Punch, don’t punch back!
By Josh VonGunten
2/24/26
This week, the internet is abuzz with the heartbreaking story of Punch, the 7-month-old orphan monkey. Images and videos of little Punch, a Japanese macaque being freshly integrated into a community of other monkeys within a zoo, have left people viscerally grieved, upset, and angry. Several clips show Punch being pushed away, rejected, and bullied after approaching older and bigger monkeys for a hug. In the most devastating of scenes, Punch withdrawals from the bullies and finds refuge away from the pack as he hugs and clings to his stuffed animal, an orange orangutan made by Ikea.
Rejection is painful and deeply upsetting. Reading or hearing about it is one thing, seeing it cuts deeper than one would expect. Add to that the inability to help because you’re looking at a screen and you have a seriously disturbing combination of feelings. In response to all of this, from all over the world, people are uploading pics and videos of tears being shed and rage being vented. The images of Punch being rejected and the cuteness of his little body clinging to his stuffed animal are evoking strong expressions of compassion, empathy, and solidarity. Many of these expressions have been moving and beautiful. I don’t want to draw too much from it, but I’ve noticed a part of me awakened and delighted by the idea that maybe humanity is capable of some big-picture unity in response to something horrible.
In addition to compassion, empathy, and solidarity, something else, something distinct to these things has also begun to emerge. In what follows I’d like to offer up an analysis and critique of something harmful I see happening; but first, I want to acknowledge that the internet is a wild place and wagging my finger in response isn’t very constructive. My intention in writing this post is to use an example of something I find destructive to highlight what might be quietly lurking and at work amongst all of us. Lastly, I hope to offer up a distinctly Jesus centered approach as an alternative.
Soon after Punch went viral and people responded with heartfelt messages of care and concern, something else began to happen. Much of it AI generated, people began posting videos of Punch training and learning to fight so that he could eventually return to the monkeys who rejected him and take revenge. The videos are funny and cathartic. They provided a natural ease and levity to an otherwise dark and heavy situation. Seeing Punch approach his enemies and beat them down brought about a feeling of restored balance and relief. While some level of humor is no doubt present in all the videos, a number of them also feel quite serious. With the predictable and satisfying technique of a slick Hollywood production, a montage of Punch training and returning to inflict harm and pay back upon his enemies resonates deeply with what we’ve come to expect from movies and shows that traffic in this kind of catharsis. We like seeing this kind of thing and we seem to return to it over and over because it feels good. After all, bullies deserve to be taken down, right? Revenge makes all the sense in the world as a response to the pain we feel from rejection.
What has fascinated me most about these videos has been the descriptive language attached to them. In some cases they talk about revenge but in most the predominant focus is upon justice. In my experience, the word revenge can feel a little petty. However, justice feels high and mighty, like the right thing to do. Justice is not something we want to question, hesitate about, or stand in the way of. Justice is something to get on board with as quickly as possible. Justice feels virtuous. Lately, I’ve become convinced that in this cultural moment, revenge and justice are increasingly becoming indistinguishable from each other, which has me worried. Revenge is what happens when a person who has been hurt intentionally hurts their adversary in order to feel better. Justice is something very different. Justice, which sometimes involves punishment, seeks to hold a perpetrator responsible for their actions and seeks to do so in a way that is fair, wise, professional, and process oriented.
I recently read a fascinating book called, “The Science of Revenge,” written by a former litigator turned Yale University researcher and was surprised to learn that we enjoy revenge so much more than justice because it’s fast acting and it temporarily relieves pain we feel in our nervous systems. There’s something about seeing Punch kick his oppressor in the face that puts our bodies at ease for a moment. We’re less interested in watching a video of Punch’s adversary slowly being rehabilitated. In a violent world full of strife, division, broken relationships, bad news, and oppression, our bodies crave the temporary physiological release that revenge provides. Yet, it comes with a catch. It’s addictive and ultimately harmful. The more we seek this release whether through words, violence, thoughts, or entertainment, the more we feel like we need it, again and again. But it never quite satisfies. It becomes a never-ending game of medicating a felt deficit through a means that can’t satisfy or make us whole. Meanwhile the trappings of a revenge habit, however big or small, are internal bitterness, anxiety, and a dysregulated nervous system. Revenge feels really good for a moment but the drop-off is brutal. It leaves us empty, sad, and in need of the next hit.
All of this has me wondering about how much revenge energy gets a pass in our culture because we simply don’t know what to do with all the pain we are witnessing and subsequent trauma we don’t know how to deal with? A few examples…sports, particularly youth sports, have become a magnet for revenge energy. Parents in the stands come with a felt need to have their squad put them back on level ground. In our political system we see elected officials cheering for the downfall of their opponent in the name of justice. Our president is without a doubt a revenge junkie. In our movies and shows the underdog who carefully plots an impressive comeback and surprises their enemy with revenge is framed as heroic and courageous. Social media, especially X and FB, radiate revenge energy. The never ending feed hooks us with something that feels like injustice or grievance and leaves us in a lower state. Biologically, it makes all the sense in the world why we try to compensate for this feeling by dropping a comment or come back. All of this appeals so much in the moment but what is it doing to us? Is it possible the thing we think will make us feel better is the thing creating deeper alienation and loneliness?
What if there were another way? What if we could actively cultivate an interior sensibility for justice, grace, and forgiveness?
To start, our pain needs to be touched and known, not just relieved for a moment. We need a healer, one who joins us in our pain and shows us how to take it out of circulation. One who knows how to be hurt without hurting others. By tracing the path of Jesus’ life, persecution, death, and resurrection, we discover a way out of this revenge madness. We see that justice seeks to restore and reconcile people, rather than see them humiliated or mocked. We discover that the possibility of forgiveness instead of revenge is made real in our bodies through a regular practice of solitude, prayer, quiet, and reflection. We encounter how faith in God affords us the trust needed to sit silent in the presence of an instigator. In receiving forgiveness along the way, by coming to realize how much we need it, we learn how to give it. And in giving it, we realize it is the best relief available.
John O’Donohue, in his book “To Bless the Space Between Us,” touches poetically on how forgiveness has the power to lift and free us permanently from these painful states of deficit. He writes,
“It is always amazing to meet someone who has been hurt and find that they have broken out of the trap of victimhood and managed to bring compassion and forgiveness to the one who wronged them. They have gone beyond the emotional geometry of this situation, beyond reaction, beyond the psychology of it. They have transcended the natural structure of expectation and managed to tap into some deeper flow of destiny that can integrate and overcome the injustice of hurt. They have entered a larger vision than the wounded view from the present situation. In situations you would expect to be wired with hard lines of justified resentment and bitterness, it is always surprising to discover beneath the surface fluent veins of compassion and forgiveness.”
Beyond the emotional geometry of the situation. What a line. For me this names the unspoken rigidity of situations where I feel like I don’t have options or ideas other than to return a blow for a blow. In my own experience, when I’m feeling stiff and caught in the scripted flow of something like a back and forth, I know there’s a rigidity that needs to be noticed and questioned. Internal rigidity is a sign I’m learning to interpret as a call for prayerful retreat. It’s also something to share with a trusted guide. It’s not until I experience an inner spirit or feeling more spacious, creative, and flexible that I am able to see A larger vision than the wounded view. For me this takes time and intentionality. It typically doesn’t happen quickly. I often need a few days to recover a creative perspective on a conflict. The distinct flexibility and pace of forgiveness reminds me of the ways I see Jesus moving in the Gospels. He seems to possess an uncanny ability to move freely without getting pulled into the rigidity and speed of those surrounding him. And, if I’m hearing him right, his kind of uncanny life is available to his followers, today. By coming close, by being with Jesus and his people, by tracing his path and following him in the imagination of our hearts and minds we begin to slowly get free from the rigidity of revenge and find a vision larger and more spacious than the wounded view.
I hope Punch is protected from further bullying but more than that, I hope he’s somehow spared from becoming like his adversary. I hope Punch doesn’t punch back. Because it turns out, deep in the hidden parts of our hearts and minds, the way it feels to be us that hums in the background of life, the pain that leads us to reach out and be touched whether by a stuffed animal, Jesus, or a trusted friend, is better than the brief and fleeting relief of striking back. I want to live in a world with less pain swirling around. In learning to be touched and known in our suffering, in learning to slow down, pain is slowly and carefully taken out of circulation and it becomes something else, it becomes love.
