The Leopard’s Revenge is an old African folk story that neatly portrays the tragedy of misdirected vengeance. The story briefly introduces a family of leopards, the father of whom warns his young cub not to play too closely to the local elephants, lest he get trampled. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, the poor cub is eventually stepped on during an elephant stampede. A lone hyena happens to witness the unfortunate scene and dutifully runs to tell the cub’s parents. Upon hearing the devastating news, the father leopard takes a moment to consider the matter and then, in a fit of determined rage, insists that the hyena must be wrong and declares that the elephants are likely not the ones to blame. His rage, instead, becomes fixed upon the local goats. Consequently, the father leopard embarks on a hate-fueled vendetta and proceeds to slaughter as many goats as he can find.
Like many other stories of this nature, the fable captures the father’s understandable angst, not to mention the natural inclination one would have in wanting to identify and punish the responsible perpetrator. What’s especially interesting about this tale, however, is the way in which the father’s lust for vengeance is satiated by attacking a party that has no involvement whatsoever with the death of his son. In fact, the father’s powerful desire for justice appears to be relieved so long as any party is made to suffer for his loss. But in order for his vengeance to be successfully satisfied, the culprit needs to be vulnerable enough so as to suffer due loss themselves. The father leopard is wise enough to know that he is no match for an elephant, which leaves him to recalculate (and ultimately redirect) his ambitions elsewhere. The message we are left to consider from this tale is that, so long as one’s thirst for retribution is quenched, order is somehow assumed to be restored.
Among other things, The Leopard’s Revenge is essentially demonstrating how personal satisfaction, when prioritized above all other things, can be reduced to a very primitive level. Animalistic even. When the concept of equity itself becomes prioritized above anything else, there can indeed be a semblance of civil justice, or even a portrayal of purpose, that is played out. And so long as steps are taken to address the seeming lack of balance, one evidently need not worry too much about which elements of society are impacted in the process. The father leopard, in his rage-fueled grief, simply wants to take action in order to appease himself, as any of us would likely want in such a situation. Tragically, however, his sense of moral retribution is stunningly disabled by the very fact that his chosen action – conveniently hunting down the goats instead of facing the complicated truth of the elephants – is one in which the cost isn’t too high.
In this we clearly see the father leopard’s true agenda, which is simply to satisfy his emotional angst and appease his difficult situation. By doing so the leopard tragically becomes the very type of perpetrator that he himself is claiming to overthrow. The elephants’ killing of the leopard cub is an innocent accident, whereas the cub’s father transforms himself – ironically - into the only existing criminal in the entire narrative. What began as an honest desire for justice was essentially lacking in any credibility once he authored a slaughter of his own design.
In a tale like this, the question of discernment hits close to home. At least it should, anyway. A person may have a capacity to discern a situation, but so long as an agenda of self-preservation dominates everything else (not to mention an impatient desire to rectify something we esteem to be out of order), then it stands to good reason that self-interest will quickly trump one’s better judgment.
Simply stated, the process of willful, misguided justice will inevitably lead to an action of injustice. In the case of the leopard’s revenge, the elephants were morally innocent while the leopard became the guilty party. Tragically, his son’s death was never honored, and any sense of closure in this matter was made severely premature. Nothing could possibly grow out of this arrangement, other than the leopard’s eventual need to see his actions through a lens that would forever make him the moral avenger; the rightful restorer of his son’s death. Furthermore, any healthy sense of grief for the lost life would be immature at best, and likely may even serve as a catalyst for a negative chain reaction of consequences (assuming any surviving goats would have something to say about this incident).
Ultimately, in a sad case such as this, any growth that could be attained through such loss will be sorrowfully stunted. Yet this is the father leopard’s chosen course, and he is left to live with it.
Not unlike the willfully misguided leopard, we can probably locate a dynamic in our own life where our inability to face or to process a difficult relationship is basically causing us to take our grievances out on another one. It’s really not that unusual, especially if the frustration we’re struggling with seems unresolvable within the context of the difficult relationship in question. Whether we feel overpowered, outmaneuvered, mistreated or simply just intimidated, our festering sense of unresolve will necessarily be channeled in another direction and, in so doing, is sure to harm someone else in the process. At the very least, it will stunt that alternate relationship through an ongoing series of very subtle and nuanced traumas that may take years, if ever, to repair.
Sometimes a trauma (or even a more aptly-described ‘domestic injustice’) is so complex in its delivery that we are at a complete loss as to how to face those involved. After all, not every situation can be as clearly-defined as that of the leopard. Yet even if resolve only requires an honest, straightforward disclosure of experiences, sometimes the sheer angst of actually facing the difficult subject matter is enough to mute any dialogue.
The struggle to face a person – a close relative, even – can be very strong. There’s always that perceived risk of losing some aspect of the relationship (or maybe even losing something in ourselves). In some cases, the risk of dissolving the relationship altogether is a huge factor that comes into play and is often enough to secure a virtual lifetime of silence on certain issues. In cases like these, two people may co-exist on a permanent basis, seemingly functional and even successful in some senses, yet there forever remains a stale hole that is significant enough in its depth that it prevents any chance of complete integration. The minds are never permitted to reach that highly-desired state of wholeness in such cases, and it can be guaranteed that at least one person in this situation will feel less satisfied than the other. An additional devastation is that sometimes there are other bystanders who become casualties of this type of scenario, especially when we’re dealing with the intimate dynamics of a family.
Holding onto a muted truth can be a lot of work for a person, particularly if it’s a truth that needs to be shared. As frustration accumulates over time, resentment is likely to fester and the very fact that this frustration cannot be appropriately channeled through the relationship in question means that it will likely be vented elsewhere. Oftentimes it’s even vented toward one’s own self, which can have devasting, lifelong consequences. This is where we see the real injuries; the subsequent misdirection of anger and tension that is released on people who are not a central part of the injury in question. A classical example of this would be when a spouse experiences unresolved frustration with their partner yet who directs their angst toward an alternative party that is both accessible and ‘safe.’ In these situations, the child can sometimes become the unwitting receptacle due to the fact that the other spouse is feared (or maybe even pathologically ‘revered,’ for that matter). Ultimately, it’s the uncanny sense of injustice that drives the parent to seeking a satisfaction of sorts – even if only ever practiced in certain contexts. The point is that after years of cumulative silence and subsequent resentment, the trigger is very much primed for delivery.
While Oscar Wilde wrote that “the truth is rarely pure and never simple,” we would be wise to also remember Aldous Huxley’s famous words in that “facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
A truth may indeed be complicated and uncomfortable – life-altering even – yet it will most likely lead to some kind of psychological or emotional rupture if it isn’t properly dealt with. Holding onto it is a hard labor that many are incapable of successfully achieving without some kind of collateral damage. And while it may not always be possible to process the truth with the person in question (the ‘elephant,’ per se) it is fundamentally important that we process the truth in some way that is healthy and supportive.
Unpacking a complicated truth can be a fearful thing, for sure. But when carried out sincerely and honestly, it almost always leads to a more satisfying sense of justice and peace.
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