It is easy to forget that a response to a bad event can become yet just another bad event adding to the chain. A kind of idiot morality lends weight to the idea that it's fine to respond in kind. Most remain oblivious to the stupidity of this which was why Jesus Christ had to point it out.

Holding on to the initial reasons for an in-kind response, cleaving to the moral rightness of retaliation, with all the usual justifications, is only part of a cycle. It is the eternal round of cause and effect, one bad act upon another. Breaking the chain is the thing. But it's the hard thing. Harder still is finding a measured response.