In which Matthew remembers how to fucking teach

Everything's going to hell this week, and it's given me this all-stops-out kind of approach... to everything. I keep telling people exactly what I think of them and doing what I feel like doing. I sat down on the sidewalk on Telegraph Avenue and stared at the rooftops for no reason today. It's delicious.

I had grown utterly tired of blank faces staring at me from behind Njal's Saga, easily the greatest work of medieval Scandinavian literature (though Gisli's Saga is a personal favorite), a saga that deeply explores humanity through its unquenchable penchant for revenge (say that three times fast). So I changed up the game a bit.

ME: You are all obviously behind on your reading. Today is your catch-up day. Congratulations. Now let's actually get to work and talk about this text. I want everyone to take out a sheet of looseleaf paper and write down a real event that you have witnessed, or in which you have participated, that is an example of VENGEANCE. You may have been the aggressor or the victim, or just a witness. Do not write your name on the paper. Know ahead of time that your classmates will see this, so don't write anything that you would be uncomfortable sharing with the class, even anonymously. If you can't think of any personal examples, an impersonal one (Lindsey Lohan smearing Paris Hilton) will do. Below, write down whether you felt the vengeance to be JUST or UNJUST. Hand them all to me when you're done. Remember: keep it anonymous.

In good faith, I will not share here the unbelievable and intimate results of this exercise; suffice to say that there were two cases that involved stabbings, that there was one student who got revenge on someone by changing the information in a Wikipedia article he was using to write his essay (!), and that by the end of the day we all (myself included) fucking GOT Njal's Saga.

We also established eight criteria according to which we evaluate the relative justice of an act of vengeance:

1. FIT. Does the punishment fit the crime? Is it too much? Or not enough? We all agreed, chillingly, that the best vengeance is the kind that is slightly worse than the original offense. This creates an endless worsening feedback loop of one-upping, and Njal's Saga demonstrates it to be sure -- but we all felt that way, unanimously.

2. RELATIONSHIP WITH THE INVOLVED PARTIES. We are less likely to take vengeance on a blood relative or significant other, and more likely to take stronger action when something has been done to a blood relative or significant other. We also act on behalf of friends, but not with as much intensity. Subcategory: REVENGE BY PROXY. When we exact vengeance on behalf of someone else who was wronged, our behavior changes (depending on our relationship with the victim).

3. AGE OF THE INVOLVED PARTIES. An adult cannot intercede for his or her child, not by using vengeance; the adult can, however, instruct his or her child on how to exact revenge properly.

4. WIT. Funny or ironic revenge is always, always best.

5. CONTEXT. We do not take the same kind of revenge for something done to us in the context of a game, for instance.

6. PHYSICAL/NON-PHYSICAL. Some people (not all) are hesitant to cross the physical barrier -- even the lightest physical assault feels like it is crossing a line of some kind. Criterion #2 changes things up a bit in this regard.

7. ME. Did it happen to someone else, or to me? When we are the aggressors ourselves, our sense of relative justice changes.

8. LAW. Is this an issue best left to institutionalized authorities (mitigating our need for revenge)? Then again, half the class strongly felt that in most cases the law cannot be trusted to do enough.