James Kimmel Jr. : "Revenge Is Dopamine With a Law Degree"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – "James Kimmel Jr.: Revenge Is Dopamine With a Law Degree"
Date: February 27, 2026
Host: Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions)
Guest: James Kimmel Jr. – author of The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction and How to Overcome It

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, host Mike Pesca interviews James Kimmel Jr., who brings a unique personal and professional perspective to the science of revenge. Kimmel’s own “John Wick origin story” serves as a launching pad for a discussion on the neuroscience, psychology, and societal costs of revenge. The conversation intertwines Kimmel's personal narrative, recent brain research, reflections on legal culture, addiction, and ideas for justice reform – all delivered in the Gist’s signature responsibly provocative and engaging style.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. James Kimmel Jr.'s "John Wick Origin Story"

[10:16–17:05]

• Kimmel recounts being bullied as a teenager in rural Pennsylvania, culminating in a traumatic incident where his beagle was shot by local farm kids ([12:46]).
• Two weeks later, after the same kids blew up his family’s mailbox, Kimmel, in a rage, grabbed a gun and chased after them, intending at minimum to intimidate, possibly to shoot ([14:32]).
• As he cornered them, he recalls:

  "At the very last second, I had this insight that if I went through with what I wanted to do, I would never be the same James Kimmel Jr.... I'd have to identify myself as a murderer." ([16:00] – Kimmel)

• That moment of self-reflection, driven by the fear of losing his identity and having to live as a murderer, allowed him to stop, not out of forgiveness, but recognizing the personal cost.

II. Neuroscience of Revenge – Pleasure and Pain

[17:05–22:42]

• Kimmel explains that seeking revenge activates the brain's pain network (anterior insula), mirroring real, physical pain:

  "When you have a grievance... This activates... the anterior insula... real physical pain we experience." ([17:57] – Kimmel)

• Our brains then seek pleasure to balance that pain. Revenge and thoughts of retaliation trigger dopamine release—much like drugs or alcohol.

  "Revenge thoughts, fantasies and acts are highly, highly pleasurable. They release dopamine in the exact same circuits... as activated for drugs and alcohol." ([18:44] – Kimmel)

• The "go" circuitry motivates us to act, seeking repeated dopamine hits, sometimes escalating from fantasy to action if unchecked by executive function ([20:14]).
• Mike Pesca connects this to addiction, asking why the dopamine hit doesn’t suffice: Kimmel explains its brief effect leads to craving more, paralleling substance dependencies.

III. Who Acts on Revenge, and Why?

[22:42–26:23]

• Almost everyone feels the urge for revenge, but only 15–20% act out destructively, similar to addiction rates for drugs ([23:08] – Kimmel).
• Factors influencing this threshold:
  • Genetics (dopamine sensitivity, prefrontal cortex strength)
  • Social norms and honor cultures
  • Trauma, systemic injustices, lack of effective justice systems
  • Masculinity and family culture, which may subtly encourage "taking care of your own business" ([26:50])

IV. Revenge Culture and Its Social Impact

[31:21–33:34]

• Pesca raises the idea of "honor culture" and cycles of violence in communities with high murder rates, linking revenge instinct to environmental and cultural context.
• Kimmel confirms:

  "You have a very strong revenge street justice culture. ...For them it's kind of a matter of survival... And so there's this entire system that's... built into the neurocircuitry or spawned out of it – we don't know." ([32:04] – Kimmel)

V. Can Revenge Be Healthy?

[33:13–36:00]

• Pesca cites athletes like Michael Jordan and the idea of “success is the best revenge.”
• Kimmel discusses channeling feelings of victimization into achievement (his own academic success in response to being doubted by a counselor). These actions are not true revenge, as they aim to elevate oneself, not punish others ([33:34]).

  "We're using it as motivation... to succeed, not to hurt them, but to ennoble ourselves." ([36:00] – Kimmel)

VI. The Law as Sanctioned Revenge and Its Dangers

[36:00–41:29]

• Kimmel describes his time as a high-powered lawyer. The adversarial system can reinforce addictive revenge cycles for both lawyers and clients:

  "All that we're doing with the criminal justice system or the civil justice system is... putting distance between the person who was wronged and what they really want, which is somebody with a gun, we call him a sheriff, to go and take money or property." ([36:40] – Kimmel)

• “Legal pissing contests” are described as intoxicating for lawyers, with each email exchange providing a dopamine hit.
• Awareness of the addictive cycle led Kimmel to experience depression, burnout, and eventually to leave practice for research after a personal crisis involving suicidal thoughts ([39:01–41:29]).

VII. Judicial Punishment, Justice, and Forgiveness

[41:29–47:30]

• Pesca explores whether the justice system should be punitive (to deter crime) or restorative (to break cycles of vengeance).
• Kimmel distinguishes between self-defense (justifiable) and revenge, which is punishment for past actions ([43:43]).
• He supports incarcerating violent individuals for public safety, but not as retribution beyond what is necessary for safety.
• Proposes treating revenge as a public health issue inside correctional settings, helping offenders manage future grievance responses.
• Pesca notes that in honor cultures and certain communities, legal consequences might not function as effective deterrents if one's conception of being a murderer is normalized.

VIII. The Role of Justice and the Power of Forgiveness

[46:49–47:30]

• Kimmel argues that “justice” is often a self-serving synonym for revenge:

  "We use the word justice when we really mean revenge... Justice has two opposite meanings." ([47:30] – Kimmel)

• The “heroes” of the book are those who forgive rather than perpetuate the cycle.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Revenge thoughts, fantasies and acts are highly, highly pleasurable. They release dopamine in the exact same circuits of the brain that are activated for drugs and alcohol."
  – James Kimmel Jr. ([18:44])
• "My success is completely predicated on selling addictive revenge to my clients and to society at large."
  – James Kimmel Jr. ([38:58])
• "Revenge is about punishing people for things they've done in the past. Self-defense is acting to prevent a present or imminent harm."
  – James Kimmel Jr. ([43:43])
• "We use the word justice when we really mean revenge."
  – James Kimmel Jr. ([47:30])

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Important Timestamps

• 10:16–17:05 — Kimmel's origin story, near-murder incident, and key insight moment
• 17:05–24:45 — Brain science of revenge, pleasure vs. pain, the addiction analogy
• 26:23–28:27 — Social and familial factors shaping revenge responses
• 33:13–36:00 — Healthy vs. unhealthy channels for “revenge,” using resentment as motivation
• 36:00–41:29 — The law as revenge, lawyer addiction, and the emotional toll
• 41:29–46:49 — Justice vs. revenge, criminal justice reform, and forgiveness as an antidote
• 47:30 — Final thoughts on the dual meaning of “justice”

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Conclusion & Tone

This episode offers a unique look into human nature, brain chemistry, the law, and culture, using Kimmel’s personal and professional journey as a guide. The conversation is both candid and analytical, blending lived story with rigorous inquiry. The tone is intellectually curious, empathetic, and, at times, gently irreverent (“legal pissing contests,” “sorcerer complex”)—very much in line with The Gist’s ethos.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Tuned In

This summary captures the arc of Kimmel’s story (from personal trauma to legal addiction to research and reform), the science behind revenge, why we crave it, and what societies can do to redirect or ameliorate it. The most memorable exchanges interrogate whether revenge ever feels like justice, how “justice” systems often reinforce the cycle, and why the ability to forgive is ultimately both rare and heroic.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Friday, February 27, 2020. Peach Fish Productions it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. So Anthropic, the company that runs Claude Cloud, if you want to say it in German, they're making big news today. They're getting attacked a bit by Donald Trump. He doesn't want to allow them in government offices again. Okay, we'll get to that in a second, but let's go back a couple days to set the scene. Earlier this week, Anthropic rewrote a key promise in their responsible scaling policy, backing away from a 2023 commitment to slow down potentially Dange AI development. There is no point really, if a competitor is going to get more dangerous anyway and they trail the competitor.

[Anthropic Expert]

Ben Anthropic says they have two major concerns here and it's because they just don't think the AI systems are either reliable enough for this. These are things like autonomous weapons. They say it's just not reliable enough yet to be able to aim and shoot a weapon. They're also concerned about mass surveillance of US citizens, saying just our laws and regulations have not caught up to what I can do when it comes to mass surveillance. And they say that the Pentagon's attempted changes did not satisfy that and, and they are not budging on this. And they say the military is welcome to go elsewhere. They will help the military off board Anthropic products. They'll help them onboard somebody new. And Dariel Amadei, the CEO of Anthropic, saying in a statement, regardless, these threats do not change our position. We cannot in good conscience accede to their requests.

[Mike Pesca]

So basically what Cloud, what Anthropic is saying is that we won't be the most dangerous kid on the Block. And since they are a leader, that means something, but not as much as it used to mean. Here's the quote. The policy environment has shifted towards prioritizing AI competitiveness and economic growth, while safety oriented discussions have yet to gain meaningful traction at the federal level. The premise of we will go slower for safety, subject to a collective action problem. If your competitors won't, where does that leave you? And restraint starts to look like unilateral disarmament. But you probably heard about this today. But unilateral disarmament, that is the prerogative of the company itself, isn't it? No, no, no. So says the Pentagon.

[Anthropic Expert]

Those cloth systems are loved by programmers. There's a reason why the Pentagon is using this because it is well used within the Defense Department. Experts say that it is well within all of the military and the military does enjoy using it. And that's why the Pentagon wants to continue using this and is probably putting up this fight.

[Mike Pesca]

If we tell you to develop weaponry using your magic, dammit, then we want that weaponry. We want self guided, perhaps fully intelligent, self thinking bombs, making decisions about which particular villagers to bomb, always the ones most deserving. I am sure Pentagon wants to be

[Anthropic Expert]

able to say to Anthropic, we want to use your Claudia system. That's one of the only systems that's used in the classified military system for any purpose. They don't want to be in the middle of a war situation having to go to Anthropic and saying hey we need to do this. Can you give us permission?

[Mike Pesca]

Dario Amadei, head of Anthropic writes, we believe I can undermine rather than defend democratic values. Some uses are simply outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do. So that's where they as the leader in the field is. The one with the Pentagon contracts are saying no, this isn't safe and the Pentagon is bringing their guns to a computer fight. Here is the Undersecretary of War Emil Michael tweeting, it's a shame that at Dario Amadei is a liar and has a God complex. And it does seem that Michael is really regretting that aspect of Amadeus character. Michael goes on he wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US military and is okay putting our nation's safety at risk. The Department of War will always adhere to the law, but not bend to the whims of any one for profit tech company like the for profit tech companies that it contracts with. Little like to go back to legend, if King Arthur commanded Merlin to create an army of ladies of the lake. And Merlin said, no, not a good idea. And sir Gwen said, it is a shame Merlin has such a sorcerer complex because really, I can't think. And I invite you to send us in your ideas. But are there really any downsides to fully intelligent self guided bombs and missiles? Okay, even if you can think of a downside, what if I told you that Pete Hegseth is the man with his hand on the tiller? Right. That's the right guy for the job to prudently use intelligent self guided bombs. You want the guy behind the rebranding of the Department of Defense into the Department of War to be in charge of making sure intelligent weapons are only going to be used for defense purposes. I assess this as anthropic, having all the cards, it might want some of the money. But I don't see how it could really be compelled to authorize the weapons to kill more people than the weapons would kill if it were just run by human beings. If the Pentagon is going to cancel the contract with Anthropic, who are they going to call you? Lieutenant Grok. On the show today, an interesting researcher with a really interesting story. The name of the book is the Science of Revenge. Understanding the world's deadliest addiction and how to overcome it. And as you will hear in the story he's about to tell, James Kimmel Jr. Has exactly this challenge in his past, which he overcame. It took him a while. And now he's trying to teach us all about how to deal with revenge. James Kimmel Jr. Up next. I'm wearing True Work right now, no joke. And it's not exactly because I was going outside on a winter job site, but I was mucking about in the snow. And TrueWerk builds performance workwear like it matters. Cause it matters. You want the history. There was a trade professional who's also a smart guy who knew fabrics and said if I wear these jeans, they just get soaking wet. And then if you compare it to brands like I'll name them Carhartt and Dickey's, their traditional cotton based gear, it gets heavy when wet and it's just not the same. Or the case with True Work Advanced Performance fabrics. Of course they have the moisture wicking. What do you think they're going to put you out there in the world without the wicking? The best wicking this way that comes. And they're wind resistant and they're insulated and I gotta say, they're good looking, they're cool looking. I wear a lot of True Work all the time and I sometimes even break my rule, which is no two clothing items of the same brand. Then you say, oh what am I playing for the team? At this point, I pretty much am. Don't let cheap gear slow you down this winter. Upgrade your day with workwear built like it matters. Get 15 off your first order@True Work.com with code the gist that's T R U E W E R K.com the gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

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[Mike Pesca]

Revenge takes many forms and has many idioms associated with it. I think of the dish best served cold, but if it is a dish, it's a strange one in that we really don't know the ingredients. Perhaps we could name some analogs like vengeance or justice, but we definitely don't know what makes the dish so compellingly delicious to some people. What are the receptors on our tongues? What is the flavor of revenge? I don't want to get too lost in the analogy, but these were some of the things that came to mind when I was reading James Kimmel junior's new book. He has a he has studied revenge and he has a unique vantage point. He was the perpetrator of an act of revenge that almost killed him in a way and almost killed others in a very definite way. Then he went into the revenge business full time high powered lawyer and now he has stepped aside from that years later decided to study it not as a scientist but as a practitioner and he will tell you a recovering addict. The new book the study is the Science of Revenge. Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction and how to overcome it. James welcome to the Gist.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Mike, thanks for having me.

[Mike Pesca]

So, as all interviews with you must. But I must. I must do this. Let's start with you as a kid in rural ish Pennsylvania. And you were you were a nice kid who studied hard and didn't work the land, but some of your neighbors Were a little rough. You older boys who punched you? Take it from there.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, well, I have a, you know, a John Wick origin story, so I'm unfortunately burdened with that. But I'm happy to share it because I think it's. It's instructive. I actually, in truth, wanted to be part of the working of the land group. My parents moved me to this farm that had been my great grandfather's farm when I was around 12 years old. I loved that whole scene, and it was my fervent desire to grow up and become a farmer. I reached out to the farm kids around me who lived on these big, massive dairy farms. Our farm was small by comparison. We had a small herd of Black Angus cattle and some pigs that were basically taken care of by my grandfather and then by me as I got older. But the farm kids around me didn't really want to have anything to do with me. My parents were. My dad was an insurance agent, my mom a homemaker. We weren't farmers in the sense that they were. And so the harder I tried to befriend them, the more they resisted. And that resistance went from shunning to bullying and picking on. And as we got older, getting slugged around and kicked and punched and that kind of stuff. Until one night, my family and I were asleep pretty late at night and we were awakened to the sound of a gunshot. So we jumped to the, you know, jumped out of bed, looked out the windows, and I could see this pickup truck that I knew had been owned by one of the guys or the parents of one of the guys who had been abusing me and bullying me. And I saw it taking off down the road. So we checked around the house to see if there was any damage, didn't see anything thankfully, and eventually went back to sleep. Next morning, one of my jobs waking up was to go out and take care of that small herd of animals that we had, the cows and the pigs and also this hunting dog that we had, really sweet beagle named Paula. And when I went up to her pen to feed and water her that morning, I found her lying dead with a bullet hole in her head in a pool of blood.

[Mike Pesca]

And it doesn't end there.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

No, no. So, you know, folks called the police, state police who patrols these vast areas of countryside in the middle of Pennsylvania. They came, took a report, but they weren't really interested in pursuing it any further. It wasn't that they were hostile, but they were pretty busy people. And this was a kids dispute. And they said, please let Us know if it gets worse, but we're moving on. But we have your record. So about two weeks later, I found myself home alone fairly late at night. My folks were out somewhere, my brother was gone. And I heard the sound of a vehicle come to a stop in front of our house, which was pretty unusual. We lived on kind of a one lane farm road. And so I got up to just see what was happening. And as I got up and looked outside, there was this flash and explosion. And what had happened is that it was the same pickup truck that had been there two weeks earlier to take care of my dog. They'd blown up our mailbox. So that pickup truck took off down the road through the cloud left over by the explosion. And that explosion detonated for me not only our mailbox, but what was left of my self control. So I went and grabbed a loaded revolver that my dad kept in a nightstand. I had been shooting guns in various ways since I was probably about 8 years old on that farm. We had lots of hunting guns as well. So I grabbed the gun, ran through the house, ran outside, jumped in my mother's car, and I went off after these guys through the dark of the night, just sort of shouting and in

[Mike Pesca]

full rage mode, in fully intending to find them and shoot them or do, you know, as you remember back, to intimidate them, to wave the gun around. Can you remember what your intent was?

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, it was probably closer to intimidation and waving and you know, finally having this confrontation and going, don't ever, you know, don't ever, you know, do this again. But I did catch them, okay? And you know, I caught up to them. I cornered them by a barn. And so the scene is, you know, their pickup truck is cornered against this barn. I'm behind it with my brake beams on, and I see three or four heads in the truck cab. And they slowly get out and turn around, squinting through my high beams to see, you know, who had just come flying down their country farm lane road. And you know, it was a perfect element of surprise situation. What was clear to me at that moment is that one is they were unarmed, they had no weapons in their hands. Maybe they had something in the truck, but they weren't carrying anything. And they could not have known that I had a gun. And they wouldn't have necessarily known who I was. They may or may not have recognized that vehicle as my mother's car. They wouldn't have been able to see me through the brights. And so I had complete elements of surprise. And I had been putting up with this for what, maybe four years of abuse. And I was just filled with rage and the desire to even the score here and do to them what they had done to my dog. And so I grabbed the gun, opened the door, started climbing out. But at the very last second, I had this insight that if I went through with what I wanted to do, I would never be the same James Kimball Jr. That I knew I had been driving into that farm. And for the rest of my life, I'd have to identify myself as a murderer. And that's just not an identity that I had ever thought of becoming or ever was acceptable to me. And when that became clear to me, I just kind of. I stopped for a second, and it was just enough to kind of snap me out of this rageful, revengeful situation. And I went, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna go through with this, and pulled myself back in, put the gun down, and drove home. I didn't forgive them, but I knew that the cost of getting the revenge I wanted so badly was way more than I was willing to pay.

[Mike Pesca]

So in that anecdote is not just the origin story of what became your life work, but so many factors that are exemplified in what you have studied. So when you get out of the car and you talk about this, there is the go that's getting into the car and wanting the revenge, and then there is the stop. The go is dictated by the amygdala and other parts of the brain, and the stop is by executive function. So let's analyze it also with the asterisk. That memory is a funny thing. And it's pretty interesting if we showed you the actual footage that was actually. That actually occurred. There might be differences in how you remember it, but that's also significant. Do you think, at the time, you're a young kid, they don't have full, fully developed prefrontal cortices. Do you think you had an enlarged go function but also a sufficient stop function? Analyze. Knowing what you know now, what was going on in your head?

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah. So, you know, I just want to clarify. It's not the amygdala, actually, it turns out. So revenge neuroscience is showing us that when you have a grievance, that's a real or imagined perception of having been victimized, mistreated, disrespected, humiliated, shamed, wronged, treated unjustly, victimized, any of these things. This activates an area of the brain, the brain's pain network, called the anterior insula, and that is real physical pain we experience when we have these feelings, these moments, or these imagined or perceived wrongs that we walk around with all day, every day.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I'm gonna stop you just to emphasize this for the audience, cuz it's so far in the book. This is real physical pain. Think of this like real pain. It comes up over and over again. It's a useful, not just analog fact. Sorry, go ahead.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, thanks for clarifying that. You're right. And when you get this form of real physical pain that's registering inside your brain, your brain is now imbalanced, right. It's got this overload on the pain side of let's say a teeter totter or some neuroscience and addiction science scientists think about it. So on the other side of that teeter totter is pleasure. And your brain instantly starts seeking pleasure to balance against the pain. And it turns out that, that with revenge seeking, revenge seeking, we've evolved so that revenge thoughts, fantasies and acts are highly, highly pleasurable. They release dopamine in the exact same circuits of the brain that are activated for drugs and alcohol. So we're talking about the nucleus accumbens and the dorsal striate and these two areas that are associated with pleasure and habit formation. So these are the pleasure, these are the actual brain areas that are activated when you feel wronged. And then you start thinking, thinking about how to retaliate and fantasizing about that or carrying it out. So we're actually, we seek revenge as a form of self medication to make ourselves feel better when we've experienced this intense psychological pain that is registering as physical pain inside our brain. And the last thing.

[Mike Pesca]

So why doesn't, sorry to stop you again, why doesn't the dopamine act as a solve? You feel the feeling and then you start getting this dopamine, this pleasure hit and you don't actually have to go through with it.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Right. For a lot of people, they don't. Right. Most of the people most of the time are not going through with particularly violent forms of revenge seeking. There are nonviolent as well. Many, many more than there are violent forms. But what is going on there is that there's this pleasure cover up. Right. And it's just the same reason that people become hooked on drugs or alcohol. It's this intense feel good experience and you want it again and again and again. And it's highly motivating. So we call that the go circuitry that you were just referring to. That's the go that motivates you to go and seek it. And the reason that it's so intensely motivating and moves kind of into this experience of craving, is that the dopamine hit drops off pretty quickly and you're like, hey, whoa, I want that back. I want more. And it's the loss actually of dopamine that turns into the craving, because you want to go and get another hit and another, and you want it in stronger and stronger doses. So you may be moved from revenge fantasy to revenge action. So if we think about what's going on in my brain that night, I go in there with this load of pain that's been built up over years. I now see and I've been prompted many, many times, how do I retaliate? How do I get revenge against these guys? How do I, how do I get the payback that I need? Which is to say, how am I going to get this greater and greater, stronger and stronger hit of dopamine? It keeps coming and it keeps going. And now I finally can get the big one right, and I have the gun, I have the situation in front of me. And the only thing that can stop you at that point from going through with this act, despite its obvious negative consequences is your prefrontal cortex. Exactly what you just mentioned. And the question then becomes, is it developed? Is it acting? Is it working well, has it been hijacked or inhibited? In addiction, it is thought to be hijacked or inhibited. And that is why people will continue to engage in behaviors that are self destructive or destructive to other people, despite the negative consequences. So answer is, I mean, this is theory, right? We didn't have a brain scanner on me as I was sitting there at that farm. But we can surmise that what was going on at the last second is, thank God my prefrontal cortex was functioning at that moment and stopped me from changing my life. I wouldn't be here today. I would probably still be in prison.

[Mike Pesca]

Do we know if most people who go through acts of revenge have more of the go or we all have the go. We all have those feelings maybe even to the same degree. It's just they have more of the stop. They have the more developed prefrontal cortex that contains what we call the concept of executive function. And they don't go through these huge feelings that we're all compelled by.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

It's more about the stop function. So we all have evolved. Let's think about it this way. With drugs and alcohol, 100%, or nearly 100% of all people, if given an opioid or enough alcohol, will feel pleasure and Euphoria. Right. That's about 100% of the population. But of the people who experiment with drugs or alcohol, only about 15 to 20% actually become addicted to it. And addiction means the inability to resist a desire or a behavior despite the negative consequences. So 100% of people are gonna feel high from opioids, maybe 15% addicted. Likewise with revenge seeking, 100% of people, it seems like, are very close to 100. Studies show so far as they've been conducted, there have been a few, that nearly all people experience the desire for revenge when they feel wronged. And revenge is pretty broadly described there. But it's the desire to inflict pain upon the person who hurt you. Pain for pain. So we all experience this urge only probably about 15 to 20% of us carry that out in a violent or highly destructive. A lot of others of us will do it in less violent ways. We might say an unkind word, we might plan a little bit of sabotage. We might get a little bit of revenge fantasy going that we work on. We might cut off a relationship that was valuable just to retaliate against the person who upset or offended us. Lots of non violent ways as well.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And nature and nurture. What causes the 15% because. Yeah, let me ask you that and then I'll do a little psychoanalysis.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, okay. Yeah. So we don't know all of the reasons, but there is a multitude of factors. There's social, genetic, the way you were raised, the culture that you were raised in, your ability to access things like a functioning, less violent justice system, whether or not your parents or your neighbors encourage revenge seeking. And there are lots of cultures that do that. If you think about blood feuds that go back in human history, where entire nations even still, like out in the Caucasus and other places people go, you offend me. We're going to come and get you and all of your relatives and there are going to be this family blood feuds that last for centuries. And people are being killed for stuff that happened long, long ago. So there are those types of circumstances. There's things like systemic racism and things that wear down a person's natural ability to resist these cravings despite the negative consequences. Poverty. And there are also potential genetic factors. It's been shown that some people are more susceptible to dopamine circuit flooding than other people. And more people have stronger and not stronger prefrontal cortex controls. So it's a broad spectrum of reasons.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I was thinking about honor culture, but I was also thinking about you. So in the book, there is just a couple lines where he said, my father did business with the farmers and also told me to take care of my own business. And I was reading into that. I'm almost certainly. But I was wondering if there was any aspect of parental guidance, love, toughness, or anything else that might, in retrospect have factored into how you acted in that moment.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, that's great that you raise it kind of in that way. And he didn't say, you take care of business. That was my perception. Right. I'm supposed to take care of my own business. And that came, I think, from years of. I think my parents were aware in general of what was going on and what was happening to me. But there's the masculine culture. I certainly was raised in it. My dad, my uncle, who I knew well, were kind of pretty tough guys. They had been both in Vietnam. It was kind of like you got to stand for yourself and you got to take care of business. Taking care of business meaning do what you have to do, right, to assert yourself and your identity. So the idea of a masculine culture in general is one that is of revenge seeking. Unfortunately, not always. It doesn't have to be. It should be balanced, but it's there. And so I felt that really it was kind of left up to me to solve this problem because it had gone on for all these years. Nothing had happened after my dog was shot, which was stunning to me, these guys were riding around getting away with this kind of stuff. And I thought, okay, well, I guess it's up to me to finally end this because they just staged a second attack on my house, blew up the mailbox. What was going to happen next? I had never confronted them, really, up until that point. I'd gotten in some minor scuffs with them, defended myself a little bit, but never retaliatory. This was my first kind of okay, I'm going for it type of moment.

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back with more revenge. Talk with James Kimmel Jr. After the break. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

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[Mike Pesca]

We're back with James Kimmel Jr. He has written the Science of Revenge, Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction and How to Overcome It. And so when you told that story before the break of that moment where you could have been a murderer, what stops you was the thought, I could be a murderer. But other thoughts that didn't stop you or intrude were things like this was wrong to do or I will not now have the future that I thought I could have. And so I just want to ask you to kind of analyze and identify why that was your thought or included in I will be a murderer, was it also. And some of the other considerations that might have crossed your mind.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

In part, it's that what you just said there. In part it was, I was aware that I would be losing everything I had worked toward. Right. I was an older teen, maybe 16, 17. I was beginning to look forward to a future as an adult. I knew that would be severely altered. I also took into account that I had been raised by good people, my parents, my grandparents. One of my grandfathers was a minister. I didn't ever see myself as any kind of violent person. And so to kind of keep just the idea of having to confront my parents, my teachers and them, to have to bear the burden of knowing that this guy that they had raised when it just killed people was just intolerable to me. So it was really a package of things. And again, as you point out, you know, these are as best I can remember, it's been, you know, decades now since I've had to really parse it in any kind of detail.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So if you were operating in a different milieu, like you mentioned, an honor culture, or I think of certain, usually, well, almost always very pathological inner city neighborhoods. I mean, 50% of murders occur in 2% of the nation counties. And there's a further statistic about census checks. Your conception of being a murderer might be different. You might have the same quote wiring or circuitry, but a different thought or not that thought might have occurred. And do you think that's why a lot of murders occur? Just because, you know, the limiting stop factor that affected you doesn't affect all people?

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Absolutely. No doubt. I've, I have worked with and researched with those types of communities, violent communities, violence interruption groups that seek to intervene and stop that cycle of revenge killing that happens almost after every shooting in any urban neighborhood in America. You have a very strong revenge street justice culture. A lot of the, often they're kids or teens who are engaged in it feel that they have no other choice. It's not only something that's taught, but for them it's kind of a matter of survival. They don't want to be a punk, they don't know what's going to happen around the next street corner. And so there's this entire system that grows up there that is kind of built into the neurocircuitry or spawned out of it, we don't know. But the bottom line is, is that it, it is supported by and activates in both directions. It helps to create the culture, it helps to maintain it in both ways.

[Mike Pesca]

I think about revenge as motivation. You know, in the phrase success is the best revenge. I think about Michael Jordan inventing reasons for revenge. To become the greatest slash most pathological player ever in the game of basketball. Is there can there be a healthy channeling of this instinct?

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Oh yeah, there certainly is. And Aaron Rodgers is another example maybe. And a lot of people, I would say a lot of athletes and high performing people in general, including myself, I'll say give you another example of the positive channeling. So when I graduated from, I was a pretty bad student in high school. I was not one of the elite, I was one of the dummies. Like I said, schooling wasn't important to me. For a lot of time I just wanted to be a farmer and then I wanted to be a truck driver. I wanted to be, and I respect these professions deeply. But when I was kind of rejected from it, I went, oh, okay, well maybe what should I be doing now? Maybe I'll turn to books. And I found out I could do books a little bit. But it was pretty late when it dawned on me. So I go to Penn State, a branch campus which is like going to a community college. I get in by the skin of my teeth and I go on my first day and I meet a counselor and the guy looks at me and I swear, I mean, I'm sitting in his office and he said, you're not going to graduate from here. He's like, you don't have it, so think about something else. And I was just in total shock with that and I was enraged by it and I used that, that sense of total victimization. And he didn't believe in me and he was telling me I could not even graduate with an associate's degree from that school or I'd be lucky if I did. In no way A bachelor's. I used that as fuel for an absolute four year firestorm of absolute dedication to my grades. And I ended up graduating with, I don't know, 3, 8, 9 or something. It was almost a 4.0 summa cum laude kind of experience. So I really used my revenge in that case for good. And in that sense, it's not revenge at all really. Revenge really is inflicting pain upon the person who wronged you to make yourself feel better. We think about revenge, success as a sort of a species of that, but it's not really. And we're using it as a motivation though, to succeed, not to hurt them, but to ennoble ourselves. And revenge in that way, or quote, unquote, revenge, I'll use it in quotes, is extremely powerful and motivating for lots of high performing people in the world.

[Mike Pesca]

So you go on to become a high powered lawyer and revenge is interwoven into that job. And your motivation, you're working for people who take revenge on anyone who wronged them. And ideally for you and your interests, have an unlimited amount of money to get revenge and you're all on board. And so a couple of questions. One is, why is that not like your academic experience, that you're achieving high success and you're working with the legal system and the revenge you're getting is sanctioned and I think maybe it can be argued, is an off ramp to actual violence. That's why we sue, so we don't have to, you know, chop off limbs.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is definitely better than violence. But violence is at the end of every civil and every criminal case. And what I mean by that is all that we're doing with the criminal justice system or the civil justice system is we're putting distance between the person who was wronged and what they really want, which is somebody with a gun, we call him a sheriff. To go and take money or property from another person, for instance, or during the process, inflict maximum pain upon your opponent, the person on the other side, to force them to settle with you, to give you money or property that you're seeking and looking for it is absolutely a big improvement over vendetta and blood feud. There's no doubt about that. And that's to the good. But in the end of the day, what I found myself doing each and every day for my clients was spending most of my time trying to make every day worse for the person on the other side, whether they were the defendant or the plaintiff. I was trying to inflict maximum lawful Pain on the other side, in order to compel them to do what my client wanted them to do, whatever that was. And usually it was in retaliation for something that they had done before the lawsuit started. It was always a feeling of victimization. They shouldn't have done that. They did this wrong. They breached the contract or they committed the crime, whichever system you're in. But it's the same thing. So it is not, unfortunately, it's not this benign form of revenge in quotes type of experience. Yes, I could look at it, and I did for a long time, as, wow, look how good I'm getting at this. Look at how good I'm writing briefs and I'm at these big law firms, and I'm succeeding in my little success world, but my success is completely predicated on selling addictive revenge to my clients and to society at large.

[Mike Pesca]

So what did that do to you? And how'd you quit?

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, it almost destroyed me again. I ended up at the end of this process feeling extremely depressed. I went through this long journey of being at this big firm, then a smaller firm. I could tell that what I was doing, although it gave me these hits of dopamine repetitively, sometimes during the day, many times a day, making. We call in the law when two lawyers are scrapping it out in emails or letters. We call these legal pissing contests.

[Mike Pesca]

It sounds better in Latin.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah, right? It is better in Latin. Thank you for that. And I forget those Latin words, but actually, that is the Latin, I think. But we would do these pissing contests, and every one of those was just this exchange of dopamine. Hit for dopamine hit. Ha. I got you. I got you. Back and forth and back and forth, like we're slugging it out on the street, but we're doing this in a more intellectual and refined way. So doing all of that and bringing your clients into it, because they're getting off on it as well. So they want to hear those stories, and they want to know that you're the guy that can bring the revenge to them and gratify their desire for revenge. And so you're getting paid to do all of this, and that's going on on the other side as well. So it eventually became this experience where I really felt I was hooked on something. Nobody had been talking about revenge as an addiction at that point. This was early 2000s, but I really felt like I was hooked. And I felt, you know, I was dropping into this state of depression and misery. I hated the job. I hated doing this to people. It Also felt inconsistent with my own spiritual beliefs. And eventually one night I found myself kind of on the verge of thinking about a serious act of killing myself. Suicide, alone in a bedroom late one night. And it was at that point that I thought something is. This just all looks like what I understood addiction to be. And that's when I wasn't a researcher at that point. But I just thought in my gut I was convinced I'm hooked up. My clients I knew were hooked on it and were willing to give me tons of money to keep giving that drug back to them. And so I started a process that ended up taking me into becoming a researcher at the Yale School of Medicine. To look at this really, really carefully and closely.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it's really interesting in that part of the story how you're trained as a lawyer and are not a doctor and are not a social scientist, but do immerse yourself in this world and work with some of the top people in the field and with MRIs. But I do note that so often in your analysis, but also in your, in your recommendations, you have this legal framework that we are judge and jury in our own mind. And even the cure or the way to address addiction is to sort of rewire or rethink the concept of the little trials that are going on in our own mind. But I want to ask you about the justice system so we can both agree that when justice is disproportional or overly harsh, you just perpetrate this cycle of revenge. You point out that if what we want to do, if it is in fact the case that the vast majority of killings are motivated by revenge, you're not going to tamp down on the amount of revenge in the killers or in the world by putting them in a cell and getting revenge on them. You'll be inspiring in them a desire for more revenge against you. All true. But I want to know, aren't there necessary levels of punishment that do constitute justice? And I was thinking about some of the very laudable people in your book who have forgiven Jonathan Senior, whose son was beat up and killed by a mob of teenagers. So laudable in how much he forgives. Give it, forgave them, and just forgiveness. You write a lot about the power of forgiveness and how it helps the person who forgave. But societally, is that the best way, laudable though it is, to have a justice system that doesn't act as a revenge delivery mechanism, but does in fact dissuade others, in fact, does enough to dissuade potential murderers so That a kid on a dirt road in Pennsylvania might say to himself, I don't want to be a murderer, because some of what that means is what the legal system would do to me.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question. So now we want to talk about and distinguish between revenge seeking and self defense. So I'm careful in my book to talk about the idea of self defense is acting to prevent a presentation, imminent harm to yourself or to somebody that you care about. And that is not what revenge seeking is. Revenge is about punishing people for things they've done in the past. And so I make that distinction. It's important to think about. And I don't want people to get the idea that. You shouldn't stand your ground and you shouldn't defend yourself. That is a hardwired, evolved instinct to defend yourself. And it's necessary for human survival. So we all need it, we all use it. Very critical and important. The change that I would make, if I could make a change in the criminal justice system is not to stop incarcerating people. I would incarcerate killers and all violent criminals. They need to be separated from society because they've shown that they will harm other people physically if they are provoked, Usually because they see themselves as victims. And that's an important insight, is that every criminal, or almost everyone, as far as we can tell, other than the rare psychopath or sociopath, believes they were a victim first and they were just getting justice when they committed this violent act. But they've shown that they'll do it. They've shown that they'll harm other people. And so we need to incarcerate that population of people not only as a potential deterrent, but to separate them from society and maintain our level of self defense. But we would then ask the question, once that person is shown and we can evaluate that person has shown that they're no longer a threat, that the threat that we incarcerated them for is past, then what good is served by continuing to incarcerate them for decades longer? There is no useful purpose in that. And what we could be doing while they're incarcerated for the risk that they present to society is working on helping them learn how to manage their grievances and revenge desires before they turn into violent acts. That's kind of the change that I think we need is to move to a modified hybrid public health, criminological criminal system approach in which public health is available. Now because we understand what's happening inside the brain, we can start preventing and treating it as well as maintaining A system of safety, public health and safety that is afforded by the criminal justice system.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, so I have a question about justice. Justice is throughout your book. You were an officer of the court, and you write about how we have these little trials in our brain. Is the problem that the revenge seeker has a cartoonish version of justice or a version of justice that is, in fact, unjust? Or is the problem more like the idea that we can achieve justice interpersonally is almost always a wrong road to go down. And we should orient ourselves more via forgiveness, because the people who are forgiven in your book, they're kind of the heroes of the book.

[James Kimmel Jr.]

Well, the answer to that is that we humans trick ourselves. We use the word justice when we really mean revenge. Right. Justice has two opposite meanings. Uh, you know, if you look in a picture, you're gonna get.

[Mike Pesca]

No, don't fade out. Well, yeah, James Kimmel, super fascinating guy. But we do have bonus content. Even like, you know, his name is Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah, don't worry. I'll ask him about that. For you, the listeners and subscribers to our Peska plus content, go to subscribe.mike pesca.com or get this whole shebang without ads. Without ads. And Pesca plus just support the show. That would be, I think, a nice thing for you to do. Get revenge on anyone who would seek to advertise on the show by zapping those ads. They do support us, but you can support us more. Go to subscribe.mikepeska.com. And that's it for today's show. Corey War is the producer of the Gist. Kathleen Sykes. She edits the Gist list. She puts it together. She slaps it up there@mike pesca.substack.com Jeff Craig edits so much of the show. You know, he's the editor of how to. All those words are chopped together by him. He does our videos as well. Ben Astaire is our booking coordinator, and Michelle Pesca oversees it all. Improve. And thanks for listening.

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