The World is On fire
The world is on fire.
As a people we seem to be getting angrier; unwillingly to let go of anything we find offensive. We don’t appear to be able to forgive, and we are certainly not letting anything go. We are lost souls in search of well-being, happiness and genuine connectedness with our families and communities. Yet we are held back by our pasts, distant or near, learning to say “I forgive you” but still not being able to restore the relationships we once had, to truly let go. The internet, a space in which we live much of our lives, is filled with hate, bullying and conflict; where people are seemingly unable to let any opposing thought go, insult unanswered and mis-step un-crucified.
If we were to take a drone’s eye view of our planet, the interpersonal conflicts we play out in our lives is mirrored in, yet pales in comparison with, the international conflict we allow. Countries are literally on fire, with its endless loop of wars and conflicts; its people fleeing, displaced, famished, hunted, attacked, and killed.
There is much research that seek to show us paths to more constructive lives; being calm, mindful, resilient and at peace with ourselves. From Freud to Jung to Seligman, their fundamental premise is that each of us are dealing with a former pain - mild or traumatic, distant past or recent memory, conscious or otherwise, personal or collective - that continues to inform our lives and how we relate, respond and behave.
Current literature suggests that the process of moving past hurt is through forgiveness. However it is defined or philosophically theorised, the tacitly accepted norm seems to be that only through forgiveness can we move beyond the past. The literature languages ‘letting go’ as relational and interchangeable with ‘forgiveness’. Its linguistic approach suggests that the two ideas are synonymous, or inextricably linked. Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes that “Without forgiveness, there is no future”. The idea is that to move on or let go, forgiveness - of the perpetrator or ourselves - is the key. Hannah Arendt suggests that by forgiving, we change the significance of the transgression against us in a way that stops it from taking a fixed form in our future. Hughes & Warmke suggests that “forgiveness is oriented towards promoting pro-sociality and friendly relations”. Richard Holloway writes that forgiveness is how we “reclaim our future.” Positive psychology promotes the idea that being able to forgive and let go of the past will lead to physical, mental and social wellbeing.
A forgive-let go-reconcile continuum may not properly reflect lived experiences, missing some of the vital, difficult-to-quantify elements. Prescription based upon ethics (‘we should do this because it’s the right thing to do’), decision-based (‘just decide to let go’), penance (‘apology-punishment’) may be focusing recovery efforts on factors that provide only short-term, one-off relief.
What is the role of apologies in forgiveness and letting go? We demand apologies from those whom we feel have hurt us, be they within our circle, politicians and even from ‘celebrities’ we do not know who have misjudged society’s mood and behaved in ways we find offensive. After all, “it feels good to point out other people’s shortcomings” (Foer, S. J., 2019).
This suggests apologies and restitutions are precursors to forgiveness, which in turn is a precursor to letting go and moving on, towards a normalisation of relations. This seems incongruous as our personal and cultural landscape is littered with bodies of those who have caused us offence, apologised, been punished and whom we say we have forgiven but whose transgression we are unable to let go.
Is forgiveness the same as letting go?
The tyranny of forgiveness is that, sometimes, it hurts both the victims and the perpetrator. It guilts victims into forgiving when they are not ready, or cannot; and attempts to shame the transgressor into an apology (in the context of geopolitics, often publicly) thereby metaphorically crippling him. Sometimes the apology/forgiveness dyad is used as a cover for vengeance, not reconciliation. It is not about empowering; instead it is concerned with “power over” (Brown, B., 2015) Interestingly, many of the victims who testified in South Africa’s much lauded TRT felt betrayed and complained of feeling like they were “expected to forgive the perpetrators” (Hamber, Maep, Mofokeng & van Der Merwe, 1998).
It is time to move away from the tyranny of forgiveness and address the cognitive gap between it and letting go. For people doing the forgiving, there is a moral high ground, or if forgiveness is not offered - a moral indignation, that they hold on to. Holding on is the antithesis to letting go, and an obstacle to deep reconciliation. We are “entirely capable of doing things (we) aren't moved to do and refraining from things that (we) want to do. That doesn't make (us) Gandhi. It makes (us) an adult.” (Foer, 2019). It is time to move away from the morality-value definitions that look at what we should do as virtues. The danger with morality ethics is that they are “immediate coping” mechanisms, reflexive not deliberate; and because people have a tendency to operate in the “immediacy of a given situation” (Varela, 1992) our assessments of our context and solutions can be short-sighted.
Forgiveness and letting were mutually exclusive; deep acknowledgement from the injurer that their action led to someone’s new reality, which was neither asked for nor welcomed, had value; though the path to our wellbeing remains in our own hands, the injurer has a significant, active role to play in helping recovery. Most importantly, to be alive was to continually let go.
We need to understand “where we are now and how we will get to where we will be” (Varela, 1992); to learn what needs to be done and how we conduct our interpersonal relationships. These same learnings would be relevant in mediation, conflict resolution and peace building efforts in the political arena. Letting go is an acceptance that something has happened; and if it requires punishment, punish. But the ultimate goal is reconciliation as equals - whether in a friendship, between romantic partners, in a marriage, within communities or between nations. It is not a power play but a re-establishment of relations that is characterised by mutual benefit and respect.
There is no room for moral tyranny; nor time to waste.
The world is on fire.