Archive for June, 2024
Is Forgiveness Something Tied to Western Philosophies/Religions and Therefore Is Not a Worldwide Idea?
I came across the above question, which suggests that forgiveness does not have a universal essence to it. Yet, some years ago, we at the International Forgiveness Institute did a study of forgiveness words in 26 different world cultures. As you will see below, forgiveness is not confined to Western thought.
Here is a list of various cultures and their words for “to forgive” or “I forgive you”:
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Albanian prt falur
Catalan a perdonar
Castilian Para perdonar
Czech Odpoutm
Danish At tilgive
Dutch Te vergeven
English to forgive
Filipino upang patawarin
Finnish Annettakoon se teille anteeksi
French pardonner
German Ich verzeihe Dir
Hungarian n megbocs tok neked
Icelandic afyrirgefa
Irish a logh
Italian A perdonare
Maltese li nahfru
Norwegian Til forlate
Polish Odpuszcza
Portuguese A perdoar
Romanian Pentru a ierta
Spanish Para perdonar
Swahili kusamehe
Swedish Frlta
Turkish BEN size bala
Vietnamese Ti tha th cho bn
Welsh i faddau
26 languages, 26 similar ways to communicate. This, of course, is no proof of the universality of “to forgive” or “I forgive you.” Yet, we put this term and this expression to the test and they were not defeated. At the very least we can conclude that forgiveness has a place in many cultures.
For each term or expression, we translated it from English into the other language. We then back-translated into English and retained the term/expression only if both forms of translation were consistent. The important implication is this: We can be motivated to talk with others about forgiveness and can be quite confident that the other person, from a different culture, has words that mean forgiveness, the same word that we are using.
Which is the deeper form of forgiving: being respectful of the offending person or trying to love that person?
I read recently that people can learn to forgive in as little as 2 or 3 hours. Can Forgiveness Therapy really be that quick?
When people forgive extreme injustices, do others condemn this?
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Some people have made the claim that when a person forgives others for extreme injustices, then the forgiver is open to discrimination and heavy criticism. Yet, a study published in 2022 suggests otherwise. Eaton, Olenewa, and Norton (2022) asked over 100 college students in each of two studies to react to two stories, one in which a woman forgives the murderer of her child and the other in which a person forgives the drunk driver who killed the spouse and child. In both studies, even though the participants tended to disagree with the decision to forgive, most did not criticize the forgivers. At least in this study, those who are what the authors called “extreme forgivers” were not held up to extreme criticism. Even if they were, it is the forgivers’ choice whether or not to offer this surprising goodness if they choose to do so.
Eaton, J., Olenewa, J., & Norton, C. (2022). Judging extreme forgivers: How victims are perceived when they forgive the unforgivable. International Review of Victimology, 28, 33-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580211028021
Should we use different words for “student loan forgiveness”?
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In perusing the Internet recently, I frequently read the term “student loan forgiveness”…….again and again…….and again. Setting aside the differences of opinion of whether or not this is a good idea, my point here is to suggest that the term should change. There is a large difference between legal pardon and forgiveness. Legal pardon is not a moral virtue. The one who pardons the loans is not the one who was offended by the loaner. Forgiveness, as a moral virtue, in contrast, is concerned with reaching out to those who have been unfair and hurtful toward the forgiver. Given these distinctions, let us make a turn and refer to the loan issue as “student loan pardon.” Why? It is for this reason: Forgiveness already is misunderstood by many. For example, forgiveness can be erroneously associated with “just giving in” or “letting the hurt go.” If we now equate forgiveness with third-party people taking debt away, we are continuing to move away from the true meanings of the word forgiveness. Let us correct this. Student loan pardon needs to be the new term.
