Transcripts

Mike McCullough:
Humans come into this world both with an instinct to seek revenge and with an ability to forgive. And the real difference, Mike, between the situations in which we're inclined to use revenge and the situations in which we're inclined to forgive is all about the environment. It's all about the situation.

Mike McCullough, author of the book Beyond Revenge, says it's always easier to forgive someone if it's in our own self-interest. And it's also easier to forgive someone if we feel that justice has been done. In fact, there's a movement now called "restorative justice."

The idea of restorative justice is that when somebody is victimized by a crime, often times what they really want is a decent apology, an explanation for why the offender broke into their house and stole everything - and some attempt to compensate them.

So in these cases criminal and victim sit down and try to work these things out.

These restorative justice programs reduce people's desires for revenge by about 400% and increase their desire to forgive by about 250%.

This basic concept of justice is actually being used by our troops in Iraq when Iraqi civilians are accidentally harmed.

Very few people know this but our commanders offer apologies, they try to compensate and it goes a really long way toward keeping goodwill and peace with civilian Iraqis.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.