e.g. the child’s ego takes shape in reaction to his/her superego supported by the imaginary father.

2) One ego trying to socially control another person’s superego; e.g. the real father’s ego takes shape in reaction to the child’s superego reflected in his/her demeanour.

Due to this asymmetrical relation, the adequate and just revenge must be principally against the superego and only secondarily against the ego. Since this just revenge sidesteps both ways of inadequate egoic “trying” against the superego, it befits the famous Star Wars proverb by Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

When a revenge takes aim at an ego, it turns egoic and imaginary, it unavoidably serves the ferocious superego, and becomes inadequate; in other words, it degenerates into a reactionary backlash, and is no longer a true revenge. On the other hand, if a revenge takes aim at the superego, not another ego behind one’s superego but the very being of the superego itself, there is a real chance that this revenge will be true and just (which does not amount to calling it right, for righteousness always relies on the superego). If this revenge is indeed adequate, it will fade the distinctions among the individual egos, it will thereby partially erase the egos themselves, and subject them more strictly to the signifying chains. This subjection is necessary because the signifier is the only measure of qualitative adequacy; in contrast, the ego is imaginary, it’s essentially an imposture and it can only be either too much or too little.

Moreover, the signifying measure of just adequacy cannot be a Master-Signifier S₁, since the main function of S₁ is to be a reference point for ego construction. The signifying measure of justice can only be the signifier of the lack in the Other, S(Ⱥ), which explains why the crucifixion of the Christ historically served as a paradoxical signifier of justice, designating the ultimate adequate symbolic revenge against all reactionary backlashes.

Işık Barış Fidaner is a computer scientist with a PhD from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. Admin of Yersiz Şeyler, Editor of Žižekian Analysis, Curator of Görce Writings. Twitter: @BarisFidaner

Notes:

[1] About “falling in hate”, see “Revenge: The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name” by Irwin C. Rosen; about “loving-to-hate”, see “Three Lacanian True Choices”, “Around the Borromean Knot” 

[2] This notion of an adequate revenge against both the ego and the superego echoes the Marxist notion of a revolution that would abolish the ruling class along with the working class.