Tagged: “Anger”
I once heard an academic say that forgiveness hurts relationships because it is good to sometimes vent and express anger. What do you think?
I think we need to make important distinctions in answering this question. To express anger is not incompatible with forgiving. We have to distinguish short-term anger, in which the offended person shows self-respect, and long-term and deep anger in which the person harbors a grudge and keeps the offense in front of the one who behaved badly. The short-term anger is meant to alter the injustice and correct the other person’s injustice. A person can show such anger, correct the other person, and then forgive. The long-term variety of anger, in contrast, can be a tool for punishing the other, with no end in sight. The important message here is to avoid sweeping generalities about anger and about forgiveness. To presume that one cannot be angry and forgive is reductionism which then distorts what forgiveness is and how it can be used productively in a relationship.
Can a person forgive the COVID virus? After all, it has disrupted life and people might feel much better if they forgave.
Forgiveness centers on offering goodness to persons because, on its highest level, to forgive is to offer love to the other despite the pain and difficulty of doing this. Because one does not love viruses, it follows that people do not forgive viruses.
If we cannot forgive the COVID virus, as you say, then how are we to feel better when we see our loved ones get quite sick or even die from it? It seems that in this kind of case forgiveness would be appropriate.
We cannot think of forgiveness, on its highest level, as a palliative so that we feel better. Forgiveness is much deeper than that. To forgive on its highest level is to struggle to offer goodness to those who are not good to you.
You just said that forgiveness centers on “those who are not good to you.” COVID definitely is not good to us and so it seems to follow that we can forgive the virus. What do you think?
Actually, no. I still maintain that we cannot forgive a virus because the rest of the sentence I wrote is this: “To forgive on its highest level is to struggle to offer goodness…..” You do not offer goodness to a virus. Do you show, for example, generosity or kindness to a virus? The answer is no and so you do not forgive a virus.
To be sure that I understand you, are you saying that all subjective experiences of forgiveness are irrelevant. Do I understand you correctly?
Actually, no. Subjective views of forgiveness are very important. How a person is feeling needs to be honored, especially when that person is in much pain over what happened. Each person’s subjective experience may be somewhat different in terms of intensity, duration, and kind of emotion experienced when treated badly by others. Yet, if this person now wants to go on a forgiveness path, it is very important that this person understands what forgiveness is and is not so that a wrong path is not chosen. As an example, if someone equates forgiving with summarily dismissing another person as less than human, and nurtures hatred within, this person’s subjective experience will need correction to get on the right forgiveness path.
