"The constant challenge of seeking and granting forgiveness"
There are times in our lives when mistakes are made, intentions are harmful, and selfishness prevails in adversity. There is a remarkable depth to the statement, “I am sorry,” or “I apologize.” The purpose of this essay will be to answer the question of how one person undergoes the process of offering forgiveness to another, therefore absolving them of incident in question. I will examine the differences among types of harmful acts, the types of requirements to forgive, and the process of changing the world so further incidents do not result. My intention with this essay is to provide information that I would hope would be helpful in rocky road of life.
The first step I must undertake is developing a nomenclature for each type of word used to describe an action that requires some kind of social remedy. In many cases the word forgiveness has both a secular and theological connotation. I am going to use the word forgiveness to describe actions that were done in search of vindication. People may find that, for whatever reason, that they have a duty to punish someone that they feel is wicked. Forgiveness also covers the grounds that describe actions that were taken because of selfishness or perceived necessity. The former may include assaulting someone for stealing a valuable relic, and the latter may result from someone taking the relic to pay their bills. Forgiveness in this case is the word that will be used to describe these types of actions as they are a result of a poor intention. Intention being the operant word regardless of circumstance, though circumstance is of critical importance when opening this dialogue. Forgiveness must be understood as genuine, with means to change, and acknowledgement of the victim’s suffering. We will set aside any relationship to any form of deity as a matter of a separate topic.
The second operant word for the purpose of this essay is apology. An apology would be the word offered in the cases of accidental or uncontrolled circumstances resulting in the harm to one party. Just as the case of intentional acts, circumstances are crucial for understanding how both parties can move forward through the problem of remedying their harms and absolving any responsibility. In the case of apologies, it needs to be understood that the less reasonable a person’s behavior is, the more the apology borders on the side of requiring forgiveness. An example might be someone who drives blindfolded on the highway to prove they are a skilled motorist. If an accident resulted, it may not have been intentional, but the level of negligence must be factored into the apology that is required. Apologies should be understood as less emotional, more formal, and should not include a denial of responsibility. Apologies typically are not associated with any sort of duty to religion aside from avoidance of negligence, or foolishness as the word choice might describe.
One of the most fundamental processes in the concept of absolution is that we understand that all types of wrongdoings fall under this penumbra. Further categorization grants us more of a measure of protocol. Absolution needs to be understood as a process in which one party accepts responsibility, loss, and finds the means to avoid future wrongdoings. There may be many subsequent steps involved in determining the particulars of a case-by-case basis of this bureaucratic process. Merely because the process itself is bureaucratic does not mean that it is cold and lifeless, but rather the opposite. The distinction remains in keeping the process holistic and not either over rigid or completely explosive. We are working as a group with both the involved and the spectators both of whom have important insights that govern the process. Any dissemination of information about lessons learned is also highly recommended for adding efficiency to a process of intrinsic justice.
When discussing the topic of forgiveness, one must consider the importance of causal factors behind intention. It tends to be the case that people seek vindication because they believe the actions of another party are unscrupulous and in need of punishment. This can be as simple as a person using derogatory language to another and the response of violent assault. For the dialogue of forgiveness to be established one must understand both why the insult was cast, why a person’s ego may have been bruised, and why one justifies using violent means to defend said ego. Assigning responsibility typically places a larger emphasis on the party that resorted to violence, but harassment is not without some measure of accountability. It is important to note that there must have been some reason for the insult to be hurled, which must be addressed in determining why there was a dysfunction in what could have been a productive dialogue. Perhaps someone disagrees with choices or lifestyle choices such as the use of narcotics or alcohol.
Forgiveness in the context of selfishness sometimes requires a less personal touch, and to demonstrate that the violator of law needs to come to terms with what their needs actually are. It is easier to forgive someone for stealing a loaf of bread when they are hungry than for a wealthy cat burglar from stealing diamonds. Both examples show a willingness to circumvent ethical concerns for selfishness but are wildly differing in terms of damage caused and justification. There needs to be a way for a congregation of the guilty and victim parties to be granted justice in the form of forgiveness independent of a court ruling or payment of restitutions. There needs to be a standard in which people can address the wrongs with those whom they have wronged and done so in an environment that promotes healing over punitive measures. No one wants to ask for forgiveness when doing so would cause them to be hurt. This is one of the difficulties with reconciling the ethical ramifications of forgiveness and often feared adjudicating bureaucracy.
We are also left with an important consideration when determining how and to whom forgiveness is given. The first and largest challenge is when a person commits a personal wrong or vindictive act against an organization, company, or body politic. There needs to be a level of oversight insofar as how forgiveness is given and received by these non-humans but human based entities. Organizations aren’t humans, but since they are made of humans, the process for how one apologizes becomes muddled. This becomes even more confusing by the nature of the varying ethical principles shared by one or more of the group's members. What person A values does not mean the same thing to person B by way of life experience, role in the organization, and amount of personal investment in said organization. How the interactions between a person and a given group are view by outside parties can offer some clarity but the totality can result in obfuscation. Naturally, the larger the group, the greater chance there is that a person can become overly ostracized for their actions by virtue of diffusion of information.
Furthermore, in the case of seeking apologies with groups a person must face a larger scale humiliation and shame process. If a person is inebriated and urinated in a neighbor's bird bath, that might lead to a serious shaming. If a person was inebriated and urinated in the public fountain, there would be far more severe consequences. While the number of people affected goes up, the nature of the act remains the same. Since the judgement of the person in question was altered and not typical of their behavior, at what extent can they be held accountable to a larger degree? The level of negligence associated with the act can be argued to be greater due to the location of the event, but it can never be fully proven that a person is more negligent due to the nature of the harmed party. This begs an important fundamental question for both forgiveness and apology.
To what extent can absolution be offered to a person who sincerely means what they have said. It is already noted that consequence has a huge impact on both vindication and negligence, but how can a person apologize more. This is to say, that the act of forgiveness is not merely an exchange of words, but an exchange of ideas that stem from empathy and willingness to move forward progressively. There are times where the act of saying, “I am sorry” is helpful and provides a clear message that there will be an effort to change the behavior and create a new paradigm of actions. This is also worth noting that saying “I am sorry,” does not fix damaged property, does not remedy PTSD, does not return lost investments, save loved ones, and so on. There needs to be a desire on the part of the transgressor and the victim to learn how to prevent futures actions or inactions that lead to such disastrous results.
Despite a well-intentioned apology, what about a not so well-intentioned apology. It is common practice for people to create a deceptive persona to avoid changing the required faults due to its difficulty as one reason. It is not always clear when a person is offering their apology as crocodile tears or made from sincerity. Often people will use a track record of behavior to see if their apology is consistent with reality. This can be a valuable system to prevent would be sharks from dodging the net. How many times can a person say sorry, repeat the offense, and then repeat the apology. If there is nothing that brings about recognizance, then there is nothing that will change in their actions. We need to understand what is causing these wrongs to continue as an ongoing problem.
There is of course an important consideration when validating the sincerity of the apology given. We need to consider what fundamental changes might have been ignored on the part of other citizens of society looking in at the situation. Perhaps if a drunk driver causes damage, apologizes, and then does it again we might have a different solution. If the apology is accompanied with addiction treatment, then perhaps there could be something to be said that the apology will be more meaningful. People may truly be sorry and lack the tools to change they feel or what they know. It is our duty as a society to find ways to be active in helping one another remedy the problems that lead to further problems. If we take a distinctly consequentialist approach to looking at forgiveness, we can see that part of forgiveness is giving people the tools to make the necessary changes. Anything else might as well just be words.
This is also not to say that a person must want to change, as this is dismissive of the causal factors. It is not usually the case that people want to feel angry, sad, or keep making the same mistakes. This becomes more of a puzzle of solving the question of what needs are not being met. If a person snaps and becomes irate at the mention of a medical condition, there needs to be a solution of understanding. There must be an understanding by society that not all negative consequences are the result of people simply wishing to install evil on the world like some diabolical app. The case is that a person’s body is under attack from certain foods, their metabolism, organ health, ego, behavioral patterns, and so many things that it could take an army to fix just one person’s problem. An important religious figure once famously stated, “condemn not, lest ye be condemned.” Nobody chooses evil; what people think of as evil is the lack of a better choice.
To return to the topic of absolution in terms of group harm versus individual harm, one must also determine how to influence a group as a whole. If a company built several houses using asbestos, the way they would seek forgiveness is by paying the costs to have the material removed and pay for the health expenses of those that were victims. That would seem intuitive, but there is the consideration of what the leadership of that company knew when they installed the asbestos. Even if there is a lack of awareness at play, the company may lack the tools to seek forgiveness because they cannot fix the mistakes or accept responsibility as a company is not a person. A company cannot understand the pain that a resident and their family may have suffered. While a person or many persons can understand the consequences of their actions, those actions were still undertaken not as individual acts. There is a sort of diffusion of responsibility. This is crucial when any military is held accountable for any violent actions taken.
While a military fulfills a very specific role, forgiveness is something that can be extremely challenging based on the nature of warfare. The situation is even more complex than lost property or lost life when one considers that even its own members may be acting against their own better nature in pursuit of a mission. This is not to say they aren’t acting under duress or a sense of survival, but rather that they are still psychologically affected by their actions. Even the act of surveillance can grant a sense of pain because of their lack of choice in what they see. Nobody wants to see something horrible, and it is even fair to say that no one wants to ask them to look. It is all just the vicious nature of the beast in this case.
Military machines are also the result of political figures who make choices and make mistakes just as well as the lowest members of their society. Forgiveness can be something that seems alien when they consider the stakes of what they are doing. To attempt to represent the interests of many people, they are subjecting themselves to a higher level of responsibility. These could be acts of forgiveness sought for transgressions as making a politically incorrect remark, a marital indiscretion, or even bodily functions in public. Those are merely the simplest mistakes or acts of negligence a politician is capable of making. When they act vindictively or out of pursuit to do harm, this is when the situation can become so dire that the entire world’s wellbeing hangs in the balance. The price of forgiving a political leader for attacking for a misunderstanding appears harder to grant. With the cost so high, sometimes people don’t want to give forgiveness or accept apologies for mistakes.
This brings us to the dilemma of how we proceed when a party has such contempt that they refuse to forgive us for an action. We may change, we may say the words, and the damage may have been fixed; but there may be a fundamental disconnect where a person feels that they can never be made whole. No one wants to offer an apology to someone who laughs and plans to ruin your life regardless. It makes us feel foolish for doing our best to make the world a better place. This may return to my previous mention of insincere apologies, but also insincere forgiveness. We may worry that further action will be taken against us, and we do our best to keep our guard up. It is living with weapons pointed at one another leaves us broken and sleep deprived. More susceptible to making further poor choices and vulnerable to the worst elements of human nature. No one should want to feel foolish nor in constant fight or flight mode.
I believe that there should be a collaborative effort of people in both places of power, and the rank-and-file members of society to acknowledge that mistakes and wrongdoing occur but that we can move past it. If we could keep a design or framework for actively working on improving one another’s lives, then hopefully there could be a reduction of strife, negligence, and misunderstanding in the world. With the release of greater technology, internet, and a larger well of ideas, humanity has the tools to better itself. There would always be a period of adjustment for helping one another with their collective problems, but I think persistence and perseverance could lead the way. Knowledge and agency coupled with compassion and empathy could yield the fabric of less caustic future. The cost of failure is indeed steep.
