TransilvanianHunger
Grave with a view...
- Jan 22, 2023
- 425
The book I'm reading this week, Dana Amir's Psychoanalysis as Radical Hospitality, ends with a reflection on forgiveness, its nature and limits, which I found quite compelling.
Since the subject of forgiveness is one that comes up rather frequently around here, I thought I'd share a couple of paragraphs from Amir's reflection with all of you. Maybe you'll find it of interest.
The departure point of forgiveness ties together forgiveness and responsibility. The ability to forgive is a way of taking responsibility for self and other or, rather, for the human and the humane, which both self and other, victimizer and victim, embody in different variations, even if from opposing sides. This type of responsibility can be blurred both by the position of the helpless victim and that of the guilty victimizer.
[...]
Does this amount to saying that there is nothing that cannot be forgiven? Clearly not. Nor does it imply that it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to attain this point of departure of forgiveness in the face of the unforgivable, whatever it may be. The array that stretches between the forgivable and the unforgivable is a personal one, and in addition to being personal, it may be conceived of as a line along which one may move, taking different positions over the course of life (or the course of therapy), even in relation to the same event or object. We have the option, in other words, to take a more complex position than between a dichotomous forgiveness versus nonforgiveness. And this ability to create a continuum on which we shift among different positions at different points in time in itself releases us from the fixity of nonforgiveness with a welcome stirring of life.
Forgiveness is not only a choice. It is our most profound way of taking responsibility for ourselves and for others, and this means that, however difficult this is to recognize, we have a certain responsibility for the suffering the other has caused us as well. This must not be understood as the masochism of turning the other cheek, nor is it some confirmation of what is known as "victim guilt". The point here is rather that being part of humanity, no one of us has immunity: neither from being on the receiving end of evil, nor from being its agent. "Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in what form it comes?" writes [Dutch diarist and Holocaust victim Etty] Hillesum. The forgivable, for her, is not a singular action or person, but humanity as such, over and beyond its singular manifestations in individuals and their deeds. In terms of the departure point of forgiveness, we forgive not because the other's deeds deserve forgiveness. We forgive because the ability to forgive is the only antibody with which the human spirit can counter the unforgivable itself.
Since the subject of forgiveness is one that comes up rather frequently around here, I thought I'd share a couple of paragraphs from Amir's reflection with all of you. Maybe you'll find it of interest.
The departure point of forgiveness ties together forgiveness and responsibility. The ability to forgive is a way of taking responsibility for self and other or, rather, for the human and the humane, which both self and other, victimizer and victim, embody in different variations, even if from opposing sides. This type of responsibility can be blurred both by the position of the helpless victim and that of the guilty victimizer.
[...]
Does this amount to saying that there is nothing that cannot be forgiven? Clearly not. Nor does it imply that it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to attain this point of departure of forgiveness in the face of the unforgivable, whatever it may be. The array that stretches between the forgivable and the unforgivable is a personal one, and in addition to being personal, it may be conceived of as a line along which one may move, taking different positions over the course of life (or the course of therapy), even in relation to the same event or object. We have the option, in other words, to take a more complex position than between a dichotomous forgiveness versus nonforgiveness. And this ability to create a continuum on which we shift among different positions at different points in time in itself releases us from the fixity of nonforgiveness with a welcome stirring of life.
Forgiveness is not only a choice. It is our most profound way of taking responsibility for ourselves and for others, and this means that, however difficult this is to recognize, we have a certain responsibility for the suffering the other has caused us as well. This must not be understood as the masochism of turning the other cheek, nor is it some confirmation of what is known as "victim guilt". The point here is rather that being part of humanity, no one of us has immunity: neither from being on the receiving end of evil, nor from being its agent. "Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in what form it comes?" writes [Dutch diarist and Holocaust victim Etty] Hillesum. The forgivable, for her, is not a singular action or person, but humanity as such, over and beyond its singular manifestations in individuals and their deeds. In terms of the departure point of forgiveness, we forgive not because the other's deeds deserve forgiveness. We forgive because the ability to forgive is the only antibody with which the human spirit can counter the unforgivable itself.
