“Post-Truth” and Forgiveness: Is Forgiveness Objectively True or Relative to Us All?
…..And so, the award for best word goes to……..”post-truth.”
Thus speaketh The Oxford Dictionaries in assigning “post-truth” as the word of the year.
We start with a half truth here because, well, “post-truth” is two words, not one.
Even so, this award raises questions such as this: If there is such a thing as post-truth (or placing the narrative or emotions above what is actually true) then does it follow that the term forgiveness itself is not objectively true? Might forgiveness mean whatever people in certain communities or cultures say that it is?
We do not think so. If you examine Chapter 15 of the book, Forgiveness Therapy (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015), you will see that the meaning of forgiveness does not differ in its essence across spiritual and philosophical traditions from West to East. Yes, there are different religious and cultural rituals surrounding what it means to offer forgiveness, but the term itself still means the offering of goodness toward those who are not good to us.
If you examine Chapter 13 of the same book, you will see that when researchers try to measure the degree to which people forgive others, then you will find that regardless of the various cultures studied (again, across West, Middle East, and East), research participants tend to mean the same thing when they use the word forgiving.
While there certainly are “post-truth” narratives that attempt to persuade and to convince, regardless of the truth, rhetoric will never win the day entirely. Why? It is because there are essences to certain things……and forgiveness happens to be one of them.
Long live forgiveness…..may it outlive the fad of the “post-truth” attempt at power over truth-seeking.
Robert
