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Forgiveness as a kind of mourning makes sense, but is counter-intuitive. I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. B

Forgiveness as a kind of mourning makes sense, but is counter-intuitive. I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt. That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by the perception that it's an act of kindness. I think, rather, it's the most rutheless form of grief there is. Another insight from the article is apology as a kind of non-violent humilitation. And the idea that apology even as a cultural expectation is somewhat rare and somewhat contingent on the era. This, again, makes sense but feels counter-intutive. What would a society look like which forgives without apologies? Perhaps one much better at moving on, much better at focusing on outcomes rather than obsessing about status. Perhaps the "purpetrator" doesnt need to apologise, we can just forgive them and punish them at once. We punish not to humiliate as an act of vengence, but as a necessary step to a better outcome. Eg., firing a dangerous boss, breaking up with a partner, etc.

ehnto 4y ago
That is how I see forgiveness also, a letting go of the issue at hand, almost a delegation of the reconciliation to the other party. It's their problem to think over now. I have a past business partner who more or less, stole all our gear and fled. I let them know how I felt, but told them I wouldn't be actioning it any further than that. I let them know the social consequences of their actions were absolute, there's no way I'd treat them as a friend or work with them again, but I understood why they felt they needed to do it and I hope they find themselves in a better place.
weberer 4y ago
>We punish not to humiliate as an act of vengence No, I think that's exactly how the Twitter mob operates. These people treat politics as some sort of religious war.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Politics and religion aren't very far apart. In some parts of the world they are nearly the same thing. Elsewhere, the belief in deities is the main differentiator, and even there it can get blurry, based on how some supporters seem to worship their leaders almost as gods.
thinkingemote 4y ago
People may be slow to forgive as they may think it gives something to the other, a type of concession, an admission of something, something on one side of an equation. But forgiveness mainly gives something to oneself not the other. It frees oneself from that hold over oneself. Apologies, if they are expected, are expected within the frame of a transaction. But forgiveness which doesn't seek something from the other can be given without an apology. The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the actual forgiveness comes before that.
- conductr 4y ago
  > The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the actual forgiveness comes before that. I was with you until this last bit. My experience is that people will beg for forgiveness. Even if you forgive them, you’ll then find it’s reconciliation they were after. They will then ignore your forgiveness, or rather continue asking for it until you provide them a sense of reconciliation. I usually cut ties by then. They typically don’t really care how you feel and it’s all to boost their own ego and right the wrongs they’ve inflicted in their own mind. Maybe not universally applicable but my experiences seem to follow this pattern.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    apologies are supposed to be an acknowledgement that they wronged you and letting them know you forgive them allows them to have closure so THEY can move on with their lives (emotionally). We use it as the grease between the wheels for smaller things because we can't know what's in each others heads. And for larger things, it allows both parties to move on. To forgive without letting the other person know is absolutely about punishment (assuming they're alive, available, etc). I had a brother who had a fiance that left him, when she went to get remarried she sent him an email basically apologizing for all the shitty things she did and asking for forgiveness. he came to me in tears asking what he should do and I told him not to respond. Don't give her that closure, she wants to start her new life "clean". I have no idea what he ended up doing, he never told me. Knowing him, he most likely did respond, but my point is that I viewed her apology as selfish and would have preferred she never got that closure.
tomek_ycomb 4y ago
<<Forgiveness is letting go of the hope for a different past>>, various authors or variants of that quote (Iirc I heard it from Andrea Gibson poet). Anyway, I thought the quote was in line with your "/I/ have moved on" phrasing. Not sure I really agree with the rest of your statements about grief and forgiveness, nor that I understood all of your intend. But I love this quote and think about it sometimes, and it seems like it would vibe for your conception of forgiveness.
- SamBam 4y ago
  What a great quote, thank you.
nonethewiser 4y ago
> That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. This is the Christian conception, and I think it's a very helpful way to think about forgiveness.
jlos 4y ago
Forgiveness is about your commitment to move on from the wrong independent on the other person's action. It is more often an ongoing personal effort, and one you should always aim for after allowing space for appropriate anger. Reconcilliation is about the other person acknowledging the accusation of wrong. A confession of sorts. I'd suggest in the face of sincere apology this is always desirable to reconcile (turn the other cheek and what-not). Restoration is about returning to the person trust and its associated privildges. Not everyone deserves to be restored depending on what they've done. I would argue the true mark of contrition is an acceptance they may be forgiven but never restored (depending on the nature of offense, of course).
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I think it's easier described as a dismissal of the other as unimportant. I don't know that I would give it the moniker forgiveness, but it absolutely means you've moved on. For example, an idea I live by is giving enough trust such that if the other person breaks that trust you've gained more than you've lost. A trite example would be letting a co-worker borrow $20. If they never pay you back you've gained more value from that than the $20 loss. Or if you have cleaners come into your home, if they steal that $5 sitting on the desk then you've gained much more you've lost. From personal experience, through a bad set of circumstances, I once had a cat I loved very much scared up into a tree that hung over the privacy fence over the neighbors yard, who had a large dog. Long story short, the neighber was up in the tree, removed the cat, it fell into his yard, and the dog killed it. I wasn't there at the time since said neighbor was supposed to come and get me when he was ready (he had a friend who trimmed trees for a living supposed to come over). When I came over, he had the dog chained up in a corner so I could safely walk into the yard. I was extremely sad over the cat, I spent over $2k in emergency surgery trying to save her. My gf to this day can't talk about her without crying and it's been years. But I never got angry with the neighbor. Was it on purpose or just sheer stupidity? I honestly don't care, I can engage in an impotent rage or completely dismiss them as unimportant. I chose the latter. I was able to live next to that same neighbor for 3-4 more years, although we never had any other interactions. quite frankly, they're not important enough for me to expend the energy on them.
- pksebben 4y ago
  That story is heartbreaking, and such a good example of what to do with grief. Grieving about the thing that hurts has a terminus, emotionally; bearing a grudge 'pins' the grief to you, holding it in place indefinitely.
seanhunter 4y ago
That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. This is an incredibly interesting observation. In this sense then, forgiveness is an act of kindness- to oneself. Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  You could put that feeling behind you by automating holding a grudge. Let Grumblebot take care of your anger issues. def ifPersonaNonGrataPosts(Person NonGrata): let ListOfSins = getListOfSins(NonGrata) for socialMedia in AllSocialMediaAccounts do socialMedia.post(ListOfSins)
- chasd00 4y ago
  I suppose that also aligns when someone seeks forgiveness, they want the forgiver to move on and not hold a grudge.
  - broadwaylamb 4y ago
    No, they want to feel better about themselves but feel like they can't unless the other person forgives them.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  > Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore This is my view of forgiveness. It doesn't mean reconcile. It doesn't mean forget. It means releasing the hate or anger towards the person who has wronged you. It does not mean you forget whatever they did -- that's likely impossible. It does not mean that you will trust them again, or trust them to the same degree. It does not mean that you were the one who was wrong to have be offended or hurt by whatever it was that they did (though sometimes it's worth reflecting on that). It simply means that you have moved on, and have released yourself from the pain or anger that surrounds those memories. Edit: The framing of forgiveness as "canceling a debt" as f154hfds posted in another subthread is a good analogy.
tremon 4y ago
That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. To me, that's more a part of the reconciliation process than of forgiveness. It doesn't require forgiveness to abandon the other and move on. I rather think that forgiveness is the first step to restore the mutual relationship, it's a willful act to salvage what was broken. I guess in my mind, reconciliation is a prerequisite for forgiveness, but whereas reconciliation is about the self, forgiveness is about the other -- or at least the relationship with the other.
- they4kman 4y ago
  To forgive is to let go of our own disturbances about the situation, and we may choose to never tell the subject of the forgiveness. Whether we wish to continue/rebuild a relationship with the subject doesn't need to depend on whether we are undisturbed.
broadwaylamb 4y ago
> That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by the perception that it's an act of kindness. I think, rather, it's the most rutheless form of grief there is. I don't see how forgiveness is ruthless. It takes great compassion to accept people and situations as they are without harboring bitterness, resentment, or judgment. Forgiveness is also a form of self-love. The non-attachment that comes with forgiveness isn't the same as being cold or moving on by leaving someone else behind. That's still looking at things from an egoic "I have been wronged" narrative. Forgiveness is about dropping that story entirely. > I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt. I think in general reconciliation is a good thing, but it's not a given. And even if you do reconcile with someone, you don't have to restore full trust and involvement with them. You can clear the air and never talk to them ever again, or just on a need-to basis, or whatever. It all depends. In general, our society's difficulty with forgiveness and the like is just another facet of not liking to confront truth. We struggle with truth in this era because the truth is often painful and demands a lot of change out of us that we feel unable or unwilling to give. The Twitter apology is an answer to the question "How do we pay lip service to the truth without having to actually engage with it?"
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Well, from the pov of the person being "detached", to be treated as an object is rutheless. What we are saying, after all, is that the other is "a mere product" of nature; a symptom, not an agent. This, I think, is the most "anti-Western" notion 'inside' forgiveness, and why it seems so counter-intutive. The thing we do not want to give up is that people are agents who bare responsibility for their actions, that people are our objects of concern, that people are special. When we forgive we, ineffect, dehumanise -- at least, for the moment of that forgiveness. We step outside of a world in which they matter. And that seems a more ruthless and radical gesture than just hating them.
  - trgn 4y ago
    Extending forgiveness is ruthless indeed. Thomas Hobbes makes the following observation in leviathan, that is thoroughly depressing and at first perhaps paradoxical. A person who wronged you will only ever be able to hate you afterwards: either because of fear for your vengeance, or because of distaste for your forgiveness. The positive action of forgiveness only applies to those who extend it; those who are forgiven are rendered impotent. it's somewhat of a manipulative act if it's not accompanied by magnanimity and reconciliation.

ehnto 4y ago

That is how I see forgiveness also, a letting go of the issue at hand, almost a delegation of the reconciliation to the other party. It's their problem to think over now. I have a past business partner who more or less, stole all our gear and fled. I let them know how I felt, but told them I wouldn't be actioning it any further than that. I let them know the social consequences of their actions were absolute, there's no way I'd treat them as a friend or work with them again, but I understood why they felt they needed to do it and I hope they find themselves in a better place.

weberer 4y ago

>We punish not to humiliate as an act of vengence No, I think that's exactly how the Twitter mob operates. These people treat politics as some sort of religious war.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Politics and religion aren't very far apart. In some parts of the world they are nearly the same thing. Elsewhere, the belief in deities is the main differentiator, and even there it can get blurry, based on how some supporters seem to worship their leaders almost as gods.

thinkingemote 4y ago

People may be slow to forgive as they may think it gives something to the other, a type of concession, an admission of something, something on one side of an equation. But forgiveness mainly gives something to oneself not the other. It frees oneself from that hold over oneself. Apologies, if they are expected, are expected within the frame of a transaction. But forgiveness which doesn't seek something from the other can be given without an apology. The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the actual forgiveness comes before that.

conductr 4y ago
> The person who is forgiven doesn't need to know they are forgiven. Even if they are told, the feeling of freedom and the actual forgiveness comes before that. I was with you until this last bit. My experience is that people will beg for forgiveness. Even if you forgive them, you’ll then find it’s reconciliation they were after. They will then ignore your forgiveness, or rather continue asking for it until you provide them a sense of reconciliation. I usually cut ties by then. They typically don’t really care how you feel and it’s all to boost their own ego and right the wrongs they’ve inflicted in their own mind. Maybe not universally applicable but my experiences seem to follow this pattern.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  apologies are supposed to be an acknowledgement that they wronged you and letting them know you forgive them allows them to have closure so THEY can move on with their lives (emotionally). We use it as the grease between the wheels for smaller things because we can't know what's in each others heads. And for larger things, it allows both parties to move on. To forgive without letting the other person know is absolutely about punishment (assuming they're alive, available, etc). I had a brother who had a fiance that left him, when she went to get remarried she sent him an email basically apologizing for all the shitty things she did and asking for forgiveness. he came to me in tears asking what he should do and I told him not to respond. Don't give her that closure, she wants to start her new life "clean". I have no idea what he ended up doing, he never told me. Knowing him, he most likely did respond, but my point is that I viewed her apology as selfish and would have preferred she never got that closure.

tomek_ycomb 4y ago

<<Forgiveness is letting go of the hope for a different past>>, various authors or variants of that quote (Iirc I heard it from Andrea Gibson poet). Anyway, I thought the quote was in line with your "/I/ have moved on" phrasing. Not sure I really agree with the rest of your statements about grief and forgiveness, nor that I understood all of your intend. But I love this quote and think about it sometimes, and it seems like it would vibe for your conception of forgiveness.

SamBam 4y ago
What a great quote, thank you.

nonethewiser 4y ago

> That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. This is the Christian conception, and I think it's a very helpful way to think about forgiveness.

jlos 4y ago

Forgiveness is about your commitment to move on from the wrong independent on the other person's action. It is more often an ongoing personal effort, and one you should always aim for after allowing space for appropriate anger. Reconcilliation is about the other person acknowledging the accusation of wrong. A confession of sorts. I'd suggest in the face of sincere apology this is always desirable to reconcile (turn the other cheek and what-not). Restoration is about returning to the person trust and its associated privildges. Not everyone deserves to be restored depending on what they've done. I would argue the true mark of contrition is an acceptance they may be forgiven but never restored (depending on the nature of offense, of course).

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

I think it's easier described as a dismissal of the other as unimportant. I don't know that I would give it the moniker forgiveness, but it absolutely means you've moved on. For example, an idea I live by is giving enough trust such that if the other person breaks that trust you've gained more than you've lost. A trite example would be letting a co-worker borrow $20. If they never pay you back you've gained more value from that than the $20 loss. Or if you have cleaners come into your home, if they steal that $5 sitting on the desk then you've gained much more you've lost. From personal experience, through a bad set of circumstances, I once had a cat I loved very much scared up into a tree that hung over the privacy fence over the neighbors yard, who had a large dog. Long story short, the neighber was up in the tree, removed the cat, it fell into his yard, and the dog killed it. I wasn't there at the time since said neighbor was supposed to come and get me when he was ready (he had a friend who trimmed trees for a living supposed to come over). When I came over, he had the dog chained up in a corner so I could safely walk into the yard. I was extremely sad over the cat, I spent over $2k in emergency surgery trying to save her. My gf to this day can't talk about her without crying and it's been years. But I never got angry with the neighbor. Was it on purpose or just sheer stupidity? I honestly don't care, I can engage in an impotent rage or completely dismiss them as unimportant. I chose the latter. I was able to live next to that same neighbor for 3-4 more years, although we never had any other interactions. quite frankly, they're not important enough for me to expend the energy on them.

pksebben 4y ago
That story is heartbreaking, and such a good example of what to do with grief. Grieving about the thing that hurts has a terminus, emotionally; bearing a grudge 'pins' the grief to you, holding it in place indefinitely.

seanhunter 4y ago

That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. This is an incredibly interesting observation. In this sense then, forgiveness is an act of kindness- to oneself. Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
You could put that feeling behind you by automating holding a grudge. Let Grumblebot take care of your anger issues. def ifPersonaNonGrataPosts(Person NonGrata): let ListOfSins = getListOfSins(NonGrata) for socialMedia in AllSocialMediaAccounts do socialMedia.post(ListOfSins)
chasd00 4y ago
I suppose that also aligns when someone seeks forgiveness, they want the forgiver to move on and not hold a grudge.
- broadwaylamb 4y ago
  No, they want to feel better about themselves but feel like they can't unless the other person forgives them.
SoftTalker 4y ago
> Because I have moved on, I don't need to carry the bad feeling around with me anymore This is my view of forgiveness. It doesn't mean reconcile. It doesn't mean forget. It means releasing the hate or anger towards the person who has wronged you. It does not mean you forget whatever they did -- that's likely impossible. It does not mean that you will trust them again, or trust them to the same degree. It does not mean that you were the one who was wrong to have be offended or hurt by whatever it was that they did (though sometimes it's worth reflecting on that). It simply means that you have moved on, and have released yourself from the pain or anger that surrounds those memories. Edit: The framing of forgiveness as "canceling a debt" as f154hfds posted in another subthread is a good analogy.

tremon 4y ago

That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. To me, that's more a part of the reconciliation process than of forgiveness. It doesn't require forgiveness to abandon the other and move on. I rather think that forgiveness is the first step to restore the mutual relationship, it's a willful act to salvage what was broken. I guess in my mind, reconciliation is a prerequisite for forgiveness, but whereas reconciliation is about the self, forgiveness is about the other -- or at least the relationship with the other.

they4kman 4y ago
To forgive is to let go of our own disturbances about the situation, and we may choose to never tell the subject of the forgiveness. Whether we wish to continue/rebuild a relationship with the subject doesn't need to depend on whether we are undisturbed.

broadwaylamb 4y ago

> That is, forgiveness is how I see the other when I see them not as an enemy or friend, but as a tragic part of nature. I have moved on. Our ability to forgive has, perhaps, been distorted by the perception that it's an act of kindness. I think, rather, it's the most rutheless form of grief there is. I don't see how forgiveness is ruthless. It takes great compassion to accept people and situations as they are without harboring bitterness, resentment, or judgment. Forgiveness is also a form of self-love. The non-attachment that comes with forgiveness isn't the same as being cold or moving on by leaving someone else behind. That's still looking at things from an egoic "I have been wronged" narrative. Forgiveness is about dropping that story entirely. > I think we've come to regard "forgiveness" as inevitably ending with reconsiliation. But perhaps, more often, it shouldnt. I think in general reconciliation is a good thing, but it's not a given. And even if you do reconcile with someone, you don't have to restore full trust and involvement with them. You can clear the air and never talk to them ever again, or just on a need-to basis, or whatever. It all depends. In general, our society's difficulty with forgiveness and the like is just another facet of not liking to confront truth. We struggle with truth in this era because the truth is often painful and demands a lot of change out of us that we feel unable or unwilling to give. The Twitter apology is an answer to the question "How do we pay lip service to the truth without having to actually engage with it?"

mjburgess 4y ago
Well, from the pov of the person being "detached", to be treated as an object is rutheless. What we are saying, after all, is that the other is "a mere product" of nature; a symptom, not an agent. This, I think, is the most "anti-Western" notion 'inside' forgiveness, and why it seems so counter-intutive. The thing we do not want to give up is that people are agents who bare responsibility for their actions, that people are our objects of concern, that people are special. When we forgive we, ineffect, dehumanise -- at least, for the moment of that forgiveness. We step outside of a world in which they matter. And that seems a more ruthless and radical gesture than just hating them.
- trgn 4y ago
  Extending forgiveness is ruthless indeed. Thomas Hobbes makes the following observation in leviathan, that is thoroughly depressing and at first perhaps paradoxical. A person who wronged you will only ever be able to hate you afterwards: either because of fear for your vengeance, or because of distaste for your forgiveness. The positive action of forgiveness only applies to those who extend it; those who are forgiven are rendered impotent. it's somewhat of a manipulative act if it's not accompanied by magnanimity and reconciliation.