I’ve long been skeptical about the value of words like “evil” and “monster,” because I think that (like virtually every word or concept, these days) they are regularly used not to pin down something profound, but instead to avoid responsibility. We give words and concepts power, so we can say we are not that thing. To glibly summarize the avoidance: “that person is an evil monster, and I am not them, so I am good.” And we often demonize others in order to feel good about ourselves. To a large degree, this is what social media is for. I can feel social media pulling me into that behavior, and I don’t want it.
I remain suspicious of these words and concepts.
But this essay is a helpful reminder that it is possible to think correctly about these things. Your essay is overwhelming, because it is so far afield from what I expect and regularly encounter here and elsewhere. The writing is good. The logic is sound. The position is pitiless without being self-righteous.
I’ll continue to be a person not saying the things you’ve said here. But I will also archive this piece as reference material. I will continue to avoid saying them, and continue to be suspicious of them, but now I find I can breathe more easily about my internal conflict between suspicion about the self-indulgent use of them and acceptance of the terrible reality that they are needed nonetheless.
A thing exists. It needs a name, even though naming it will sometimes aid people who are inclined to the sort of self-indulgence that helps keep the thing alive.
I can continue to wrestle with these conflicting ideas, but I can now say that there is another reason for me not to say them: Rachel has said them, better than I can. If I find they need saying, at some point, I can refer to Rachel’s piece.
You’ve given me a great gift. I hope it doesn’t cheapen or degrade the greater loads of others when I say you’ve lightened mine.
Thank you, Rachael. This is a lovely and thoughtful essay.
'Forgiveness', as I understand it, is a way of rebuilding social harmony and cohesion, implicitly saying we can rebuild and restore our previous connections.
Yes, I think the question is a utilitarian calculation as to whether I want to maintain that same bond with that person.
Like you say, looking at the person's conduct, I either think they made a one-off mistake, which we can discuss, address and movement forward. (Actually, I think I saw you do this yesterday, very kindly and cordially, showing forgiveness).
OR
In a Bayesian way (wink wink), I just update my priors about what I can expect of them and adjust. If people consistently demonstrate that they are some combination of aggressive/ unkind/ narcissistic, then I just limit contact.
That said, when I was very young, I said to my newly divorced mother, "I hate my father". And she said "no no, don't let it occupy your mind, just move on". And for me personally, I think that kind of pragmatic disregard has been helpful.
So - for me personally - it's not that I do or don't forgive, I just don't think about such people :-)
Thank you Alice. You are ever the pragmatist and this is very admirable. I really appreciate you sharing these thoughts. (And it is always nice for one’s kindnesses to be noticed, so thank you for bringing my attention back to that interaction on twitter which I had forgot.)
I haven't looked into the circumstances around this because I'm mired in this stuff on a daily basis, but when I see the articles like you mention, I think of those authors being unable to grapple with a similar situation in their own lives (either post or pre-emptively) - they want to be softer on Munro because they hope that others might forgive them for their own lack of courage.
You'll also frequently hear survivors of family violence say that the worst part is the psychological abuse, which persists after the relationship is severed, contrary to popular belief that physical and sexual abuse should be rated higher.
Your way of thinking about this topic is both profound and practical. I suspect that a larger-than-expected number of people have experienced some sort of abuse in their lives. A far smaller number of those people have worked to both admit it and overcome it.
Your essay gets at the heart of why this is true: it's too painful; it's impractical (especially when the abuser is a family member); people side with the abuser because it's easier than admitting the truth; and numerous other reasons.
And this is a real shame for a whole bunch of obvious reasons (the abuse victim never fully gets to live, for one), but also for one other less obvious reason. Unaware/"unwilling to admit" victims of certain types of abuse (childhood neglect comes to mind) often tend to to become abusers themselves, perpetuating the cycle. And THAT is just tragic.
A thought on forgiveness and what we mean by forgiveness. I have spend hundreds of hours thinking about forgiveness in the light of my family of origin (my mother is a textbook malignant narcissist, something I didn't fully internalize/realize until about 15 years ago (I'm 56 now)).
The realization threw me for a massive painful breathless loop. It ultimately ended in me putting up boundary after boundary until I put up the final boundary (no contact, just like Skinner) about 5 years ago. And I'm no longer a victim. I'm just ME.
I also try to live my life (roughly!) according to the New Testament. How does this all work? Honor thy father and mother?? But also Jesus said (paraphrasing): "when you enter a town where you cannot make any headway, shake the dust from your feet."
I think a lot about the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation, and I wonder if you are making this distinction in any way in your musings? My thought is that forgiveness is about letting go, finding a way to calm the anger, vengeance, resentment, hurt... and is ultimately 100% for the victim, to give them peace, to let them heal.
Reconciliation is WAY different: it requires genuine repentance from the abuser and the abuser does not get to dictate the terms of the reconciliation. And of course, none of that is up to the victim to manage, control, or decide. It is fully in the hands of the abuser and the probability of reconciliation in most abuse cases is vanishingly remote.
There's a blog post in me somewhere about how as my faith has gotten stronger my boundaries have gotten higher, but I won't hijack your beautiful post!
Thanks for something I happened to need a great deal today, as I'm facing another difficult relationship decision :-) .
This is so great, thank you for writing it. I think about the concept of forgiveness as a gluing device, whether it gets embodied and engaged with by the victim/survivor or not. By asking and iterating on requests for it, the existing system and its activity (inside a person, between people) can stay intact. Reminds me of Wren Aves' writing on iatrogenic harm and abuse in the mental health system, where there's much discussion of avoidance and intent. I particularly appreciate your notes on temporality - keeping the uncertainty alive around what happened by virtue of having the full stop be the action of forgiving. That way, Munro could not possibly act next, or differently, to change how things lie. If forgiveness is required for narrative clarity then, realistically, we already have an answer.
Thank you so much for this, damn, what a dense and stimulating comment. "the concept of forgiveness as a gluing device" is a really good phrase. I have to look up iatrogenic harm now. Also thank you for appreciating and drawing out the temporality aspects here. This was a subconscious / intuitive aspect of the essay for me.
This was marvellous. Thanks so much for the passing mention. We are all, to some extent, imprisoned by the ideology we have absorbed, but we can choose whether to question it or not.
Thank you so much John -- I thought about tagging you, since that quote is doing and has done a lot of heavy duty for me in my thinking -- I am not sure why I decided against tagging you, and/but/so I am really pleased that you read and liked it.
I find navigating the depths of forgiveness vs culpability/evil all the more difficult to plumb given the Brene Brown-style urging to consider "what if this difficult person is in fact doing their best?". It seems easy to pronounce that monstrous people aren't doing their best--or that the question is absurd in their case--but the question does make things harder to sort out.
‘What if this person was just doing their best’ just means - to me - ‘count yourself lucky they weren’t even worse’. Making the abuse the responsibility of the abused when it isn’t and precisely what this essay is so good at pointing out.
I think at this point we need to face the reality that if this behaviour is someone's "best", then they actually shouldn't be living in a society where they have responsibility over anyone or anything.
I’ve long been skeptical about the value of words like “evil” and “monster,” because I think that (like virtually every word or concept, these days) they are regularly used not to pin down something profound, but instead to avoid responsibility. We give words and concepts power, so we can say we are not that thing. To glibly summarize the avoidance: “that person is an evil monster, and I am not them, so I am good.” And we often demonize others in order to feel good about ourselves. To a large degree, this is what social media is for. I can feel social media pulling me into that behavior, and I don’t want it.
I remain suspicious of these words and concepts.
But this essay is a helpful reminder that it is possible to think correctly about these things. Your essay is overwhelming, because it is so far afield from what I expect and regularly encounter here and elsewhere. The writing is good. The logic is sound. The position is pitiless without being self-righteous.
I’ll continue to be a person not saying the things you’ve said here. But I will also archive this piece as reference material. I will continue to avoid saying them, and continue to be suspicious of them, but now I find I can breathe more easily about my internal conflict between suspicion about the self-indulgent use of them and acceptance of the terrible reality that they are needed nonetheless.
A thing exists. It needs a name, even though naming it will sometimes aid people who are inclined to the sort of self-indulgence that helps keep the thing alive.
I can continue to wrestle with these conflicting ideas, but I can now say that there is another reason for me not to say them: Rachel has said them, better than I can. If I find they need saying, at some point, I can refer to Rachel’s piece.
You’ve given me a great gift. I hope it doesn’t cheapen or degrade the greater loads of others when I say you’ve lightened mine.
I really cherish this response, Karl. I think I know what you mean and I have the same general concerns, intellectually. Nevertheless here we are.
Also, I think "pitiless without being self righteous" is among my all time favourite reviews of my work. Thank you.
It’s a tough needle to thread!
Thank you, Rachael. This is a lovely and thoughtful essay.
'Forgiveness', as I understand it, is a way of rebuilding social harmony and cohesion, implicitly saying we can rebuild and restore our previous connections.
Yes, I think the question is a utilitarian calculation as to whether I want to maintain that same bond with that person.
Like you say, looking at the person's conduct, I either think they made a one-off mistake, which we can discuss, address and movement forward. (Actually, I think I saw you do this yesterday, very kindly and cordially, showing forgiveness).
OR
In a Bayesian way (wink wink), I just update my priors about what I can expect of them and adjust. If people consistently demonstrate that they are some combination of aggressive/ unkind/ narcissistic, then I just limit contact.
That said, when I was very young, I said to my newly divorced mother, "I hate my father". And she said "no no, don't let it occupy your mind, just move on". And for me personally, I think that kind of pragmatic disregard has been helpful.
So - for me personally - it's not that I do or don't forgive, I just don't think about such people :-)
Thank you Alice. You are ever the pragmatist and this is very admirable. I really appreciate you sharing these thoughts. (And it is always nice for one’s kindnesses to be noticed, so thank you for bringing my attention back to that interaction on twitter which I had forgot.)
I haven't looked into the circumstances around this because I'm mired in this stuff on a daily basis, but when I see the articles like you mention, I think of those authors being unable to grapple with a similar situation in their own lives (either post or pre-emptively) - they want to be softer on Munro because they hope that others might forgive them for their own lack of courage.
You'll also frequently hear survivors of family violence say that the worst part is the psychological abuse, which persists after the relationship is severed, contrary to popular belief that physical and sexual abuse should be rated higher.
Anyway this essay was terrific.
LOVED this, Rachael.
Your way of thinking about this topic is both profound and practical. I suspect that a larger-than-expected number of people have experienced some sort of abuse in their lives. A far smaller number of those people have worked to both admit it and overcome it.
Your essay gets at the heart of why this is true: it's too painful; it's impractical (especially when the abuser is a family member); people side with the abuser because it's easier than admitting the truth; and numerous other reasons.
And this is a real shame for a whole bunch of obvious reasons (the abuse victim never fully gets to live, for one), but also for one other less obvious reason. Unaware/"unwilling to admit" victims of certain types of abuse (childhood neglect comes to mind) often tend to to become abusers themselves, perpetuating the cycle. And THAT is just tragic.
A thought on forgiveness and what we mean by forgiveness. I have spend hundreds of hours thinking about forgiveness in the light of my family of origin (my mother is a textbook malignant narcissist, something I didn't fully internalize/realize until about 15 years ago (I'm 56 now)).
The realization threw me for a massive painful breathless loop. It ultimately ended in me putting up boundary after boundary until I put up the final boundary (no contact, just like Skinner) about 5 years ago. And I'm no longer a victim. I'm just ME.
I also try to live my life (roughly!) according to the New Testament. How does this all work? Honor thy father and mother?? But also Jesus said (paraphrasing): "when you enter a town where you cannot make any headway, shake the dust from your feet."
I think a lot about the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation, and I wonder if you are making this distinction in any way in your musings? My thought is that forgiveness is about letting go, finding a way to calm the anger, vengeance, resentment, hurt... and is ultimately 100% for the victim, to give them peace, to let them heal.
Reconciliation is WAY different: it requires genuine repentance from the abuser and the abuser does not get to dictate the terms of the reconciliation. And of course, none of that is up to the victim to manage, control, or decide. It is fully in the hands of the abuser and the probability of reconciliation in most abuse cases is vanishingly remote.
There's a blog post in me somewhere about how as my faith has gotten stronger my boundaries have gotten higher, but I won't hijack your beautiful post!
Thanks for something I happened to need a great deal today, as I'm facing another difficult relationship decision :-) .
This is so great, thank you for writing it. I think about the concept of forgiveness as a gluing device, whether it gets embodied and engaged with by the victim/survivor or not. By asking and iterating on requests for it, the existing system and its activity (inside a person, between people) can stay intact. Reminds me of Wren Aves' writing on iatrogenic harm and abuse in the mental health system, where there's much discussion of avoidance and intent. I particularly appreciate your notes on temporality - keeping the uncertainty alive around what happened by virtue of having the full stop be the action of forgiving. That way, Munro could not possibly act next, or differently, to change how things lie. If forgiveness is required for narrative clarity then, realistically, we already have an answer.
Thank you so much for this, damn, what a dense and stimulating comment. "the concept of forgiveness as a gluing device" is a really good phrase. I have to look up iatrogenic harm now. Also thank you for appreciating and drawing out the temporality aspects here. This was a subconscious / intuitive aspect of the essay for me.
This was marvellous. Thanks so much for the passing mention. We are all, to some extent, imprisoned by the ideology we have absorbed, but we can choose whether to question it or not.
Thank you so much John -- I thought about tagging you, since that quote is doing and has done a lot of heavy duty for me in my thinking -- I am not sure why I decided against tagging you, and/but/so I am really pleased that you read and liked it.
Yet more awful dimensions of this story have emerged in the past few weeks, summarized in this piece by Tabatha Southey: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/18/alicemunro-abuse-canada/?utm_content=gifting&tpcc=gifting_article&gifting_article=YWxpY2VtdW5yby1hYnVzZS1jYW5hZGE=&pid=PNI6oXabXq1ydw6
I find navigating the depths of forgiveness vs culpability/evil all the more difficult to plumb given the Brene Brown-style urging to consider "what if this difficult person is in fact doing their best?". It seems easy to pronounce that monstrous people aren't doing their best--or that the question is absurd in their case--but the question does make things harder to sort out.
‘What if this person was just doing their best’ just means - to me - ‘count yourself lucky they weren’t even worse’. Making the abuse the responsibility of the abused when it isn’t and precisely what this essay is so good at pointing out.
I think at this point we need to face the reality that if this behaviour is someone's "best", then they actually shouldn't be living in a society where they have responsibility over anyone or anything.