Was Seneca wrong about revenge? episode artwork

EPISODE · Apr 14, 2026 · 8 MIN

Was Seneca wrong about revenge?

from John Vespasian · host John Vespasian

Let us beware of people who preach passivity because they might be trying to slow us down. If they have already taken advantage of the situation, they might be preaching resignation to prevent their victims from taking action. Seneca condemned revenge, but did his idea of revenge also include creative, peaceful solutions? When he wrote about revenge, he meant bitterness, aggression and chaos. I tend to think that his conception was aggressive and warlike. If we give revenge a narrow definition, it is no wonder that #seneca was against it. I’m also against it and I assume that my readers will also be against it. However, we can give revenge an alternative definition, one that includes peaceful, clever, constructive action to redress the grievances. I want to emphasise the peaceful character of this approach. If someone has suffered damage, he should not just remain passive. Instead, he should review the alternatives, look for a creative, peaceful solution, and implement it without delay. Seneca’s calls for passivity and resignation are misguided. I share his condemnation of aggressiveness, but there is a broad range of possibilities that he never explored. One can conceive revenge as peaceful, #creative action to bring back #balance and fairness. In his 89th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca employs other narrow definitions that are also false. He mentions Crates of Thebes, a Cynic philosopher, who criticised formal logic because it does not teach us how to live. Crates was actually criticising #aristotle (384-322 BC), who had written his treatises on logic one generation earlier. The conception of #logic employed by Crates is too narrow, because it ignores the connection between logic and ethics. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/was-seneca-wrong-about-revenge/

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