Posted
1/03/2007 05:13:00 PM
by Douglas
"Thou shalt have justice — more than thou desirest." Revenge is dangerous business, as it will punish the guilty, so will it claim the
innocent.Heaven knows what scores this particular man may have had to wipe out; very likely his whole family had been murdered; and after all, even a wanton kick to a prisoner is a very tiny thing compared with the outrages committed by the Hitler régime. But what this scene, and much else that I saw in Germany, brought home to me was that the whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.
How true. Most of us recognize this trait as what most adults call "growing up." Changing the things we can, accepting the things we can't and having the wisdom to know the difference.
Still, another example that Orwell's true genius was in his
NON-fiction.