Chuck Bryant

So you're sending that signal you're not to be messed with.

But then you're repairing that relationship, that valuable relationship that

you depend on to help your survival in the social group, you're repairing it and then you guys can move forward.

And that that is how revenge and forgiveness are basically two sides of the same coin or at least work in conjunction with one another to keep the group functioning at its best.

Right.

And that kind of dovetails with the second question.

Part of that thing, which is called negative reciprocity, which is if someone hits Tuk Tuk and Tuk Tuk goes crazy and just starts wailing on the other person who just slapped him in the face.

Yeah.

That's not good either because everyone's going to go, whoa, Tuk Tuk, I'm not sure I trust him now.

He's definitely burned that bridge forever between him and the other guy, and none of this is very good.

So what they found is negative reciprocity, if someone smites you, you smite them back the same amount and then forgive them.

Like if someone takes off their glove and slaps you across the face –

You don't kick them between the legs and then wail on their face.

You slap them back with your glove, and then you talk about forgiving one another, and everyone sees that you can work with people.

You can stand your ground, but you can also forgive and work with people, which means you're valuable to the group and you're valuable to have around.

Yeah, and so kind of tied into what you were saying earlier about how there's this idea that revenge is a base instinct and forgiveness is a higher instinct rather than realizing that they're both pretty basic instincts among the animal kingdom.

There's this idea that in human society, we have created these social institutions and these contexts so that—

The individual doesn't have to carry out revenge and then forgiveness, that they can just focus on forgiveness.

Yeah.

As long as those social institutions are doing what they're supposed to do, as long as there is like a pursuit of justice.