The perfect word to describe Quentin Tarantino’s Movies: Sexy. Not for the reason, you may think. It’s not Brad Pitt, or the enticing, Scientological allure of John Travolta, or the overstimulating cinematic shots of women’s feet, or even the climactic David Carradine (Oops!).
The allure here reigns over the idealistic principle of justice or at the very least, a subsequent idea of it. One would go as far as calling this principle in practice as a primitive human instinct we so desperately as a society find unsustainable and so frowned upon, yet stories of this principle fills us with an overarching feeling of satisfactory euphoria, and a feeling of unapologetic and extreme justice. This is the principle of revenge: perceived just results--fitting for the wronged.
The distinction between justice and revenge is a crucial dichotomy of belief. Beliefs in instruments of the ego and the metaphorical spiritual “Soul”. Thoughtful implications of this would be the classic Freudian personification of the id, ego, and superego. Our natural inclination to variate between the id and the superego puts us, again, on a spectrum of means: The fight between our higher and lower faculty values based on either self-interest or the interest of others. In such terms, we can initiate the understanding and distinction of revenge from justice.
Simply put: Justice is revenge, but revenge is not justice. Principally, justice prevails in the spear of moral correctness. Moral correctness exists in the slew of numerous schools of philosophical thought. Thus, it is, like any other principle of ethics and morality, up for scrutiny under moral subjectivity. To live in accordance to justice, conscious effort and deployment of just solutions for multiple variations of thought- religion/theology, law, social justice, requires the scan of variances among these schools of thought. In a perfect world, each of our in any of the given principles mentioned earlier, our morals should line up rather uniformly and consistently through these thoughts, but we deviate from them case by case more frequently than we may imagine. In fact, our feelings of justice and morality are more and more conditional. Ethics and morality differ here, too. But does serve to illustrate justice and revenge rather nicely. Is it ethically right to lie? No. Is it morally right to lie? Well, it depends, doesn't it? We justify our actions based on our moral principles. Sure lying isn't doing anything for me to cleanse myself of ethical condemnation, but it was sure as hell made a lot more moral sense to tell my friend that she should most definitely wear her fleece Patagonia half zip to the club. The distinction here, is the moral subjectivity of revenge, a subset of justice. One in which the argument of ends justifying means is yet again, put to the test in the world of justice morality. And sure, you can make this same sort of distinction with more taboo and rather pseudo-argumentative issues like the death penalty, but the result is the same: justice is served differently, some like it cold, some like it hot, and everything in between.
But why are we drawn to revenge, if traditional justice aims to abandon principles such as "an eye for an eye"? In the pivotal scene between Beatrix Kiddo and Bill, after back-breaking feats with Hattori Hanzo steel, coffin breaking, and eye-gouging drama, Kiddo delivers the iconic 5 point blow which cemented her long hero's journey of seeking revenge, eventually killing Bill. If you're like most, this conclusion breathed us with a sense of long-awaited justice, just as for our heroine Beatrix and her daughter Bea. But why does it make us feel something- this sense of just revenge?
We are creatures of immense complexities both in our physiological and psychological nature. We strive to live comfortably. We strive for just outcomes based on our decisions and our output we put into the world. This fundamental hardwiring of our brains lead to believe that all of our actions must be met with an equally rewarding or even equally punishing outcome. Being taught through life and through measure we justify actions happening based on the principles of simple cause and effect: If I do X, Y should follow based on previous experience or conscious effort to create the Y outcome. I met with Z and not Y, we throw ourselves for a loop. Seeking justification for why, how, and what happened, and based on those questions, we formulate a fault, a wronging, of ourselves or others. Revenge taps into the action based on Z, one that searches equal results of consequence. Morally, in this spectrum, revenge is seen as an equalizer and catalyst for a full-circle solution to not achieving the Y. Met by any means necessary to comply with total equality, with little regard for circumstantial orientation. As human beings, we strive for balance, and utter equality unmatched by civil ethics, in our most primitive and raw form. Revenge digs deep into this need for total equality of outcomes and balance in our most primitive and egotistical desires, but that balance simply cannot be maintained. Revenge is sexy to us as an unsung gravitation towards egotistical morality. One that we frequently toe the line of, and frequently stand behind.