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Philosophy 101
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Grudge
| Philosophy 101 |
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Grudge |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois 
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Are grudges wrong to hold? I want to hear your opinions. |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Grudges, my friend, are quick to make one sick. Unless the mind is used to ease and erase troubles, grudges only cause pain, and increase tension, and usually come to a very bad end. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I like to think of it as being on an emotional budget.  Sunshine is right about emotional exhaustion (bankruptcy) and illness. So...I prefer to not think in the negative of holding a grudge. There are just some situations (and people) which I can't afford. I like to think that getting along with others is never permanently out of the question, though. That just might have to be postponed due to my own inadequacies at the time. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
a "grudge" is a colloquialism for unforgiveness. Is it a good thing for someone to be unforgiving of someone else? I don't think so, since it only allows the bitterness of someone else's wrongdoing to have control or influence over you. Of course that doesn't mean that forgiveness comes easy. Firstly it is an act of the will that has to be reaffirmed again and again, against new waves of offensive emotions and memories. Feelings don't always come in line with our choices, but given time, they will. As a Christian, I think radical forgiveness has a Theological basis ... If God, through Christ, has forgiven the whole of my sins, then who am I to refuse someone my forgiveness for a particular sin? However, none of this makes it easy or any less of a problem when I feel a "grudge" for someone. But it does clarify things for me, and help me make up my mind. One thing that strikes me though, is how easy I can have a grudge for someone over something fairly trivial, in comparison to wrongs I've seen done to others. Jesus said love your enemies. I don't know that I've ever really had any. I have a hard enough time, sometimes, loving people who simply inconvenience me or insult me unwittingly, but who can hardly be called enemies. God help me if I ever really encounter the malice of an outright enemy. I do know that if I offend other people, I would want them to forgive me. On a lighter note, think of how the word "grudge" sounds ... like "sludge". But then again it sounds like fudge too. Oh well, I guess sound-comparison doesn't help us on this one. Stephen |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
Holding a grudge is an evolutionary stable strategy, without grudges and the good sense to hold and act upon them society, as we know it, probably wouldn't exist. . |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
Grudges are exhausting. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
By that logic, Uncas, murder would be an evolutionary stable strategy. And it would sure as heck eliminate the need to carry a grudge. Less exhausting, too. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
It would be nice, indeed, to know what Falling rain decided, too.  |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
Not really Ron, the strategy I was thinking of was tit for tat, or more precisely tit for two tats, both of which require the ability to hold, and pay back, a grudge under given conditions. Murder, in contrast, would be decidedly unstable - show me a society where the members chose killing everyone they met as a potentially stable strategy and I'll show you a society doomed to extinction. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
MURDER? That's a bit extreme... I was thinking more along the lines of shooting the neighbor the finger with the old, "just scratchin' m'nose" trick.  |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
Who said anything about "killing everyone they met?" Your strategy would only lead to killing those what deserved it, a common enough philosophy in our modern tales of the wild, wild west. It's also common enough in modern American, at least in 35 states. Killing is tit for tat, Uncas, carried to its logical conclusion. Of course, some might argue we aren't just killing those who deserve it; we are, in fact, killing those we THINK deserve it. That's a subtle but perhaps very real distinction? It's a distinction that has characterized much of human history, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust to the execution of Saddam Hussein. There always seems to be someone somewhere deserving of death. My real point, of course, was that grudges and tit for tat aren't any more stabilizing than is murder, differing only in degree, not in kind. While my life might depend on the avoidance of precarious ledges, I don't necessarily have to feel animosity towards those ledges to survive. The choice to fear and hate high places is, indeed, a choice. I believe society endures in spite of our human enmities, Uncas, not because of them. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
Then there is this: I could suppose that my current sinus eruption/infection is karma for my juvenile surreptitious game of shooting my neighbor the finger by rubbing my nose. Or maybe it was just plain DUMB of me to touch my nose that often in the middle of a flu epidemic. There is logic in there somewhere. I know there is--er, isn't there? NO MORE NYQUIL FOR ME, MA!  I shall behave. *peace out poetkins*  I'm exhausted. *laughing* |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
It is natural and reasonable to have a grudge after being wronged by someone in some way, unless or until it is taken to unnatural or unnreasonable extents. If one be viciously assaulted by someone, it is reasonable for him to have/feel a sore grudge and would be rather unnatural and unreasonable not to have a grudge. But if a teacher gave you an F fifty years ago in Math for getting the answers wrong, is it reasonable still to have a grudge about that? Probably not. Some grudges are reasonable, others are not so reasonable. |
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