Thoughts on justice and mercy and forgiveness

[xiphias]

A friend of mine is doing some musing about forgivness in his livejournal -- it's friends-only, so I won't mention who it is, or link to it. It was triggered by this essay.

I had some realizations about forgivness, which I copy here in order to have in my own livejournal, for my own reference.

1. "Forgiveness" is the process of cutting away the importance of something. You can forgive an action, which means that you have cut away the emotional resonance and the importance of the action. You can forgive a person, which means that you have cut away the emotional resonance and the importance of the person. This is why I generally forgive actions, not people. . .


2. "Forgiveness" does, therefore, involve "letting someone off the hook" for something they did, or for something they are. This may seem unfair, and unjust. It is unjust. It is merciful. "Mercy" is the opposite of "justice", and the world needs both, balanced, in order to survive.


3. "Mercy" is never deserved. If it was deserved, it would be justice, not mercy.

Some things I am still pondering: is "mercy" always unjust? It is clear that the converse is not true.

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of forgiveness as cutting away the emotional resonance and importance of something. It's similar to something I said in a comment to supergee recently on the topic. However, I think there is something between forgiving the act and forgiving the person, which is forgiving that part of the person. For instance, some of the ways my parents hurt me about weight clearly sprang directly from their issues with weight. Working past that wasn't a matter of forgiving whole-Mom and whole-Dad, but of forgiving the parts of them that (imho) had been warped by a fat-phobic society and had just handed it on. That is a part that it's good for me to pitch the emotional resonance and importance of.

I also agree with you about Mercy and Justice. I first encountered that polarity in Crowley's tarot deck, and then learned it was cabalistic. I like things that remind people that justice isn't the be-all and end-all, sometimes isn't even desirable.