Toxic revenge cycles

When traumatized young men are taught to use revenge as therapy, revenge becomes more and more poisonous over time and hurts more and more innocent people along with (or instead of) the guilty.

There was a study mentioned in The Lucifer Effect, where "enforcers" of rules (delivering shocks for wrong answers) were willing to inflict pain on the guilty and innocent alike, as long as they are anonymous and not assured they would not be held accountable. Even women were willing to shock puppies (for real, not simulated), while crying and enduring extreme inner turmoil but failing to refuse and just walk away from the experiment. We'd like to think we're above all that, but experiments keep showing the opposite, that when an authority figure tells us to hurt someone, we do it, unless we are reminded of our accountability or given support in resisting.

The way to stop evil is to stop allowing secrecy and anonymity for the enforcers of law. But secrecy is what enables flawed men to pretend they're perfect, and that holds a great attraction for men in a shame-based culture. The irony is that most people can be taught to do evil in the name of good. So the mistakes old men try to hide by sacrificing young men and women are only human mistakes. They may die for those mistakes, but they won't be the last to make them, unless systems are made transparent. One group after another will crack down on innocent people in order to stop their enemies, simply because governmental systems are too big to work with human instincts and social loyalties. The clerics in Iran will protect each other, like all people do. In doing so, they may destroy a lot of people's lives, not realizing they could just walk away from their power, refuse to carry out the experiment. But giving up power renders everything one has done for power meaningless, and an identity must be shed.

Fear of God does not stop people from hurting others, as long as they can believe they are hurting God's enemies. But what if God has no enemies? That would explain, "Love your enemy". But it would mean a lot of old men in politics and religion have some explaining to do.