Myths of forgiveness

In this article I will summarize a recent piece appearing on netzwerkb.org, a german language network for victims of sexualized violence. I understand from the comments that Barbara Rogers, author of the unmissable resource “Screams from Childhood“, intends to publish a full translation so in the meantime these are just highlights (under my own responsibility).

The author argues that it is inappropriate to pursue or encourage, in a therapeutic context, forgiveness of the perpetrator, and identifies in this context three myths.

The first myth is that forgiveness, processing and reconciliation vis-à-vis the perpetrator might have a healing effect on adults who suffered violence in childhood. To do so amounts to taking away the voice of the abused child which it is only in the process of recovering. This is especially dangerous if the perpetrator remains a person with whom the victim is likely to be in contact. Forgiveness may result in a certain feeling of release from the feeling of guilt the victim may feeling as a result of the social pressure to forgive which the victim cannot attain. This ability to process is portrayed as a virtue. However, it is really an act of fear which restores the relationship of power between perpetrator and victim and may well lead to retraumatization.

The second myth is that forgiveness, processing and reconciliation makes the world a better place. This finds its roots in religious traditions, which idealize masochism. Religion needs this myth as a foundation for the existing world order of repression, whereby victims continue to provide resources to political elites. This makes the world a worse, not better place.

The third myth is that forgiveness reduces anger, hatred and the desire for revenge. Forgiveness is identical to repression of these feelings which also the child could not express. Forgiveness doesn’t reduce these feelings but only perpetuates the cycle by shifting them to the next generation.

In the comments, the point is somewhere made that what the author is talking about is not in fact real “forgiveness”. I think that’s in some sense true. When forgiveness equates to compassion it is certainly a final stage of liberation. However, the word is so laden with patriarchal values and power to manipulate through the superego that this is a sense it assumes almost never in practice. Therefore I fully agree with the authors that first we must reconnect with our anger, hatred and sadness and the call to forgive is, in this context, both in a true sense impossible and as a practical matter utterly misguided and inappropriate.

Conscious, embodied anger is one of the most powerful phenomena to observe in a person – it’s beautiful, breathtaking and can be extremely erotic. By contrast, fawned forgiveness elicits in others a natural reaction of repulsion. This is because we know inside that the angry person is right, and is possessed of extraordinary power to change and bring healing. With this we instantly identify. The “forgiving” person, on the other hand, seems to invite us to continue to feel shame about our own burning sense of injustice in order to live a quiet but insipid life. This is really just an extension of the social control which has kept our anger buried and allowed manipulation and abuse to continue. The “forgiving” person is therefore on “their” side; the angry person, ours.