Let's do the unexpected

Though natural, the cry for revenge seems more connected to social and psychological processes of finding a way to release deep emotional anguish, a sense of powerlessness, and our collective loss, than it does as a plan of action seeking to redress the injustice, promote change, and prevent it from ever happening again.

Always seek to understand the root of the anger. How do people reach this level of anger, hatred and frustration? Explanations that they are brainwashed by a perverted leader who holds some kind of magical power over them is an escapist simplification. Identity-based anger of this sort is constructed over time through a combination of historical events, a deep sense of threat to identity, and direct experiences of sustained exclusion. Our response now may reinforce and provide the soil, seeds, and nutrients for future cycles of revenge and violence…