“Payback: The Case for Revenge,” by Thane Rosenbaum. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
With Ferguson in the news, the horrendous murders in South Kansas City, and the execution of Steven Sotloff, “Payback” is an important book although it is not an easy read. It is a work in which a legal scholar examines
the nature and meaning of revenge from a legal, psychological, biblical, historical, ethnic, anthropological and even cinematic point of view. The author Thane Rosenbaum certainly has the credentials to write this study. He is a distinguished lecturer of law at Fordham University. He is the winner of the Edward Wallace Wallant Award for best book of Jewish-American fiction in 1996. He is also the son of Holocaust survivors. His book almost reads like a novel, but is grounded in legal fact, and comes with the emotion of a member of the Holocaust’s second generation.
He begins with history with the Hammurabi Code and the concept of an eye for an eye. There are the biblical cities of refuge to which inadvertent wrong-doers could flee and be safe from avengers — as long as these refugees remained within the gates of the city. He examines the Greek tragedies like the Oresteia trilogy where Orestes kills his mother because she killed his father because he sacrificed their daughter. Revenge obviously can continue endlessly. He also looks at the rape of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and the massive revenge exacted on the perpetrators by Dinah’s brothers Simon and Levi.
In the chapter entitled “Just Deserts,” Rosenbaum examines what is fair revenge. If a person is murdered, then the perpetrator ought to be required to pay with his life. If someone is only harmed but not killed, it is wrong to kill the perpetrator. In another chapter he studies the visceral need for revenge that people experience; and in another Rosenbaum exhaustively presents the evidence of brain scans demonstrating that the brain responds to the experience of revenge in the same way it responds to a delicious dessert. In other words, revenge is like sugar in the brain. There is also a chapter looking at cultures like Albania in which blood feuds exist.
The point Rosenbaum is trying to make is that our American legal system has failed victims. In general, victims are not allowed to testify at trial. While criminals get their days in court, the aggrieved do not. He feels that in trying to make the justice system fair, what has happened is that it is a bloodless game between defense lawyers, and prosecutors in which individuals who have truly been wronged have no voice. Plea bargaining is another one of his irritants. A plea bargain saves the state time and money and the accused is able to reduce his punishment. The victim is irrelevant to the case and leaves with no satisfaction.
Whether he speaks of the survivors of the Holocaust, victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, families whose children were molested by Jerry Sandusky, the victims of Charles Manson, Thane Rosenbaum is an eloquent advocate for a more personal justice. He advocates for courts where victims have their say, where punishments fit the crimes. Many will disagree with him. There is no doubt that he personally believes in the death penalty judiciously applied. However, this well-written, well-researched treatise is a thought-provoking, fascinating work well worth the reading.
Andrea Kempf is a retired librarian who speaks throughout the community on various topics related to books and reading.