September 28, 2023 • 45 mins
Someone cuts you off in traffic or makes fun of your friend and all you can think of is how to get back at them and then some. But wait! Research has found that taking revenge actually makes you feel worse in the long run. Learn about what to do instead.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, get this. We have a mind bending announcement
to make the Stuff you Should Know episode on Vinyl
is now on vinyl. You can learn about records by
listening to a record. It's possibly the first time a
podcast episode has ever been put to wax, and we
did it along with our friends at bourn Loosers Records.
(00:21):
It comes in three awesome colors, black, white, and a
super cool splattercore and you can order it for pre
sale now at syskvinyl dot com. Records will ship on
October twentieth, just in time for Halloween, whatever that means.
So go to sysk vinyl dot com right now to
get this super duper limited edition, super cool stuff you
(00:43):
should know thing a record on records.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and
Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you Should Know,
the podcast about Revenge. Revenge. We've done an episode on
it was like a top ten on cases Legendary Cases
of Revenge. Oh yeah, I remember that, but we didn't
talk much about Revenge itself, and I felt it was
(01:22):
high time. We've been dancing around it for decades now.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And here we are I thought, this is a great idea,
So kudos to you because it. Dave helped us out
with this one. And it's a lot of like science
and studies have sort of and I'm not going to
spoil anything, but have sort of produced results that fly
in the face of what one might typically think about
(01:48):
revenge and what it means for the person getting the revenge.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I think most people how we feel about revenge,
it's from watching movies and it's like deeply satisfying to
watch the bad guy who deserves revenge get their come upance, right,
sure is, or even be killed just like, yes, that
guy deserved that kind of thing. But in reality carrying
(02:13):
out acts of revenge or they just it's not like
the movies, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
And yet there's a lot of evidence of revenge in
real life, so much so that the New York Police
Department came out with a study in twenty twelve and
found out that forty two percent of the homicides in
New York were motivated by revenge. Man So, and that
(02:37):
actually kind of underscores like a problem with revenge is
that when you enact vengeance on somebody and you leave
them alive, almost invariably that person feels like you overdid
in response to what they did. It was disproportionate, So
now they have to strike back again, and it can
(02:59):
go back and fourth until somebody dies or else somebody
can die right away is the first act of revenge.
But the point of the whole thing is is that
once you do carry out revenge, no matter if it's
petty exciting somebody up for spam or killing somebody in
response to whatever slight like road rage, they cut you
(03:20):
off in traffic, you don't feel good afterward. You actually
feel worse. And that's the underlying point of this entire episode.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, you know, my favorite Petty I don't do it,
but my favorite petty revenge to witnesses is when and
it's so dumb, everyone just settled down, is on a highway,
when someone is on an expressway and they clean their
windows and it gets all over the car behind them.
I see people all the time race in front of
that person and do the same thing back then.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
God, really, yeah, that is petty.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
That is Tom Petty. That's not Tom Petty. Could Thom
Petty was great. That's just and I also wanted to
say too, you talked about revenge, coming back harder or whatever.
Emily has her own personal saying, like when we're messing
around and I like I will do something to her,
or I'll say something kind of mean as a joke,
she'll eviscerate me, and she calls it coming back double.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
She goes, I come back double. Oh boy.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
He's one of those people that think she gets pushed
into corner and man, she comes out hard. So it's
a good trait, I think, and one to be wary of.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
At the same time, Yes, I'm suddenly way more wary
of Emily than I was before. Luckily, I've always stayed
on her good side.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, you wouldn't come at it Emily anyway, You're smart.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So there's a lot of questions revolving around revenge. If
if we know for a fact it feels good to
think about, but then it feels bad to do despite
the fact that we're thinking about it, where like this
is going to feel good, it's not the act of
thinking about it that feels good. It's fantasizing about how
good it's going to feel to get that person back
(05:02):
to set the universe right again, to do all sorts
of things that revenge allegedly does. And it turns out,
when you carry out an act of revenge, you are
playing the chump to evolution on behalf of society as
a whole, and that's kind of like the whole basis
of revenge. There's an evolutionary instinct that's very very old.
(05:27):
It's found extensively in the animal kingdom, and it really
collides with the modern evolved humans that live in these
complex societies we've formed today. When you put those two
things together, an interesting podcast comes out.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
What you're talking about in the animal kingdom is also
called retaliatory aggression, and that is the idea that so,
let's say a lion mama goes out and kills an
animal to leave for her little cubs to eat. Another
animal is like, ooh, you know, let me see if
I can sneak in there and eat some of that too.
(06:06):
The mama lion doesn't just scare this thing off to
preserve that meat for the kids. The mama lion goes
and hunts down and kills that animal. Yes, that's they
come back double Emily style right.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I mean, like the problem solved, the hyena has been
chased away, But to leave your kids and go find
it and kill it, that is seems retaliatorially aggressive.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, and this next one too, I'm gonna mention these
are interesting because it made me sort of question the
idea of revenge versus punishment, right, because I think those
are different things. But the Teresis monkey, We've talked a
lot about their vocalizations, like they're all about the group,
or they should be at least, And like when they
find food, let's say they will tell everyone, hey, I
(06:50):
found food. But if a Riesei's monkey is ever like,
you know, I'm gonna have a little bit of this
first before I call out. And if they find that out,
there's a punishment for that Reese's monkey. I don't think
they kill it, but there is a punishment. And this
is the idea that these retaliatory aggressions are deterrence. It's
(07:10):
like a punishment for everyone to see to prevent future
trans aggressions like hey, did you hyena see that? Did
you other Reesis monkeys see that? So that, you know,
would be an advantageous thing evolutionarily speaking, So that gene
gets passed on.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, because the more the more you're prone to do that,
the likelier you are to not have food stolen from
you for your kids, the likelier it is for your
kids to survive and your lineage to survive. So it
makes sense evolutionarily speaking, this retaliatory aggression does at least right.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, which I would still argue is punishment more than revenge.
I think there's an emotional component that's missing, but we're getting.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
To that absolutely. I think you're absolutely right. And there's
a story, a couple of stories of tigers actually engaging
in can only be described as revenge, and it's very
much up in the air whether what we're witnessing is
actual revenge. But like, like, there was a very famous
story out of Russia where like a poacher not only
(08:15):
shot a tiger but also took some of their kill,
and that the tiger tracked the guy down, found his
little lodging, destroyed everything he could find in the lodging,
and then waited outside for the hunter to come back
and then kill them. And that the tiger managed to
hold this idea in his head. I think it was
her her head for up to maybe twenty four hours
(08:36):
after the hunter shot her. There's a couple of stories
out there that seem to pertain to tigers specifically that
it's almost like it does contain an emotional component to it.
But for the most part, yes, it's it's solving a
problem and then maybe preventing future problems among the animals.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know, one of my favorite sayings is revenge is
a meal best serve cold. I don't know why, because
I'm not a revenge guy really, but I just I
think that is just such a great saying.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I just like it.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
You know, there's something about like, oh no, no, no,
the real revenge is like when he waited around.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
For a while.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Oh yeah, and then when you would might not be suspected,
you come back and take that revenge.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, because if you just immediately do it in response,
you're a hot head and a dummy. Anybody can do that.
But to sit there and really stew on it and
figure out the best way to really get back at
the person that takes intellect Yeah, I agree, and a
little bit of craziness. I just have to say.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
All right, so now we can get to the humans.
As far as evolution is concerned, we have that same
sort of instinct ingrained in our DNA for that retaliatory aggression.
Our ancestors when they were living in hunter gatherer groups,
was a lot of relying on one another, obviously a
lot of communication and cooperation, and thus a lot of
(09:56):
punishing to be done if people either were outsider people
inside the group didn't cooperate and do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yes, and so this is again the same thing what
you were talking about. You're punishing the person who transgressed.
You're also deterring future behavior. And the more we became social,
the more important this kind of stuff became, because we
started depending on other people, and so as a result,
(10:23):
we started monitoring one another, and that in and of
itself can act as a deterrent in the future, because
you know that there's a vengeance instinct, and there's a
set amount or set structure of norms and rules, and
then other people are watching you to see what you're doing,
(10:45):
and you're watching them, and that kind of creates an
atmosphere of conformity. And you say what you want about conformity,
but if you have a large group of people following
the same rules, you're taking care of a really basic
problem and issue and you can then kind of evolve
more into more and more complex societies. Yeah, that's I
(11:09):
saw one person say that revenge is ultimately what provided
the basis for human civilization and allowed it to grow
knowing that there was such a thing as revenge that
humans were capable.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
A bit totally.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So kind of put a pin in that for a second,
because we should talk about this idea of like sweet revenge.
That's a that's a word that's often associated with revenge.
And you talked about the fantasy of revenge, and it's
it's you know, it's a fantasy because for very good reasons,
if you are physically hurt, obviously or emotionally or psychologically
(11:45):
wounded by somebody you, it's a natural instinct to think
about getting back at that person, right, and the feelings
that come with that take place. And a part of
the brain called the dorsal striatum, and it's the same
aim part of the brain that controls the reward system
of like, hey, that pecan pie tastes great, that sexual
(12:08):
orgasm feels amazing, or the drug that really want.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
To take feels good.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It's that same lizard brain pathway that revenge lights up,
that lights up whenever you do anything that feels rewarding
or satisfying for somebody.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, it's extraordinarily powerful and hard to deny and overcome
because it's just such a basic response.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Right, totally.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
But again, the problem, and this is where the tension arises.
We have evolved to a way where we've created these
societies with rules and expectations that in part say like,
you can't carry out revenge. It's not okay. And you
know that that's not okay as a modern human living
in modern human society. And yet we have that part
(12:54):
of our brain, that really powerful, basic part of our brain,
telling us to do it, and we know we're not
supposed to. And that's kind of like the point in
human evolution that we live in right now.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
That's right, Should we take a break? Sure?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
All right, that sounds like a good stopping point. So
we'll take a break and we'll come back and we'll
hit on the thing that you brought up earlier about
the fact that actually getting that revenge may not be
so sweet. Stop.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So, Chuck, one of the things about revenge that makes
it different from the drug that you were talking about,
or the orgasm or whatever, is that when you think
of it, it's more fulfilling than when you actually do it.
So like if you think about a drug, might it
might be pleasurable, but it's probably nothing compared to what
the drugs doing in your brain when you actually take it, right,
(14:06):
It's not true with revenge. Not only is the thought
a fantasy of revenge more fulfilling and will hit that
limbic system harder when you actually do carry out an
active revenge, it actually creates negative feelings in you as well.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, which is interesting because like, how can an idea
of something? How can a fantasy of something trigger the
same cascades of the other pleasurable things in their life
that you're actually doing, And when you think about it,
it actually does make sense because revenge, actually taking revenge
is risky. Thinking about revenge fantasies, Sizing about revenge is
(14:47):
not risky per se. I mean it could be dangerous
for you know, negative for a person perhaps eventually if
you like you've become obsessed with it, but initially it's
a feel good feeling, but carrying through on it can
be risky. If you go to if you're the hunter
gatherer group and someone invade your group and steals your meat.
You could go you could just sit there and think
(15:08):
about how great it would be to get them back,
and that's probably the safest move. Or you could actually
go to that other camp and try and kill that person.
But you're taking a big risk at that point.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You individually are that's right, but you're doing it on
behalf of the group or the group benefits whether you're
doing it on their behalf or not.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
If you didn't do anything, though, that group, not just you,
but the group you're a member of, would seem weak
to other groups. Yeah, and it's it sounds really like
kind of chromagnet or something like that, But that's it.
It's important. You can't have like I was saying before,
(15:47):
you can't have society without the knowledge that if you
transgress there will be consequences for it. I saw, I
saw it put. There's a neurologist and psychologist named Jeff
viktor Off. He said that reciprocal altruism, which is how
people cooperate between groups and within groups, that it rewards
(16:10):
and requires a costly signal demonstrating risk taking on behalf
of the in group. So for people to be able
to trade with one another. For people to be able
to get along in a society and not kill each
other or whatever, you have to know that there's a
threat to you if you transgress. It has to be
there or else people will inevitably invariably cheat or kill
(16:32):
you or do whatever. And it's a really basic, paranoid
way of looking at the world. But if you start
to study revenge, it seems like it's a lynchpin of society,
as it states that there's just you can't have a
society animal or human without that that threat hanging over
you of revenge.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I got another quote, and this is the idea kind
of supports the idea that the revenge itself isn't you know,
it's risky and it could be bad for you. It's
really the idea of it that's that's better or at
least better for the individual. This from Francis Bacon. A
man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which
otherwise would heal and do well. And that's sort of
(17:17):
the thing that you know, has come up over and
over again and studies that we're going to be talking about,
is that the you know, the path of the Buddha.
The getting over things and not seeking revenge is really
the path that ultimately will bring someone what satisfaction? Tranquility, yeah, tranquility,
(17:40):
Maybe not satisfaction, actually yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I think it's getting past the need for satisfaction that
will lead you to the point that you really want
to get to, which is feeling good again, but like
you felt before you were wronged. Right. The thing is
is with no wronged. The thing is is with with
revenge what again? What you have is an innate, automatic
impulse to smash the other person in the face to
(18:05):
get back at them for them insulting you or your
family or your favorite football team or whatever. It's a
really basic instinct that if you can learn to overcome,
not just you as an individual can evolve, we as
a society can evolve. The thing is is you still
need that for just to keep society going and functioning.
(18:30):
What we've figured out as further evolved humans that we
can externalize that revenge instinct and imbue our institutions with that,
where we've created court systems and justice systems. They're responsible
for carrying out acts of vengeance or retribution or righting
(18:50):
wrongs in serving justice on behalf of the individuals of
society and as society for society as a whole, so
that we don't have to care acts of revenge on
one another. And in fact, we have rules now that
if you do carry out an act of revenge, you
can be punished by those same institutions that are there
to enact vengeance on your behalf.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, because what happened is, you know, we went from
the hunter gatherers, where you literally had to do this
for your group to survive, to eventually settling down. Once
we became farmers and settlers and eventually urbanites, and those
became Those same instincts were there, but they became moral codes,
and all of a sudden, you know, we had these
(19:33):
moral codes like you don't cheat on your friend's wife
and stuff like that, and you know that's not punishable
by death, but that revenge instinct is still there to
overcome these moral codes. There was a psychologist named Herbert
Herbert Gentis that talked about revenge seeking his moral behavior.
Individual secrivenge not when they've been hurt, but when they've
(19:55):
been morally wronged. I would also argue, you know, some
people's secrevenge when they literally they have been physically hurt
as well, right, But it's also a morally wronging that
happens if someone you know, jumps you and beats you
up at a football game or something.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And that's actually that's attention that philosophers been trying to
figure out for a while. John Stuart Mill was a
fan of the deterrent explanation of revenge or punishment or
whatever you want to call it, and he was saying, like,
like with the animal Kingdom, when you you punish the transgressor,
you're you're deterring future behavior by making an example of them.
(20:30):
Emmanuel Kant said, no revenge exists because when somebody transgresses,
you're against a person, you're being morally wronged, and just
remove everything else. Morally speaking, that person deserves to be punished.
And he put it in a really kind of alarming way.
(20:51):
But philosophers always operate on the fringes anyway to make
their points.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
He was saying that a genuinely I guess, a legitimate society,
even if it was disbanding, it was in the act
of disbanding that they were they they were required to
go in and kill all of the remaining prisoners, all
the all the murderers, like, go execute the rest of
(21:17):
the murderers. Just because your society's disbanding makes no excuse
whatsoever for the people that you've imprisoned that transgressed against
the society, because they committed a moral wrong that is
larger and more important than any any individual or even
any society, and that they deserve to be punished in that.
That's the function of revenge, according to Khan. Oh interesting, Yeah,
(21:38):
it's kind of a kind of vengeance.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
kN was he was serious, man, Yeah, he came back
double you mentioned earlier. You know, we have systems set up,
you know, court systems, police forces, things like that these days.
But it's interesting that they found that historically these places
in the world where the culture were what you would
(22:01):
call like a culture of honor, were more prone to,
you know, commit acts of violence as revenge. Like the
American South was historically known as a culture of honor,
where you would go out and defend the honor or
fight somebody or have a shootout with somebody.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I saw specifically, that's white Southern culture. That patterns of
African American retribution or crimes like that don't really vary geographically.
That's the white American South is the one that does that.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I mean, I think that's what they're talking about as
sort of you know, pre Antebellum and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Culture.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Middle Eastern cultures historically can kind of be the same
way as far as revenge goes restoring honor, and they
found and this is what gets really interesting is that
cultures and areas that have a history of weak law
enforcement maybe engage in revenge more often. When you hear
about like street justice, you might think of a low
(23:01):
income community that maybe mistrust the system, they don't think
the courts or the police are on their side to
begin with or would take care of them. So that's
where you're going to see more sort of street justice
revenge carried out right.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And then same with workplace environments and schools. Apparently three
and five school shootings from nineteen seventy four to twenty
twenty were acts of vengeance revenge. I'm surprised it was
actually that low of a ratio. And then if you
work in a place where your complaints to management or
(23:35):
whatever seem to be falling on deaf ears, that can
also lead to vengeance in the workplace like workplace shootings.
Like remember in our going postal episode, what like the
common factor was that management was not only like dismissing
complaints about bullying, they were often engaged in bullying themselves. Yeah,
and like it doesn't justify or excuse it, but that
(23:58):
is an example of some buddy tarrying out an act
of revenge, at least in their mind.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, for sure, you were talking about philosophers earlier. Now
we get to finally talk about our old friend Sigmund
Freud and Joseph Preuer his mentor because they had what
was known as the catharsis theory of aggression or the
hydraulic model. And this is the idea is that a
(24:24):
lot of psychosis or most of them were repression and
it was negative emotion that was building up. And if
you repress these emotions, if you have these negative emotions,
if you have anger towards someone or frustration, and it
builds up like a hydraulic pomp, eventually you're going to
pop or you're going to have what's called a catharsis
or Greek meaning cleansing or purging, and you will release
(24:49):
that in an unhealthy way, which is probably going to
be revenge, Freud said, it could manifest as hysteria. And
here's the thing, though, is that's stuff falls apart when
you actually apply science to it. They have found that,
you know, you know, punching a punching bag can maybe
(25:09):
give you an immediate relief, but a lot of times
that stuff only serves to work you up more when
you apply science to it.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, because the basis of the Catharsis theory was that
rather than going and killing the person who wronged you,
you could go hit that punching bag and pretend the
punching bag was them, and you would get out that
repressed anger and feel better and could move on. But yes,
starting I think the fifties, they were like this, wait
a minute, this is this is not right at all.
(25:37):
It turns out that when you do that, it just
extends that the sour feelings that cause you to want
revenge in the first place. And like we said, if
you can find a way to forgive or forget or
move on or whatever, you will ultimately be happier in
the long run, and even immediately compare to somebody who
(26:01):
actually carries out an act of revenge or even goes
and punches a punching bag, pretending like it's the person
they want to carry out an active revenge against.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, there's that psychologist you're talking about, a Ri Hornberger.
One of the studies they did, he would have an
actor come in and like insult someone in a study.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Can you just see Ted Dats been doing this early
in his career.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, you half witch, look at that nose. So somebody
would get really mad, apparently and be instructed to go
bang nails, hit nails into a board for ten minutes. See,
you know, apparently let out that frustration as their fists.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
The other half of the people just had to sit
there and think about it for ten minutes, and then
they were given a chance to criticize the person who
insulted them. And if you subscribe to Freud and the
Catharsis theory, then the nail pounders would have been you know, relieved,
and their aggression would have been let out and they
would have been less hostile. But the exact opposite happened.
They were even more hostile after they pounded those nails
(26:59):
towards the actor than the people who did nothing.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, that was Hornberger in the fifties. It's still being
proven today. There's a psychologist named Brad Bushman who made
a slightly more robust study of the whole thing, but
it followed essentially the same methodology, where you were thinking
about whoever you wanted to get revenge on while you're
hitting a punching bag, or another group was hitting a
(27:26):
punching bag, but they were told to think about the
health benefits of boxing, and then the other one didn't
punch anything, the third group, and they found that the
rumination group was the one who displayed the most anger,
and then the distraction group, who were also punching the
bag but thinking about how great boxing is, they were second.
(27:47):
And then the last group, the people who didn't punch anything,
They were the happiest, They were the least hostile as
a result afterward. Yeah, and you know, again we're getting
into social psychology territory here. But these people are working
with the best they can while staying within ethical boundaries,
like you can't actually harm somebody, but they do have
ways of making you feel insulted or cheated. That's another
(28:13):
big one too. And when you're in one of these experiments,
you don't know that they're researching revenge. You think they're
researching how well you can play like a game with
others or something. You have no idea that that's what
they're researching. So there are some pretty good models for
testing revenge without actually putting anyone in harm's way.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Should we take a break, Yeah, let's all right, let's
take a break, and we'll talk a little bit about
sometimes revenge can feel good and explain those studies as well.
(29:06):
All right, before we broke, we talked about the fact
that revenge basically actually undertaking the revenge, or in these
studies at least it's not revenge, but you know, letting
out that aggression, thinking about the person who did you wrong,
we punched a heavy bag.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Really just makes you feel worse.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Revenge, under the right circumstances can make you feel better, apparently,
according to the studies of German psychologists Mario I'm sorry,
he's a psychological scientist, Mario Goldwitz, and this gets a
little interesting. I think he talked about comparative suffering and
(29:45):
the notion that when you see the person who wronged
you suffer might restore a balance, an emotional balance, getting
yourself into the universe at large. Even that and his
other theory of the what's called the understanding hypothesis, which
is that if the under the person who did you wrong,
(30:05):
if they suffer, that's fine, but that's really not enough.
They have to know that they're suffering because of what
they did to you. Yeah, and that that can actually
bring some I don't know about positive emotions, but make
someone feel good as opposed to feeling worse.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah. And he came up with a pretty clever experiment
to test which one was correct comparative suffering or understanding hypothesis.
And essentially what happened was the research participants thought that
they were trying to compete for raffle tickets with another
person who was in another room. They were paired up
with a partner team member, yeah, partner, and after they
(30:42):
won all the raffle tickets, they were told that they
and the partner could divvy them up between them and
basically all of the participants, you know, cut them in half,
distribute them evenly. But they found that the other people
had really shorted them on their tickets. Their partner had
really kept a bunch of tickets rather than distributing them evenly,
so they had been wronged in some way, they were
(31:06):
given a chance to write that wrong by carrying out revenge.
They were allowed to redistribute the tickets like a second chance.
And in that case they almost invariably screwed the other
person over who would you know, So they enacted revenge.
And then this is where Goalwitzer really kind of shown
(31:26):
for me. He figured out a way to test how
satisfied those people were with that act of revenge.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, there were I think sixty percent of the people
ended up shorting them in return, sometimes even more than
they were shorted to begin with, Like they came back
double Emily styles. So he went that one extra step,
like you were saying, and he said, all right, here's
what you do. Now you can write a note to
(31:55):
the person and say whatever you want. You can reference
the you know, the justice. So one person wrote sorry
for taking the tickets away. And remember now it gets
a little convoluted, but this is someone who initially was
shorted and then they took revenge by shorting the other person,
maybe even more right, And so they sent them a
note they said, sorry for taking tickets away, but unfortunately
(32:17):
you only cared about yourself. That's so childish, so they
would write a note of many many of them would
write notes like saying, I really want you to understand
this is why you're getting shorted. Right.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So then what Gallwitzer figured out was that he could
test understanding hypothesis and comparative suffering by getting two different
kinds of notes to the people. That group of participants
that had carried out revenge and then sent a note
saying I wronged you because you wronged me. And the
first note was kind of it was like contrician. They
(32:51):
were saying, yeah, I understand you really gave it to
me because I had wronged you initially. And then the
other note was like, hey, you way over did it.
I didn't do it that bad to you. I'm a
little indignant. And so if the comparative suffering was correct,
just knowing that those people had been put out by
(33:11):
the revenge of retaliation should have been satisfying enough. But
what Gallwitzer found was that that's not the case at all.
That the group that got the note back that said, man,
you really stuck it to me and I feel like
a schmo because of what I did to you, they
were far more satisfied than the people who had just
(33:33):
gotten the note back, saying like, I'm a little indignant
you overdid it. So just knowing that they suffered was
not enough. They had to know why they were suffering.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Like I guess it's
the idea of like, if somebody and if you're trust me,
no one should ever do anything like this. It means
you're a truly bad person if you do. But if
you engage in road rage and someone cuts you off
and you follow them to the gas station and like
cut their tire when they're in the store and leave,
(34:06):
that wouldn't be as satisfying scientifically as if you do
that and leave a note that says like, you know,
this is what you get for cutting me off.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Right exactly. So you said something in there that I
think is really important too, that that group who retaliated
the participants, when they retaliated, they often distributed things even
more unfairly than their partner had initially right right, right, right,
And that's something that's a big problem with the cycle
of revenge that a researcher named Arlene Stillwell from State
(34:37):
University of New York at Potsdam pointed out. The problem
is is that when you are on the side of
avenging yourself for a wrong, you think that after you've
done that, things are right again. You've created equilibrium in
the moral universe again. But when you're the recipient of vengeance,
(34:59):
you feel like that person was disproportionate to the wrong
that you inflicted, and so, like I was saying earlier,
now you feel like you might need to get them
back again. And it just goes tit for tat and
tit for tat, And that's why the safest, smartest, most
highly evolved, most Buddhist thing you can do is to
just short circuit the whole thing and let it go
(35:19):
and just move on and know, yes, you've been morally wronged,
and you have the power within you to not do
a thing about it and like live a happier life
than you would if you did something about it.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, And I think that kind of holds with They
found some pretty good research on what's called impact bias,
and that's the idea that people tend to overestimate how
much like one kind of even sometimes small, single thing
will affect their future.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
They overestimate it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And the example he used is like a kid, a
high school kid, saying, well, if I don't get an
A in this class, it'll ruin my chances to get
into a good college. And that's probably overestimating things, because
getting into a college is more about this one class maybe,
or this one test. But people underestimate, apparently, like anger
goes to opposite, they will underestimate how hard it is
(36:11):
to shake angry thoughts. So you might think that you
can get over something by committing the act revenge, but
you're really underestimating it, and those those feelings are going
to stick with you even past that revenge act.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. With anger in particular, it's its own thing. It
doesn't follow the rules of other emotions, right yeah, And
that is of course part and parcel with revenge. You
are angry, maybe even hateful, and you have to carry
out some sort of act of vengeance, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And I think there's also something to the idea that
even though you think committing that actor of revenge will
fulfill you, what it does in the end is it
you've heard about, like you know, you brought me down
to your level, Like if you go and slash that
guy's tire for cutting you off, you know I got you.
(37:01):
But those negative thoughts about yourself are going to creep
in because you have now stooped and done something even
worse than cutting someone off. You you know, cost someone
money and ruin their property and potentially created a danger
for them.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
You know, well, even if you were cut off by
the person, I've seen people do this too, and you
rev your engine and catch up to them and cut
them off. Right, So it's literally tip for tad, right,
there's no nothing was done beyond it's completely even You're
still gonna feel bad about having should that, And it's
insane how it happens, Like you are just driven by
(37:38):
this rage, is just feeling like this is what you're
supposed to be doing, This is what the universe is
demanding you do to set things right again. And then
the moment you do it, you feel terrible about yourself
in one way or another. And it is just such
a just such a BS evolutionary relic that like you're
being manipulated by genetics at that point. Yeah, at that moment,
(38:01):
you're being manipulated. You are a puppet. And so the
best thing you can do to control your own destiny
again is to say, man, that guy cut me off.
He's a putt or even better, that guy cut me off.
Maybe he's a his lake is bleeding and he's he's
got to get to the hospital. You know, there are
a lot of things you can do, but when you
do that, you're overcoming your genetic destiny and taking it
(38:24):
in an even better direction.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
I mean it's tough stuff, man, to follow that pass
for me, for a lot of people, I have tried
and tried, the more of the older I've gotten to
try try, right, It's hard, but try to think, like
what happened to that person? Why are they like that?
Like when you see someone who's you can tell as
(38:49):
a bad person, not someone who cuts you off in traffic, but.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Like if you's someone hit learn in traffic.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
No, but when you know someone is doing the wrong thing,
and someone is just a bad human doing doing bad things,
I try to find some empathy of like what happened
to them that made them that way and what happened
to them today to make them that angry, And I
try to seek those moments out.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's stuff though.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I'm trying too, But to be real, there's a crew
of appliance delivery dudes who scratched my wood floor two
years ago, and the company refusing, has refused to pay,
refuse to pay over a year ago. Yeah, and I
still am like, should I get those guys back? And
(39:36):
if so, how like I, well, you break into their
house and scratch your floor? Man? Yeah, tip for tat?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, but then also dovetails with that, that idea, that
tip for tat, or even better, an eye for an
eye leads the whole world blind as part of that
escalation and encycle of retaliation. Which is such a great
quote and everybody attributes it to Gandhi, but apparently it
was not word for a word, but the sentiment was
by Canadian named George Perry Graham. He was a journalist
(40:03):
and a politician and a huge fan of the Raptors.
No Gordon Lightfoot, oh, of course, even though it comes
back to g L. I think he was probably dead
long before Gordon Lightfoot was alive. I just wanted to
give a little shout out for Canada's sake.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, why don't we wrap it all up with this
idea of mutually assured destruction because it dovetails nicely, right.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
It does, chuck, And here's why to think it away. So,
just as a refresher. We've talked about it before. The
doctrine of mutually assured destruction was that if you are
a nuclear superpower, say the Soviet Union during the Cold
War or the United States during the Cold War, if
you launched an initial first strike, the other side, even
(40:53):
though they were doomed because your nuclear warheads were in
the air and going to come and kill everybody there
in the meantime, they were going to launch a retaliatory strike.
It would do nothing to save anybody's life on their side.
It wouldn't do anything to stop those missiles from coming.
It was strictly revenge and the human awareness of the
(41:18):
concept of revenge and that that was a very real
thing that the other side really would do. That is
what kept people from carrying out an initial strike during
the Cold War, according to mutually assured destruction doctrine.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Oh, did I take up the whole thing? I'm sorry,
you shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I mean, I think it's it's a great way to
end it. It's for all this talk of revenge. It's like,
is that the thing that has kept humanity on the earth?
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's what some people say. And
I mean, Yeah, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction keeps
getting questioned, like was that really what what was keeping
things in check? Or was there really like behind the
scenes stuff we didn't know about. And it seems like
more and more it really was keeping things and check.
And it seems to be because there was a total
awareness that the other side would kill you just because
(42:06):
you killed them first. Yeah, so that's revenge, everybody. I
think if there was one point to this episode, it's
get past it as best you can, and if you can't,
don't be too hard on yourself. Just try again next time.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, try that narrow path is narrow, and do your best.
It's hard, we all struggle with it. But see if
at the next time you want to get revenge on
somebody in traffic or wherever, See if you can take
that narrow path and calm yourself down, and you know,
there's a really good chance you're gonna feel better about
(42:40):
yourself and the world's going to be a better.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Place because of it.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
To squeeze your steering wheel until you bleed from your
palms and your butt cheeks. Since Chuck said butt cheeks,
everybody knows that's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
This is a great follow up quite a while ago,
not that long ago, but like last year. Sometime we
or it may have been this year, I don't know.
We read an email about a guy who's had the
cussing dentist.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Oh that was just a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, okay, I have no concept of time anymore. Understood
the guy who's dentist cussed, and we liked it because
my doctor cusses, and I just think it's funny, you know,
it's a funny story about the dentist dropping and f bomb.
We got to pull these f and teeth or whatever.
And then we get this emial. Hey guys, my name
is Ginger and I'm a dental assistant in Blueville, Main.
(43:29):
The patient came into our office this week and said
my boss was famous. She then proceeded to tell us
that she listened to your show and at the end
you read letters from viewers, and went on to say
that the patient wrote in about the dentist that swears.
I went back found the episode August. Oh yeah, here
its right here, August twenty three, August third Really.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Wow, oh boy, that was this month. Well, we read
it to be fair five weeks before that.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
The episode was the last meal ritual and it has
to be my boss, doctor Travis Castle.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
By the way, I said it was okay to read this.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
By any chance that the patients say the dentist was
because my ball thinks it could totally be another dentist,
but I don't believe it. If you could, could you
send me an email back so I could know if
I was right? He he, So I did.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Look this up.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
The original gentleman did not give the name of the dentist,
but he was a dentist in Maine. And what are
the chances that there are two cursing dentists in Maine.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
They're essentially zero, probably zero.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
So Ginger goes on to say he does like to cuss,
obviously not in front of kids, and he's not everyone's
cup of tea, but he surely has a lot of
fun to work with.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
He's a genuine dentist.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
I don't even know what that means, but it takes
no bs from root patients. I've worked with him for
two years and I still love to come to work
every day. Thank you for taking the time to read
my email. Thanks to our patient, you have a new listener,
and I look forward to hearing from you. That is
from Ginger, the dental assistant of doctor Castleberry. So I
almost want to save up a cleaning and go see
(45:01):
Ginger and doctor Castleberry sometime.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Why not just book a plane ride up to Maine and.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
To your tea clean and then come on have a
swim in their cold, cold ocean.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
That email, by the way, was ginger v itis. Sorry Ginger,
sorry to everybody who hates puns, including me. Well, if
you want to get in touch of this, like Ginger did,
you can send us an email. Send it off to
stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, get this. We have a mind bending announcement
to make the Stuff you Should Know episode on Vinyl
is now on vinyl. You can learn about records by
listening to a record. It's possibly the first time a
podcast episode has ever been put to wax, and we
did it along with our friends at bourn Loosers Records.
(00:21):
It comes in three awesome colors, black, white, and a
super cool splattercore and you can order it for pre
sale now at syskvinyl dot com. Records will ship on
October twentieth, just in time for Halloween, whatever that means.
So go to sysk vinyl dot com right now to
get this super duper limited edition, super cool stuff you
(00:43):
should know thing a record on records.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and
Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you Should Know,
the podcast about Revenge. Revenge. We've done an episode on
it was like a top ten on cases Legendary Cases
of Revenge. Oh yeah, I remember that, but we didn't
talk much about Revenge itself, and I felt it was
(01:22):
high time. We've been dancing around it for decades now.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And here we are I thought, this is a great idea,
So kudos to you because it. Dave helped us out
with this one. And it's a lot of like science
and studies have sort of and I'm not going to
spoil anything, but have sort of produced results that fly
in the face of what one might typically think about
(01:48):
revenge and what it means for the person getting the revenge.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I think most people how we feel about revenge,
it's from watching movies and it's like deeply satisfying to
watch the bad guy who deserves revenge get their come upance, right,
sure is, or even be killed just like, yes, that
guy deserved that kind of thing. But in reality carrying
(02:13):
out acts of revenge or they just it's not like
the movies, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
And yet there's a lot of evidence of revenge in
real life, so much so that the New York Police
Department came out with a study in twenty twelve and
found out that forty two percent of the homicides in
New York were motivated by revenge. Man So, and that
(02:37):
actually kind of underscores like a problem with revenge is
that when you enact vengeance on somebody and you leave
them alive, almost invariably that person feels like you overdid
in response to what they did. It was disproportionate, So
now they have to strike back again, and it can
(02:59):
go back and fourth until somebody dies or else somebody
can die right away is the first act of revenge.
But the point of the whole thing is is that
once you do carry out revenge, no matter if it's
petty exciting somebody up for spam or killing somebody in
response to whatever slight like road rage, they cut you
(03:20):
off in traffic, you don't feel good afterward. You actually
feel worse. And that's the underlying point of this entire episode.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, you know, my favorite Petty I don't do it,
but my favorite petty revenge to witnesses is when and
it's so dumb, everyone just settled down, is on a highway,
when someone is on an expressway and they clean their
windows and it gets all over the car behind them.
I see people all the time race in front of
that person and do the same thing back then.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
God, really, yeah, that is petty.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
That is Tom Petty. That's not Tom Petty. Could Thom
Petty was great. That's just and I also wanted to
say too, you talked about revenge, coming back harder or whatever.
Emily has her own personal saying, like when we're messing
around and I like I will do something to her,
or I'll say something kind of mean as a joke,
she'll eviscerate me, and she calls it coming back double.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
She goes, I come back double. Oh boy.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
He's one of those people that think she gets pushed
into corner and man, she comes out hard. So it's
a good trait, I think, and one to be wary of.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
At the same time, Yes, I'm suddenly way more wary
of Emily than I was before. Luckily, I've always stayed
on her good side.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, you wouldn't come at it Emily anyway, You're smart.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So there's a lot of questions revolving around revenge. If
if we know for a fact it feels good to
think about, but then it feels bad to do despite
the fact that we're thinking about it, where like this
is going to feel good, it's not the act of
thinking about it that feels good. It's fantasizing about how
good it's going to feel to get that person back
(05:02):
to set the universe right again, to do all sorts
of things that revenge allegedly does. And it turns out,
when you carry out an act of revenge, you are
playing the chump to evolution on behalf of society as
a whole, and that's kind of like the whole basis
of revenge. There's an evolutionary instinct that's very very old.
(05:27):
It's found extensively in the animal kingdom, and it really
collides with the modern evolved humans that live in these
complex societies we've formed today. When you put those two
things together, an interesting podcast comes out.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
What you're talking about in the animal kingdom is also
called retaliatory aggression, and that is the idea that so,
let's say a lion mama goes out and kills an
animal to leave for her little cubs to eat. Another
animal is like, ooh, you know, let me see if
I can sneak in there and eat some of that too.
(06:06):
The mama lion doesn't just scare this thing off to
preserve that meat for the kids. The mama lion goes
and hunts down and kills that animal. Yes, that's they
come back double Emily style right.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I mean, like the problem solved, the hyena has been
chased away, But to leave your kids and go find
it and kill it, that is seems retaliatorially aggressive.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, and this next one too, I'm gonna mention these
are interesting because it made me sort of question the
idea of revenge versus punishment, right, because I think those
are different things. But the Teresis monkey, We've talked a
lot about their vocalizations, like they're all about the group,
or they should be at least, And like when they
find food, let's say they will tell everyone, hey, I
(06:50):
found food. But if a Riesei's monkey is ever like,
you know, I'm gonna have a little bit of this
first before I call out. And if they find that out,
there's a punishment for that Reese's monkey. I don't think
they kill it, but there is a punishment. And this
is the idea that these retaliatory aggressions are deterrence. It's
(07:10):
like a punishment for everyone to see to prevent future
trans aggressions like hey, did you hyena see that? Did
you other Reesis monkeys see that? So that, you know,
would be an advantageous thing evolutionarily speaking, So that gene
gets passed on.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, because the more the more you're prone to do that,
the likelier you are to not have food stolen from
you for your kids, the likelier it is for your
kids to survive and your lineage to survive. So it
makes sense evolutionarily speaking, this retaliatory aggression does at least right.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah, which I would still argue is punishment more than revenge.
I think there's an emotional component that's missing, but we're getting.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
To that absolutely. I think you're absolutely right. And there's
a story, a couple of stories of tigers actually engaging
in can only be described as revenge, and it's very
much up in the air whether what we're witnessing is
actual revenge. But like, like, there was a very famous
story out of Russia where like a poacher not only
(08:15):
shot a tiger but also took some of their kill,
and that the tiger tracked the guy down, found his
little lodging, destroyed everything he could find in the lodging,
and then waited outside for the hunter to come back
and then kill them. And that the tiger managed to
hold this idea in his head. I think it was
her her head for up to maybe twenty four hours
(08:36):
after the hunter shot her. There's a couple of stories
out there that seem to pertain to tigers specifically that
it's almost like it does contain an emotional component to it.
But for the most part, yes, it's it's solving a
problem and then maybe preventing future problems among the animals.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know, one of my favorite sayings is revenge is
a meal best serve cold. I don't know why, because
I'm not a revenge guy really, but I just I
think that is just such a great saying.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I just like it.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
You know, there's something about like, oh no, no, no,
the real revenge is like when he waited around.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
For a while.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Oh yeah, and then when you would might not be suspected,
you come back and take that revenge.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, because if you just immediately do it in response,
you're a hot head and a dummy. Anybody can do that.
But to sit there and really stew on it and
figure out the best way to really get back at
the person that takes intellect Yeah, I agree, and a
little bit of craziness. I just have to say.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
All right, so now we can get to the humans.
As far as evolution is concerned, we have that same
sort of instinct ingrained in our DNA for that retaliatory aggression.
Our ancestors when they were living in hunter gatherer groups,
was a lot of relying on one another, obviously a
lot of communication and cooperation, and thus a lot of
(09:56):
punishing to be done if people either were outsider people
inside the group didn't cooperate and do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yes, and so this is again the same thing what
you were talking about. You're punishing the person who transgressed.
You're also deterring future behavior. And the more we became social,
the more important this kind of stuff became, because we
started depending on other people, and so as a result,
(10:23):
we started monitoring one another, and that in and of
itself can act as a deterrent in the future, because
you know that there's a vengeance instinct, and there's a
set amount or set structure of norms and rules, and
then other people are watching you to see what you're doing,
(10:45):
and you're watching them, and that kind of creates an
atmosphere of conformity. And you say what you want about conformity,
but if you have a large group of people following
the same rules, you're taking care of a really basic
problem and issue and you can then kind of evolve
more into more and more complex societies. Yeah, that's I
(11:09):
saw one person say that revenge is ultimately what provided
the basis for human civilization and allowed it to grow
knowing that there was such a thing as revenge that
humans were capable.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
A bit totally.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So kind of put a pin in that for a second,
because we should talk about this idea of like sweet revenge.
That's a that's a word that's often associated with revenge.
And you talked about the fantasy of revenge, and it's
it's you know, it's a fantasy because for very good reasons,
if you are physically hurt, obviously or emotionally or psychologically
(11:45):
wounded by somebody you, it's a natural instinct to think
about getting back at that person, right, and the feelings
that come with that take place. And a part of
the brain called the dorsal striatum, and it's the same
aim part of the brain that controls the reward system
of like, hey, that pecan pie tastes great, that sexual
(12:08):
orgasm feels amazing, or the drug that really want.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
To take feels good.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
It's that same lizard brain pathway that revenge lights up,
that lights up whenever you do anything that feels rewarding
or satisfying for somebody.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, it's extraordinarily powerful and hard to deny and overcome
because it's just such a basic response.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Right, totally.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
But again, the problem, and this is where the tension arises.
We have evolved to a way where we've created these
societies with rules and expectations that in part say like,
you can't carry out revenge. It's not okay. And you
know that that's not okay as a modern human living
in modern human society. And yet we have that part
(12:54):
of our brain, that really powerful, basic part of our brain,
telling us to do it, and we know we're not
supposed to. And that's kind of like the point in
human evolution that we live in right now.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
That's right, Should we take a break? Sure?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
All right, that sounds like a good stopping point. So
we'll take a break and we'll come back and we'll
hit on the thing that you brought up earlier about
the fact that actually getting that revenge may not be
so sweet. Stop.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So, Chuck, one of the things about revenge that makes
it different from the drug that you were talking about,
or the orgasm or whatever, is that when you think
of it, it's more fulfilling than when you actually do it.
So like if you think about a drug, might it
might be pleasurable, but it's probably nothing compared to what
the drugs doing in your brain when you actually take it, right,
(14:06):
It's not true with revenge. Not only is the thought
a fantasy of revenge more fulfilling and will hit that
limbic system harder when you actually do carry out an
active revenge, it actually creates negative feelings in you as well.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, which is interesting because like, how can an idea
of something? How can a fantasy of something trigger the
same cascades of the other pleasurable things in their life
that you're actually doing, And when you think about it,
it actually does make sense because revenge, actually taking revenge
is risky. Thinking about revenge fantasies, Sizing about revenge is
(14:47):
not risky per se. I mean it could be dangerous
for you know, negative for a person perhaps eventually if
you like you've become obsessed with it, but initially it's
a feel good feeling, but carrying through on it can
be risky. If you go to if you're the hunter
gatherer group and someone invade your group and steals your meat.
You could go you could just sit there and think
(15:08):
about how great it would be to get them back,
and that's probably the safest move. Or you could actually
go to that other camp and try and kill that person.
But you're taking a big risk at that point.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You individually are that's right, but you're doing it on
behalf of the group or the group benefits whether you're
doing it on their behalf or not.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
If you didn't do anything, though, that group, not just you,
but the group you're a member of, would seem weak
to other groups. Yeah, and it's it sounds really like
kind of chromagnet or something like that, But that's it.
It's important. You can't have like I was saying before,
(15:47):
you can't have society without the knowledge that if you
transgress there will be consequences for it. I saw, I
saw it put. There's a neurologist and psychologist named Jeff
viktor Off. He said that reciprocal altruism, which is how
people cooperate between groups and within groups, that it rewards
(16:10):
and requires a costly signal demonstrating risk taking on behalf
of the in group. So for people to be able
to trade with one another. For people to be able
to get along in a society and not kill each
other or whatever, you have to know that there's a
threat to you if you transgress. It has to be
there or else people will inevitably invariably cheat or kill
(16:32):
you or do whatever. And it's a really basic, paranoid
way of looking at the world. But if you start
to study revenge, it seems like it's a lynchpin of society,
as it states that there's just you can't have a
society animal or human without that that threat hanging over
you of revenge.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I got another quote, and this is the idea kind
of supports the idea that the revenge itself isn't you know,
it's risky and it could be bad for you. It's
really the idea of it that's that's better or at
least better for the individual. This from Francis Bacon. A
man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which
otherwise would heal and do well. And that's sort of
(17:17):
the thing that you know, has come up over and
over again and studies that we're going to be talking about,
is that the you know, the path of the Buddha.
The getting over things and not seeking revenge is really
the path that ultimately will bring someone what satisfaction? Tranquility, yeah, tranquility,
(17:40):
Maybe not satisfaction, actually yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I think it's getting past the need for satisfaction that
will lead you to the point that you really want
to get to, which is feeling good again, but like
you felt before you were wronged. Right. The thing is
is with no wronged. The thing is is with with
revenge what again? What you have is an innate, automatic
impulse to smash the other person in the face to
(18:05):
get back at them for them insulting you or your
family or your favorite football team or whatever. It's a
really basic instinct that if you can learn to overcome,
not just you as an individual can evolve, we as
a society can evolve. The thing is is you still
need that for just to keep society going and functioning.
(18:30):
What we've figured out as further evolved humans that we
can externalize that revenge instinct and imbue our institutions with that,
where we've created court systems and justice systems. They're responsible
for carrying out acts of vengeance or retribution or righting
(18:50):
wrongs in serving justice on behalf of the individuals of
society and as society for society as a whole, so
that we don't have to care acts of revenge on
one another. And in fact, we have rules now that
if you do carry out an act of revenge, you
can be punished by those same institutions that are there
to enact vengeance on your behalf.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, because what happened is, you know, we went from
the hunter gatherers, where you literally had to do this
for your group to survive, to eventually settling down. Once
we became farmers and settlers and eventually urbanites, and those
became Those same instincts were there, but they became moral codes,
and all of a sudden, you know, we had these
(19:33):
moral codes like you don't cheat on your friend's wife
and stuff like that, and you know that's not punishable
by death, but that revenge instinct is still there to
overcome these moral codes. There was a psychologist named Herbert
Herbert Gentis that talked about revenge seeking his moral behavior.
Individual secrivenge not when they've been hurt, but when they've
(19:55):
been morally wronged. I would also argue, you know, some
people's secrevenge when they literally they have been physically hurt
as well, right, But it's also a morally wronging that
happens if someone you know, jumps you and beats you
up at a football game or something.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And that's actually that's attention that philosophers been trying to
figure out for a while. John Stuart Mill was a
fan of the deterrent explanation of revenge or punishment or
whatever you want to call it, and he was saying, like,
like with the animal Kingdom, when you you punish the transgressor,
you're you're deterring future behavior by making an example of them.
(20:30):
Emmanuel Kant said, no revenge exists because when somebody transgresses,
you're against a person, you're being morally wronged, and just
remove everything else. Morally speaking, that person deserves to be punished.
And he put it in a really kind of alarming way.
(20:51):
But philosophers always operate on the fringes anyway to make
their points.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
He was saying that a genuinely I guess, a legitimate society,
even if it was disbanding, it was in the act
of disbanding that they were they they were required to
go in and kill all of the remaining prisoners, all
the all the murderers, like, go execute the rest of
(21:17):
the murderers. Just because your society's disbanding makes no excuse
whatsoever for the people that you've imprisoned that transgressed against
the society, because they committed a moral wrong that is
larger and more important than any any individual or even
any society, and that they deserve to be punished in that.
That's the function of revenge, according to Khan. Oh interesting, Yeah,
(21:38):
it's kind of a kind of vengeance.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
kN was he was serious, man, Yeah, he came back
double you mentioned earlier. You know, we have systems set up,
you know, court systems, police forces, things like that these days.
But it's interesting that they found that historically these places
in the world where the culture were what you would
(22:01):
call like a culture of honor, were more prone to,
you know, commit acts of violence as revenge. Like the
American South was historically known as a culture of honor,
where you would go out and defend the honor or
fight somebody or have a shootout with somebody.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I saw specifically, that's white Southern culture. That patterns of
African American retribution or crimes like that don't really vary geographically.
That's the white American South is the one that does that.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I mean, I think that's what they're talking about as
sort of you know, pre Antebellum and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Culture.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Middle Eastern cultures historically can kind of be the same
way as far as revenge goes restoring honor, and they
found and this is what gets really interesting is that
cultures and areas that have a history of weak law
enforcement maybe engage in revenge more often. When you hear
about like street justice, you might think of a low
(23:01):
income community that maybe mistrust the system, they don't think
the courts or the police are on their side to
begin with or would take care of them. So that's
where you're going to see more sort of street justice
revenge carried out right.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And then same with workplace environments and schools. Apparently three
and five school shootings from nineteen seventy four to twenty
twenty were acts of vengeance revenge. I'm surprised it was
actually that low of a ratio. And then if you
work in a place where your complaints to management or
(23:35):
whatever seem to be falling on deaf ears, that can
also lead to vengeance in the workplace like workplace shootings.
Like remember in our going postal episode, what like the
common factor was that management was not only like dismissing
complaints about bullying, they were often engaged in bullying themselves. Yeah,
and like it doesn't justify or excuse it, but that
(23:58):
is an example of some buddy tarrying out an act
of revenge, at least in their mind.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, for sure, you were talking about philosophers earlier. Now
we get to finally talk about our old friend Sigmund
Freud and Joseph Preuer his mentor because they had what
was known as the catharsis theory of aggression or the
hydraulic model. And this is the idea is that a
(24:24):
lot of psychosis or most of them were repression and
it was negative emotion that was building up. And if
you repress these emotions, if you have these negative emotions,
if you have anger towards someone or frustration, and it
builds up like a hydraulic pomp, eventually you're going to
pop or you're going to have what's called a catharsis
or Greek meaning cleansing or purging, and you will release
(24:49):
that in an unhealthy way, which is probably going to
be revenge, Freud said, it could manifest as hysteria. And
here's the thing, though, is that's stuff falls apart when
you actually apply science to it. They have found that,
you know, you know, punching a punching bag can maybe
(25:09):
give you an immediate relief, but a lot of times
that stuff only serves to work you up more when
you apply science to it.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, because the basis of the Catharsis theory was that
rather than going and killing the person who wronged you,
you could go hit that punching bag and pretend the
punching bag was them, and you would get out that
repressed anger and feel better and could move on. But yes,
starting I think the fifties, they were like this, wait
a minute, this is this is not right at all.
(25:37):
It turns out that when you do that, it just
extends that the sour feelings that cause you to want
revenge in the first place. And like we said, if
you can find a way to forgive or forget or
move on or whatever, you will ultimately be happier in
the long run, and even immediately compare to somebody who
(26:01):
actually carries out an act of revenge or even goes
and punches a punching bag, pretending like it's the person
they want to carry out an active revenge against.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, there's that psychologist you're talking about, a Ri Hornberger.
One of the studies they did, he would have an
actor come in and like insult someone in a study.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Can you just see Ted Dats been doing this early
in his career.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, you half witch, look at that nose. So somebody
would get really mad, apparently and be instructed to go
bang nails, hit nails into a board for ten minutes. See,
you know, apparently let out that frustration as their fists.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
The other half of the people just had to sit
there and think about it for ten minutes, and then
they were given a chance to criticize the person who
insulted them. And if you subscribe to Freud and the
Catharsis theory, then the nail pounders would have been you know, relieved,
and their aggression would have been let out and they
would have been less hostile. But the exact opposite happened.
They were even more hostile after they pounded those nails
(26:59):
towards the actor than the people who did nothing.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, that was Hornberger in the fifties. It's still being
proven today. There's a psychologist named Brad Bushman who made
a slightly more robust study of the whole thing, but
it followed essentially the same methodology, where you were thinking
about whoever you wanted to get revenge on while you're
hitting a punching bag, or another group was hitting a
(27:26):
punching bag, but they were told to think about the
health benefits of boxing, and then the other one didn't
punch anything, the third group, and they found that the
rumination group was the one who displayed the most anger,
and then the distraction group, who were also punching the
bag but thinking about how great boxing is, they were second.
(27:47):
And then the last group, the people who didn't punch anything,
They were the happiest, They were the least hostile as
a result afterward. Yeah, and you know, again we're getting
into social psychology territory here. But these people are working
with the best they can while staying within ethical boundaries,
like you can't actually harm somebody, but they do have
ways of making you feel insulted or cheated. That's another
(28:13):
big one too. And when you're in one of these experiments,
you don't know that they're researching revenge. You think they're
researching how well you can play like a game with
others or something. You have no idea that that's what
they're researching. So there are some pretty good models for
testing revenge without actually putting anyone in harm's way.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Should we take a break, Yeah, let's all right, let's
take a break, and we'll talk a little bit about
sometimes revenge can feel good and explain those studies as well.
(29:06):
All right, before we broke, we talked about the fact
that revenge basically actually undertaking the revenge, or in these
studies at least it's not revenge, but you know, letting
out that aggression, thinking about the person who did you wrong,
we punched a heavy bag.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Really just makes you feel worse.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Revenge, under the right circumstances can make you feel better, apparently,
according to the studies of German psychologists Mario I'm sorry,
he's a psychological scientist, Mario Goldwitz, and this gets a
little interesting. I think he talked about comparative suffering and
(29:45):
the notion that when you see the person who wronged
you suffer might restore a balance, an emotional balance, getting
yourself into the universe at large. Even that and his
other theory of the what's called the understanding hypothesis, which
is that if the under the person who did you wrong,
(30:05):
if they suffer, that's fine, but that's really not enough.
They have to know that they're suffering because of what
they did to you. Yeah, and that that can actually
bring some I don't know about positive emotions, but make
someone feel good as opposed to feeling worse.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah. And he came up with a pretty clever experiment
to test which one was correct comparative suffering or understanding hypothesis.
And essentially what happened was the research participants thought that
they were trying to compete for raffle tickets with another
person who was in another room. They were paired up
with a partner team member, yeah, partner, and after they
(30:42):
won all the raffle tickets, they were told that they
and the partner could divvy them up between them and
basically all of the participants, you know, cut them in half,
distribute them evenly. But they found that the other people
had really shorted them on their tickets. Their partner had
really kept a bunch of tickets rather than distributing them evenly,
so they had been wronged in some way, they were
(31:06):
given a chance to write that wrong by carrying out revenge.
They were allowed to redistribute the tickets like a second chance.
And in that case they almost invariably screwed the other
person over who would you know, So they enacted revenge.
And then this is where Goalwitzer really kind of shown
(31:26):
for me. He figured out a way to test how
satisfied those people were with that act of revenge.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, there were I think sixty percent of the people
ended up shorting them in return, sometimes even more than
they were shorted to begin with, Like they came back
double Emily styles. So he went that one extra step,
like you were saying, and he said, all right, here's
what you do. Now you can write a note to
(31:55):
the person and say whatever you want. You can reference
the you know, the justice. So one person wrote sorry
for taking the tickets away. And remember now it gets
a little convoluted, but this is someone who initially was
shorted and then they took revenge by shorting the other person,
maybe even more right, And so they sent them a
note they said, sorry for taking tickets away, but unfortunately
(32:17):
you only cared about yourself. That's so childish, so they
would write a note of many many of them would
write notes like saying, I really want you to understand
this is why you're getting shorted. Right.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So then what Gallwitzer figured out was that he could
test understanding hypothesis and comparative suffering by getting two different
kinds of notes to the people. That group of participants
that had carried out revenge and then sent a note
saying I wronged you because you wronged me. And the
first note was kind of it was like contrician. They
(32:51):
were saying, yeah, I understand you really gave it to
me because I had wronged you initially. And then the
other note was like, hey, you way over did it.
I didn't do it that bad to you. I'm a
little indignant. And so if the comparative suffering was correct,
just knowing that those people had been put out by
(33:11):
the revenge of retaliation should have been satisfying enough. But
what Gallwitzer found was that that's not the case at all.
That the group that got the note back that said, man,
you really stuck it to me and I feel like
a schmo because of what I did to you, they
were far more satisfied than the people who had just
(33:33):
gotten the note back, saying like, I'm a little indignant
you overdid it. So just knowing that they suffered was
not enough. They had to know why they were suffering.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Like I guess it's
the idea of like, if somebody and if you're trust me,
no one should ever do anything like this. It means
you're a truly bad person if you do. But if
you engage in road rage and someone cuts you off
and you follow them to the gas station and like
cut their tire when they're in the store and leave,
(34:06):
that wouldn't be as satisfying scientifically as if you do
that and leave a note that says like, you know,
this is what you get for cutting me off.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Right exactly. So you said something in there that I
think is really important too, that that group who retaliated
the participants, when they retaliated, they often distributed things even
more unfairly than their partner had initially right right, right, right,
And that's something that's a big problem with the cycle
of revenge that a researcher named Arlene Stillwell from State
(34:37):
University of New York at Potsdam pointed out. The problem
is is that when you are on the side of
avenging yourself for a wrong, you think that after you've
done that, things are right again. You've created equilibrium in
the moral universe again. But when you're the recipient of vengeance,
(34:59):
you feel like that person was disproportionate to the wrong
that you inflicted, and so, like I was saying earlier,
now you feel like you might need to get them
back again. And it just goes tit for tat and
tit for tat, And that's why the safest, smartest, most
highly evolved, most Buddhist thing you can do is to
just short circuit the whole thing and let it go
(35:19):
and just move on and know, yes, you've been morally wronged,
and you have the power within you to not do
a thing about it and like live a happier life
than you would if you did something about it.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, And I think that kind of holds with They
found some pretty good research on what's called impact bias,
and that's the idea that people tend to overestimate how
much like one kind of even sometimes small, single thing
will affect their future.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
They overestimate it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And the example he used is like a kid, a
high school kid, saying, well, if I don't get an
A in this class, it'll ruin my chances to get
into a good college. And that's probably overestimating things, because
getting into a college is more about this one class maybe,
or this one test. But people underestimate, apparently, like anger
goes to opposite, they will underestimate how hard it is
(36:11):
to shake angry thoughts. So you might think that you
can get over something by committing the act revenge, but
you're really underestimating it, and those those feelings are going
to stick with you even past that revenge act.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. With anger in particular, it's its own thing. It
doesn't follow the rules of other emotions, right yeah, And
that is of course part and parcel with revenge. You
are angry, maybe even hateful, and you have to carry
out some sort of act of vengeance, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And I think there's also something to the idea that
even though you think committing that actor of revenge will
fulfill you, what it does in the end is it
you've heard about, like you know, you brought me down
to your level, Like if you go and slash that
guy's tire for cutting you off, you know I got you.
(37:01):
But those negative thoughts about yourself are going to creep
in because you have now stooped and done something even
worse than cutting someone off. You you know, cost someone
money and ruin their property and potentially created a danger
for them.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
You know, well, even if you were cut off by
the person, I've seen people do this too, and you
rev your engine and catch up to them and cut
them off. Right, So it's literally tip for tad, right,
there's no nothing was done beyond it's completely even You're
still gonna feel bad about having should that, And it's
insane how it happens, Like you are just driven by
(37:38):
this rage, is just feeling like this is what you're
supposed to be doing, This is what the universe is
demanding you do to set things right again. And then
the moment you do it, you feel terrible about yourself
in one way or another. And it is just such
a just such a BS evolutionary relic that like you're
being manipulated by genetics at that point. Yeah, at that moment,
(38:01):
you're being manipulated. You are a puppet. And so the
best thing you can do to control your own destiny
again is to say, man, that guy cut me off.
He's a putt or even better, that guy cut me off.
Maybe he's a his lake is bleeding and he's he's
got to get to the hospital. You know, there are
a lot of things you can do, but when you
do that, you're overcoming your genetic destiny and taking it
(38:24):
in an even better direction.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
I mean it's tough stuff, man, to follow that pass
for me, for a lot of people, I have tried
and tried, the more of the older I've gotten to
try try, right, It's hard, but try to think, like
what happened to that person? Why are they like that?
Like when you see someone who's you can tell as
(38:49):
a bad person, not someone who cuts you off in traffic, but.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Like if you's someone hit learn in traffic.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
No, but when you know someone is doing the wrong thing,
and someone is just a bad human doing doing bad things,
I try to find some empathy of like what happened
to them that made them that way and what happened
to them today to make them that angry, And I
try to seek those moments out.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's stuff though.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I'm trying too, But to be real, there's a crew
of appliance delivery dudes who scratched my wood floor two
years ago, and the company refusing, has refused to pay,
refuse to pay over a year ago. Yeah, and I
still am like, should I get those guys back? And
(39:36):
if so, how like I, well, you break into their
house and scratch your floor? Man? Yeah, tip for tat?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, but then also dovetails with that, that idea, that
tip for tat, or even better, an eye for an
eye leads the whole world blind as part of that
escalation and encycle of retaliation. Which is such a great
quote and everybody attributes it to Gandhi, but apparently it
was not word for a word, but the sentiment was
by Canadian named George Perry Graham. He was a journalist
(40:03):
and a politician and a huge fan of the Raptors.
No Gordon Lightfoot, oh, of course, even though it comes
back to g L. I think he was probably dead
long before Gordon Lightfoot was alive. I just wanted to
give a little shout out for Canada's sake.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, why don't we wrap it all up with this
idea of mutually assured destruction because it dovetails nicely, right.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
It does, chuck, And here's why to think it away. So,
just as a refresher. We've talked about it before. The
doctrine of mutually assured destruction was that if you are
a nuclear superpower, say the Soviet Union during the Cold
War or the United States during the Cold War, if
you launched an initial first strike, the other side, even
(40:53):
though they were doomed because your nuclear warheads were in
the air and going to come and kill everybody there
in the meantime, they were going to launch a retaliatory strike.
It would do nothing to save anybody's life on their side.
It wouldn't do anything to stop those missiles from coming.
It was strictly revenge and the human awareness of the
(41:18):
concept of revenge and that that was a very real
thing that the other side really would do. That is
what kept people from carrying out an initial strike during
the Cold War, according to mutually assured destruction doctrine.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Oh, did I take up the whole thing? I'm sorry,
you shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I mean, I think it's it's a great way to
end it. It's for all this talk of revenge. It's like,
is that the thing that has kept humanity on the earth?
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, I mean, that's that's what some people say. And
I mean, Yeah, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction keeps
getting questioned, like was that really what what was keeping
things in check? Or was there really like behind the
scenes stuff we didn't know about. And it seems like
more and more it really was keeping things and check.
And it seems to be because there was a total
awareness that the other side would kill you just because
(42:06):
you killed them first. Yeah, so that's revenge, everybody. I
think if there was one point to this episode, it's
get past it as best you can, and if you can't,
don't be too hard on yourself. Just try again next time.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, try that narrow path is narrow, and do your best.
It's hard, we all struggle with it. But see if
at the next time you want to get revenge on
somebody in traffic or wherever, See if you can take
that narrow path and calm yourself down, and you know,
there's a really good chance you're gonna feel better about
(42:40):
yourself and the world's going to be a better.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Place because of it.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
To squeeze your steering wheel until you bleed from your
palms and your butt cheeks. Since Chuck said butt cheeks,
everybody knows that's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
This is a great follow up quite a while ago,
not that long ago, but like last year. Sometime we
or it may have been this year, I don't know.
We read an email about a guy who's had the
cussing dentist.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Oh that was just a few months ago.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, okay, I have no concept of time anymore. Understood
the guy who's dentist cussed, and we liked it because
my doctor cusses, and I just think it's funny, you know,
it's a funny story about the dentist dropping and f bomb.
We got to pull these f and teeth or whatever.
And then we get this emial. Hey guys, my name
is Ginger and I'm a dental assistant in Blueville, Main.
(43:29):
The patient came into our office this week and said
my boss was famous. She then proceeded to tell us
that she listened to your show and at the end
you read letters from viewers, and went on to say
that the patient wrote in about the dentist that swears.
I went back found the episode August. Oh yeah, here
its right here, August twenty three, August third Really.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Wow, oh boy, that was this month. Well, we read
it to be fair five weeks before that.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
The episode was the last meal ritual and it has
to be my boss, doctor Travis Castle.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
By the way, I said it was okay to read this.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
By any chance that the patients say the dentist was
because my ball thinks it could totally be another dentist,
but I don't believe it. If you could, could you
send me an email back so I could know if
I was right? He he, So I did.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Look this up.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
The original gentleman did not give the name of the dentist,
but he was a dentist in Maine. And what are
the chances that there are two cursing dentists in Maine.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
They're essentially zero, probably zero.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
So Ginger goes on to say he does like to cuss,
obviously not in front of kids, and he's not everyone's
cup of tea, but he surely has a lot of
fun to work with.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
He's a genuine dentist.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
I don't even know what that means, but it takes
no bs from root patients. I've worked with him for
two years and I still love to come to work
every day. Thank you for taking the time to read
my email. Thanks to our patient, you have a new listener,
and I look forward to hearing from you. That is
from Ginger, the dental assistant of doctor Castleberry. So I
almost want to save up a cleaning and go see
(45:01):
Ginger and doctor Castleberry sometime.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Why not just book a plane ride up to Maine and.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
To your tea clean and then come on have a
swim in their cold, cold ocean.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
That email, by the way, was ginger v itis. Sorry Ginger,
sorry to everybody who hates puns, including me. Well, if
you want to get in touch of this, like Ginger did,
you can send us an email. Send it off to
stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.