Forgiveness

[Kevin Beal]

I decided to make a video about forgiveness after an exchange I had online with some people. They advanced the position you might have guessed: forgive or else you will become a miserable and bitter person.

 

These are my thoughts on this issue, why I strongly disagree.

 

 

Forgiveness

 

Introduction

 

I was listening to this guy on YouTube named SpartanLifeCoach who’s this life coach who talks a lot about narcissism and things like that. He puts out some interesting videos and would recommend his channel if that’s your bag, but he had this video on black sheeps in the family system and why narcissistic parents would want to make one of the children a black sheep. It’s interesting and I won’t repeat his argument here, but there was one thing that he said, and he probably didn’t mean it in the way that I took it, but he said that you can forgive them for just how sad and petty it is to single out that person in the family like that.

 

But it got me thinking about forgiveness and I made a case in his comment thread as to why you wouldn’t want to forgive them, and arguing that it’s actually a terrible thing to forgive unrepentant and toxic people for harm they’ve done you.

 

I got some really interesting responses that I think are worth telling you about.

 

The primary thing that I got back was an argument that goes something like this:

 

Bitterness is forgiveness withheld, and bitterness infects you like a virus and will eventually erode your body and mind into a hollowed out person. You’ve probably heard it before. It’s this false dilemma: either you forgive people or you become as bad or worse than them.

 

I think this is a really interesting argument that I want to spend some time exploring.

 

What is Forgiveness?

 

I was told that I ought to forgive my parents, and then I will find that freeing. One person called it “letting go”. I’ve always hated that phrase, precisely because of this argument. A couple of people claimed that it gave them a feeling of relief.

 

It’s propped up as if it’s the mature thing to do. It’s supposed to be like this petty thing that only someone with some displaced issues would do, to “hold a grudge”.

 

I’m unconvinced. One reason that I’m unconvinced is because people seem to think that forgiveness is chosen.

Forgiveness is not the words “I forgive you”. Forgiveness is a feeling preceded by a judgment about another person, in the same way that I cannot choose to admire someone. I either do or I don’t. It’s my judgment about the other person’s actions, their virtue that provokes any feelings of love, admiration, respect, or forgiveness. The actions that cause in me feelings of forgiveness are acts of restitution. Without someone actually doing something to earn my forgiveness, what does forgiveness really mean?

 

You might argue then that “okay, you can’t choose the feeling, but you can change your judgment about a situation, thereby creating forgiveness within you”.

 

A judgment is your beliefs and your values. What do you believe about a situation and how does it line up with your values? That’s what judgment is. If you can change that, then you can provoke forgiveness.

 

And this is really what people mean when they say they chose to forgive a toxic person. They come up with some kind of excuse or rationalization. “Well, they had an even worse childhood” or “they didn’t know any better”, things that don’t actually matter. Even if it’s an accident, you still have to apologize and make restitution. If I run over your dog, I don’t just get to say “hey, it was an accident, get over it!”

 

And I don’t know about you, but when I’m trying to have rational values, and true beliefs about the world, I don’t start with a desired effect and then make my beliefs and values fit with that. I don’t think that’s very honest. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s enabling and you are becoming complicit in something terrible.

 

Hatred

 

One person characterized me as “stewing in hatred” and that I will be in misery while they escape from misery with their magic spell that they call “forgiveness”.

 

Personally, I don’t understand why there would be anything wrong with feeling an emotion. If I feel hatred, it makes little sense to me to make me out to be wrong or bad because of it. But there is something about hatred specifically that is self-propagating. These people could have chosen any sort of angry emotion, like contempt or indignation or aggravation, but they chose hatred.

 

I don’t think that hatred is the only logical response to toxic people harming you, but hatred is an interesting emotion. It’s very different from contempt, for example. Contempt includes in it a feeling of repulsion. I don’t want to be anywhere near people that I feel contempt for. But hatred is different. When I feel hatred, I want to get revenge and fuck up their shit. I want to punish the people I hate. You could say that hatred attracts you to the person you hate.

 

When I realize that I feel hatred for someone, I become skeptical, because I’m an adult and I don’t have to associate with toxic people if I don’t want to and consciously I tell myself that I don’t want to, so the attraction in hatred seems to be in opposition to my values.

 

So, why would anyone ever feel hatred? Where does hatred make sense? I think hatred makes sense when you can’t really get away from the person you hate. I think hatred makes sense for slaves, and I think it makes sense for children with the people in their lives who they are forced to associate with, from bad parents to bad teachers. They can enact at least some form of vengeance and keep from falling into despair. And hopefully the vengeance, whatever it is, stops that person from ever fucking with you again.

 

And because I am not a child anymore, if I feel hatred, I wonder if the hatred I feel has been displaced and it’s not being directed at the appropriate target. There were definitely times in my life where hatred made sense for me.

So what then instead of hatred? I think the answer is contempt. Not that you can choose to feel one versus the other. I think rather it comes out of self discovery, “where exactly is the hatred coming from?”

 

Contempt for toxic people is feeling compassion for their victims. Somebody who beats children provokes in me a bottomless contempt. And the repulsion for people who do that makes me that much more repulsed by any part of myself which would feel tempted to harm a child. Contempt breaks the cycle!

 

Changing the beliefs and values you hold to assuage toxic people’s guilty consciences, is not breaking the cycle. What you excuse in other people, you excuse also for yourself.

 

Conclusion

 

So what about people who don’t or can’t make restitution for the harm they did to you? That’s their problem, not yours. Your integrity is worth a hell of a lot more than their comfort.

 

It is sad, it’s very disappointing, but you are not in any way obligated to make them feel better for the bad decisions that they made.

 

If you are going to make sacrifices for people in your life, if you choose to do that, at least have it be for people that actually deserve it. What is your life worth?

[powder]

I listened to it yesterday while I was working.  very good, and important conversation Kevin.  thanks for sharing.  

[Matt D]

Superb video, Kevin.

 

I followed up with my own video on forgiveness after reading and responding to some of the comments on yours. I hope it's useful and adds to the conversation. Please share what you think.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WCN_YTyytU&feature=youtu.be

[Sean V]

I decided to make a video about forgiveness after an exchange I had online with some people. They advanced the position you might have guessed: forgive or else you will become a miserable and bitter person.

 

These are my thoughts on this issue, why I strongly disagree.

 

 

Forgiveness

 

Introduction

 

I was listening to this guy on YouTube named SpartanLifeCoach who’s this life coach who talks a lot about narcissism and things like that. He puts out some interesting videos and would recommend his channel if that’s your bag, but he had this video on black sheeps in the family system and why narcissistic parents would want to make one of the children a black sheep. It’s interesting and I won’t repeat his argument here, but there was one thing that he said, and he probably didn’t mean it in the way that I took it, but he said that you can forgive them for just how sad and petty it is to single out that person in the family like that.

 

But it got me thinking about forgiveness and I made a case in his comment thread as to why you wouldn’t want to forgive them, and arguing that it’s actually a terrible thing to forgive unrepentant and toxic people for harm they’ve done you.

 

I got some really interesting responses that I think are worth telling you about.

 

The primary thing that I got back was an argument that goes something like this:

 

Bitterness is forgiveness withheld, and bitterness infects you like a virus and will eventually erode your body and mind into a hollowed out person. You’ve probably heard it before. It’s this false dilemma: either you forgive people or you become as bad or worse than them.

 

I think this is a really interesting argument that I want to spend some time exploring.

 

What is Forgiveness?

 

I was told that I ought to forgive my parents, and then I will find that freeing. One person called it “letting go”. I’ve always hated that phrase, precisely because of this argument. A couple of people claimed that it gave them a feeling of relief.

 

It’s propped up as if it’s the mature thing to do. It’s supposed to be like this petty thing that only someone with some displaced issues would do, to “hold a grudge”.

 

I’m unconvinced. One reason that I’m unconvinced is because people seem to think that forgiveness is chosen.

Forgiveness is not the words “I forgive you”. Forgiveness is a feeling preceded by a judgment about another person, in the same way that I cannot choose to admire someone. I either do or I don’t. It’s my judgment about the other person’s actions, their virtue that provokes any feelings of love, admiration, respect, or forgiveness. The actions that cause in me feelings of forgiveness are acts of restitution. Without someone actually doing something to earn my forgiveness, what does forgiveness really mean?

 

You might argue then that “okay, you can’t choose the feeling, but you can change your judgment about a situation, thereby creating forgiveness within you”.

 

A judgment is your beliefs and your values. What do you believe about a situation and how does it line up with your values? That’s what judgment is. If you can change that, then you can provoke forgiveness.

 

And this is really what people mean when they say they chose to forgive a toxic person. They come up with some kind of excuse or rationalization. “Well, they had an even worse childhood” or “they didn’t know any better”, things that don’t actually matter. Even if it’s an accident, you still have to apologize and make restitution. If I run over your dog, I don’t just get to say “hey, it was an accident, get over it!”

 

And I don’t know about you, but when I’m trying to have rational values, and true beliefs about the world, I don’t start with a desired effect and then make my beliefs and values fit with that. I don’t think that’s very honest. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s enabling and you are becoming complicit in something terrible.

 

Hatred

 

One person characterized me as “stewing in hatred” and that I will be in misery while they escape from misery with their magic spell that they call “forgiveness”.

 

Personally, I don’t understand why there would be anything wrong with feeling an emotion. If I feel hatred, it makes little sense to me to make me out to be wrong or bad because of it. But there is something about hatred specifically that is self-propagating. These people could have chosen any sort of angry emotion, like contempt or indignation or aggravation, but they chose hatred.

 

I don’t think that hatred is the only logical response to toxic people harming you, but hatred is an interesting emotion. It’s very different from contempt, for example. Contempt includes in it a feeling of repulsion. I don’t want to be anywhere near people that I feel contempt for. But hatred is different. When I feel hatred, I want to get revenge and fuck up their shit. I want to punish the people I hate. You could say that hatred attracts you to the person you hate.

 

When I realize that I feel hatred for someone, I become skeptical, because I’m an adult and I don’t have to associate with toxic people if I don’t want to and consciously I tell myself that I don’t want to, so the attraction in hatred seems to be in opposition to my values.

 

So, why would anyone ever feel hatred? Where does hatred make sense? I think hatred makes sense when you can’t really get away from the person you hate. I think hatred makes sense for slaves, and I think it makes sense for children with the people in their lives who they are forced to associate with, from bad parents to bad teachers. They can enact at least some form of vengeance and keep from falling into despair. And hopefully the vengeance, whatever it is, stops that person from ever fucking with you again.

 

And because I am not a child anymore, if I feel hatred, I wonder if the hatred I feel has been displaced and it’s not being directed at the appropriate target. There were definitely times in my life where hatred made sense for me.

So what then instead of hatred? I think the answer is contempt. Not that you can choose to feel one versus the other. I think rather it comes out of self discovery, “where exactly is the hatred coming from?”

 

Contempt for toxic people is feeling compassion for their victims. Somebody who beats children provokes in me a bottomless contempt. And the repulsion for people who do that makes me that much more repulsed by any part of myself which would feel tempted to harm a child. Contempt breaks the cycle!

 

Changing the beliefs and values you hold to assuage toxic people’s guilty consciences, is not breaking the cycle. What you excuse in other people, you excuse also for yourself.

 

Conclusion

 

So what about people who don’t or can’t make restitution for the harm they did to you? That’s their problem, not yours. Your integrity is worth a hell of a lot more than their comfort.

 

It is sad, it’s very disappointing, but you are not in any way obligated to make them feel better for the bad decisions that they made.

 

If you are going to make sacrifices for people in your life, if you choose to do that, at least have it be for people that actually deserve it. What is your life worth?

 

Hey Kevin,

 

Great Video. My therapist, who is emotion focused, explained to me in our first session how emotions are a call to action. So anger is the perception of an injustice being done and the action would be to correct the injustice. As free adults we can leave relationships. I think people who can't leave the relationship (kids) or see the relationship as good or force forgiveness suppress the anger. I think the people who say you are "stewing in hatred" could be projecting some of that hatred in themselves on to you. I really liked the part about how contempt is breaking the cycle because it empathizes with the victim. Thats brilliant.

 

I also watched some of your "am I growing" videos and I really related to them. I'm trying to pull myself out of a long period of self-erasure and isolation right now and I'm procrastinating the reaching out to others part which I realize must be done.

[Kevin Beal]

Hi Sean!

 

I think that you are probably right about projecting their anger. I have known a lot of people who consider themselves to be enlightened in the sense that they are above having negative emotions because they just see things from the right perspectives and bla bla bla bla, barf! But whenever I would challenge them, the tension in the room would spike, as if socratic reasoning was this bad thing and I'm some sort of asshole, haha. It seems, at least in the cases I've seen, the people who claim to be most above having "negative" emotions like anger are the most repressed and most reactive when you push their buttons. Probably not a coincidence

 

I'm glad you got some value from the videos

 

I haven't made any in a while. I wasn't sure how interesting or helpful they were for people.

[Troubador]

Really good discussion here, and whilst forgiveness is generally a good idea, it requires some closer examination and picking apart. As as been correctly identified we tend to associate anger/hatred as negative, which I am inclined to agree is incorrect.

 

Emotions are perfectly natural reactions to experiences, and as such are not inherently negative in and of themselves. However it's worth pointing out certain emotions experienced chronically can have positive/ negative outcomes with regards to an individual's health. Yet we should not forget that repressing feelings of anger leads to depression.

 

So I don't think it's as simple as some people make it out. An individual's right to feel, experience and work through their own emotions is fundamental, so if you want to stay angry at your parents then have at it. Besides nobody has more insight into your experiences than you do. In addition by allowing yourself to feel aggrieved you have validated your status as a human being with a right to not be abused, which is an act of healthy self love in and of itself.

 

Which leads to the understanding that emotions do not really exist in isolation, but involve incredibly complex interplays. People only hate the child abuse because they care about children for example, but it can and does get remarkably more subtle and nuanced than that.

 

In essence I agree with anyone who claims that broadly speaking forgiveness is a positive thing, but I am uncomfortable when anyone ever tells anyone they "should " or "ought" to forgive in any specific circumstance.

[Kevin Beal]

In essence I agree with anyone who claims that broadly speaking forgiveness is a positive thing

Tell me more

 

I don't understand what is good or positive about it.

 

So I don't think it's as simple as some people make it out. An individual's right to feel, experience and work through their own emotions is fundamental, so if you want to stay angry at your parents then have at it.

So, just to clarify, I don't actually feel angry with my parents. I rarely think of them, in fact. I exert no effort toward sustaining any anger at them.

 

I actually think that I would disagree with you here. I don't think that people should exert extra effort to feel anger or any other emotion. I hope that's not what came across in my video/writing. I don't think that people should do that. Rather, I think people should just be honest with themselves about what they do feel, rather than telling themselves that it's wrong or bad to feel it. To exert extra effort to feel a certain emotion isn't exactly suppression, but neither is it feeling what you feel organically and without a filter, like shame or obligation or fear at what people might think, etc. That was really all I was trying to say.

 

There may be reasons to exert that effort, like when you have particular difficulty crying, and pushing helps you cry which shows you that you can do it, and thereby gain some self efficacy. But what's the purpose of making yourself more angry than the situation organically warrants? I don't know. Nothing?

 

Anger can heal, but not simply because you feel it. It's a targeted radioactive element. It should come out of moral clarity. Otherwise it's a cure with no illness. And you risk doing damage like you mentioned, to no end.

 

Also, I don't know if it really is suppressing the emotions which causes depression. It sort of makes sense to me, and I know I've made that case before, but I'm wondering now if, actually, it's the self deception that causes the depression. In other words, what do you have to tell yourself in order to stop feeling what you feel?

• "I'm being hysterical [or petty], I should stop"
• "a wise mature person wouldn't feel this"
• "getting upset just makes me as bad as them"
• etc

What negative self talk that is, coming in and replacing what is organic, natural and truly you. It's a hollowing out. I don't feel motivation or much of anything at all when I'm empty inside.

 

Just some thoughts. Let me know if they make any sense, or if you believe me to be in error.

 

Take care!

[Bipedal Primate]

Kevin,

Excellent Video! I think this is such an important and misunderstood topic. The comments you received stating that it's the victim's burden to create the process of forgiveness is paradoxical thinking. For example, Bob punches me in the face, and then I'm expected to tell Bob, "I'm sorry."

 

For me, forgiveness is the result of an action that can only be created by my abuser. Bob has to create the action of restitution in order to create the process of forgiveness. The abuser is the active party from start to finish, while I am the passive party from start to finish.

 

I am the receiver of the process of forgiveness, exactly the same way I am the receiver of the wrong doing.

 

For me, forgiveness can not exist without an action produced by my abuser.

 

"forgiveness is not a charity." -Stef

[Troubador]

Ok to make a case for why forgiveness is broadly positive:

 

Forgiveness is a prerequisite for reconciliation. If the prospect for reconciliation is taken off the table, and we were now to live in an unforgiving society it creates a whole host of philosophical problems.

 

Now granted and has been pointed out upthread this ^requires^ contrition on the part of the perpetrator, and even action taken in restitution to make amends. If we take all that off the table, we limit and inhibit the possibility to heal and move a community forward.

 

On a large scale consider the actions of Nelson Mandela, who upon becoming President of South Africa:

- Invited one of his jailers to his inauguration ceremony.

- Had dinner with the man who had tried to had the death penalty applied to his sentence.

- Wore the Sprinbok rugby jersey at the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

 

Now absolutely this has not wiped out racism or racial tensions in South Africa, but that reconciliation is not even possible without first forgiveness. I use Mandela as an example of how forgiveness on even a personal level can make a positive difference to the world, and sometimes forgiving actually creates the climate within which people will seek to make restitution.