I've always found forgiveness confusing and fraught. It is tied up with blame and social expectations and willful harm and all sorts of human issues. If a dog bites me, I might eventually stop being angry at it, but I probably won't pet it again. If deceased relatives damaged me, what good do blaming do? If a child steals something from me, I will get angry and put things out of reach. Lately I've been considering the Stoic idea of amor fati. But I still might be angry at that dog.
Yeah, I love the idea of amor fati, too. It seems like a healthy approach to me. And to be clear, I don't think it's particularly healthy to hold onto grudges against people, but I do think that sometimes we're so quick to repair our conflicts that we don't take any real stock in what they've done to us. It tends to put us in situations where we get bit by the dog again.
There was a really cool approach to forgiveness in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where the rule was that people could be pardoned of most apartheid-era crimes, but only if they came and fully confessed to the on television. When I was 20, I was lucky enough to spend a few months with the head of the TRC, Desmond Tutu, and he talked about how the reconciliation part just did not work at ALL without the truth. He was way more Christian in his approach than I am, but I think the same idea holds, that we have to grapple with the extent of the damage we've done before we ask for (or are granted) forgiveness.
It's amazing that you had a chance to work with Desmond Tutu. I find that there seems to be a particular brand of cultural guilt and desire for redemption in many of the South Africans I've met, and in some Germans. I imagine that's what drove SA to sue Israel in the ICC. But I grew up surrounded by Olympic level grudge-holders. And I find myself wondering how many generations it's going to take before the damage done by the Israeli state to the Palestinian state is diluted to sane levels. I'm not sure damage done by slavery and the Civil war is even remotely healed yet.
I've always found forgiveness confusing and fraught. It is tied up with blame and social expectations and willful harm and all sorts of human issues. If a dog bites me, I might eventually stop being angry at it, but I probably won't pet it again. If deceased relatives damaged me, what good do blaming do? If a child steals something from me, I will get angry and put things out of reach. Lately I've been considering the Stoic idea of amor fati. But I still might be angry at that dog.
Yeah, I love the idea of amor fati, too. It seems like a healthy approach to me. And to be clear, I don't think it's particularly healthy to hold onto grudges against people, but I do think that sometimes we're so quick to repair our conflicts that we don't take any real stock in what they've done to us. It tends to put us in situations where we get bit by the dog again.
There was a really cool approach to forgiveness in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where the rule was that people could be pardoned of most apartheid-era crimes, but only if they came and fully confessed to the on television. When I was 20, I was lucky enough to spend a few months with the head of the TRC, Desmond Tutu, and he talked about how the reconciliation part just did not work at ALL without the truth. He was way more Christian in his approach than I am, but I think the same idea holds, that we have to grapple with the extent of the damage we've done before we ask for (or are granted) forgiveness.
It's amazing that you had a chance to work with Desmond Tutu. I find that there seems to be a particular brand of cultural guilt and desire for redemption in many of the South Africans I've met, and in some Germans. I imagine that's what drove SA to sue Israel in the ICC. But I grew up surrounded by Olympic level grudge-holders. And I find myself wondering how many generations it's going to take before the damage done by the Israeli state to the Palestinian state is diluted to sane levels. I'm not sure damage done by slavery and the Civil war is even remotely healed yet.