B (5:25)

Thank you so much for having me.

A (5:27)

I think it's fair to say that our culture treats forgiveness like an inherently virtuous thing. Right. It is good to forgive people. Forgiving people is what good people do. You're not anti forgiveness. It's not an anti forgiveness book. But you do say that we live in a culture that idolizes forgiveness. I just want to start there. What do you mean when you say that we idolize forgiveness?

B (5:56)

Yeah. To idolize forgiveness is to perceive it as something that can solve all of our problems. I call it kind of magical thinking about forgiveness. I think it's unique, particularly for our particular culture, American culture. We love happy endings. I hate investing time in a novel in which it doesn't end. Right. And on a happy note, I don't like watching sad movies. So even I kind of fall victim to that notion that I like happy endings. And it seems like forgiveness is the thing that can get us there. And not only is it the thing that our culture idolizes so much that it is capital. The thing. It is the thing that's going to get us reconciliation. It is the thing that's going to get us repair. So much so that if you don't forgive, people think that you are anti reconciliation, you are anti repair. So that's what I mean by idolizing forgiveness. I think to idolize forgiveness in some ways is also to idolize victims, those who have been wronged. And it suggests that only they can basically solve our problems or they have a role in repairing our world. And I want to suggest that when we no longer idolize forgivers and forgiveness, we can therefore take our rightful place and do what we need to do to bring about a more just, a more fair, a more reputable world.

A (7:18)

What can't it do?

B (7:21)

Depends on the context. I think in general, it can't change the past. I think the past has an afterlife. And this goes again about happy ending, the that when wrongdoing occurs. This is kind of a sad thing about. The reality is that we may change, but the past doesn't necessarily change. And I think when we analyze forgiveness, we have a tendency to think that all a person has to do is forgive and all is forgiven. And what we think about that all is forgiven, that all is made right, all is made whole. But the reality is that the past has an afterlife, so it can't redo the past. I think it has some potential to kind of remake a future, but not always right. You can try to forgive someone so much and try to restore the relationship back together, and then you realize that things just can't be what it once was. And I want to suggest that that's not a bad thing. That's not to suggest that, you know, we shouldn't recommend forgiveness, but life is hard. We can't, you know, redo the past. We have to make the future as best we can. And sometimes that entails not so much happy endings on our part.

A (8:38)

The example you open the book with is the Charleston church shooting that occurred in 2015. So it may be good to remind people what happened there. But what was revealing about that moment to you? Why was that a case study for you about forgiveness and how we relate to it, how we celebrate it, how we perceive it?

B (9:01)

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I witnessed, I mean, it was a horrific situation in which Dylann Roof went into a church that welcomed him and killed non individuals. What was fascinating about that particular case, no matter who you were, is that when Dylan was arrested and went before the court, family members were there, family members of the victims. And one of the things that I think kind of shocked reporters and shocked all of us as a nation is that when the judge asked if any of them had anything to say, a lot of them reported that they were gonna try to forgive or if they hadn't already forgiven the perpetrator. And so there were Time magazines, there were headlines of people kind of fascinated with. By that forgiveness. So here was my problem with the way in which we interpret it. It seemed as if forgiveness became the headline and no longer the hatred or the atrocity that took place. What was also problematic for me is that there seemed to be kind of a normative argument within those headlines, as it suggests if those individuals could forgive something that was so horrific, and then what is our excuse, right? So they became kind of like a prime example or a prime or moral exemplar of what, not only what we can do, but what we should be doing in our particular lives. And I think, for me, what was problematic about that is that, you know, I'm not to say that family members can't forgive. I don't want to patrol or police anyone's forgiveness. I'm more fascinated about how we conceive of forgiveness. And what I felt fascinating by that particular case and is that we seem so intrigued, so inspired by this tool, this moral tool called forgiveness, so much that we no longer paid attention to what happened. And I think that idealization of idolizing or idealizing forgiveness and forgivers, then what it entails is that we think that because they forgave, they no longer need to heal themselves. Because they forgave, the community doesn't have to do anything about white supremacy. Because they forgave, we can continue to go on as if nothing atrocious like that happened in our particular nation. So it kind of relieves us of our own responsibility. That's that magical thinking about forgiveness. It also has a tendency to suggest that it was so easy for them to do it, right? They did it so easily. And as it suggests that the atrocity that happened wasn't that harmful for them. So it was these ideas, whether they were implicit, explicit about the forgivers and also about forgiveness, that I found extremely, extremely problematic. Now, here's the interesting thing, that it wasn't just Dylann Roof shooting during this particular time span. You know, kind of leading up to that situation, there were these high profile cases of police violence among black folks. And what we had was press conferences of their family members. And what we found was that Reporters and almost all of the high profile cases, if you look at the archive, is that reporters always ask the question. It seems to be kind of this ritual happened. And the question was as follows. Can you find it in your heart to forgive? So it was this obsession about, why are you introducing forgiveness before the bodies are buried? Right. And it had me thinking that, oh, wow. So they really think that forgiveness can really solve this problem. And so I wanted to dive deep into why they think this is the case and what we need to do differently.

A (12:37)

Well, there is a. A religious view of forgiveness as an act of grace, right. And this is what we saw in the victims in Charleston, right, Who were Christians. Now, I don't know that I'm capable or. Yeah, I do. I, I'm. I'm almost certainly not capable of that kind of grace. But I do admit to, as you were just saying, being amazed by it. And, you know, I'm just being honest. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but when someone like Dick Cheney dies, who just did, my first thought is, he had a lot of blood on his hands, man. I don't forgive him for that. I don't think he deserves forgiveness for that. Does that make me a bad person? I don't know. Maybe a certain kind of Christian might say that it does. What do you think, professor? Am I a terrible person for that?

B (13:32)

So it goes back to what you said earlier about people conceiving of forgiveness as a virtue. And anytime you conceive it of it as a virtue, then unforgiveness will always be a vice of some sort. Now, one of the things that I believe is that if forgiveness was a virtue, it would simply suggest that if you don't forgive, not only will unforgiveness be a vice, but there's something that you're doing, there's something that's occurring, there's something that's happening that will make it the case that it becomes a vice, as it suggests that if I don't forgive, then I'm going to engage in revenge for my neighbor. If I don't forgive, then I'm gonna cut someone's throat, right? So therefore, you gotta forgive so you won't do all these other kind of vicious activities. But I think that just because you don't forgive or you decide to not forgive, Cheney, doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna engage in all this kind of vicious and problematic, morally problematic behavior, Right. Also, I think that particularly when it comes to cases of these high profile cases of police violence or whether that's racial kind of situations. This suggests that if certain individuals, particularly vulnerable people, don't forgive, then they're gonna riot or whatever the case may be. Right? I don't think that's the case. And because I don't think that's the case, then I think that there's nothing that is done wrong when one decides not to forgive.

A (14:51)

Yeah. I mean, Cheney may not be the best example. It's not like he personally wronged me, but I think he got a lot of people killed, and that feels like an injustice. The Dylann Roof case is interesting for a lot of reasons, but. And I don't quite remember this. And you will if I'm wrong. Was he ever remorseful at any point? Did he. Did he actually ever apologize? Or if I recall, he did the opposite. Right. He had an opportunity and refused and said nothing.

B (15:17)

No.

A (15:20)

Does it ever make sense, given your understanding of forgiveness, to forgive someone who doesn't want it, who hasn't apologized, who doesn't have any remorse?

B (15:30)

Well, it depends on what your goal is. Right. So I. I take it, you know, a lot of people like to think that forgiveness has one goal, and that's reconciliation. We continue our relationship back up again. Right. But in the case of Dylann Roof, they had no relationship with him, so of course, that couldn't have been the goal. Right. I think there are a variety of what I call kind of reparative aims that happens in forgiveness. So you can forgive in order to reconcile, and reconciliation doesn't look one particular way, but you can also forgive in order to get some kind of relief, whether that's a kind of psychological relief or spiritual relief relief. Right. Or you can forgive in order to release the wrong door from the hold that the wrongdoing has on them, perhaps, so that you can offer up or they can give themselves forgiveness. So there's a variety of reparative aims. So it could be the case that, you know, you don't necessarily forgive for them. And this is a popular saying, people always say, you know, you know, forgiveness is not for the wrongdoer, it's for you. Well, it could be either. Right. It could be for you. It could be for your community. It could be for the wrong door. So I think there's a variety of people that forgiveness can affect. There's a variety of aims that affect people differently. So you needn't always do it for the forgiver. You can just do it for your. Yourself. And if that's the case, then it doesn't really require apologies in order for you to forgive. Now, here's the thing. Apologies does indeed make it easier, right? Uh, it lets us know, particularly if you want. If your goal is reconciliation, you probably want the person to apologize. Because if you want to continue a new relationship with them, you need to make sure that they're in a good position not to redo the harm, right? So apologies would be. Would be necessary, but particularly in the case of Dylann Roof, like I said before, they didn't have a relationship with him prior, so reconciliation wouldn't have been the goal. And so someone might say that, hey, their forgiveness makes perfect, perfect sense. They did it for themselves, right? So they won't be haunted by this wrongdoing. And in that way, perhaps they didn't need his apology.

A (17:29)

You just used the word goal. Like, should you have a goal in mind when you forgive someone, or is that instrumentalizing it? Right? As though it's like some kind of transaction.

B (17:39)

If it's a tool, you're doing it for some reason, some moral purpose in mind, right? Now, mind you think about the context. Wrongdoing has occurred, and it has disrupted the state of things, right? And the task that we have before us is how can we make things better? That's a goal. And the question is, what do you want to make better? What do you want to make right? What do you want to make whole? That's all about the reparative aims. And what you want to make right could be the relationship. What you want to make right is your own consciousness, your own sense of peace, right? If you. What you want to make right is a healing in your particular community. So of course you're going to have those particular, particular aims. And I would suggest that if you don't have those particular aims, you're probably not engaging in forgiveness. You do forgiveness for a particular reason. You do it in order to accomplish a particular goal. And if you're just out here forgetting the wrongdoing, then that's not forgiveness. You want a reparative goal.

A (18:34)

What if the goal is to let go? There's a very popular view of forgiveness, I think probably the most common one, that forgiving heals the forgiver, right? It allows the person doing the forgiving to let go of whatever the psychological burden of carrying around resentment and anger is. Is that a justifiable goal, even if it's just that?

B (18:58)

Yeah, I think that's a. That's a good goal. I don't want that to be the primary goal, or. I don't think that's always the primary. The primary goal why?

A (19:08)

Because it ignores the root of the problem, the thing that. The injustice that actually happened in the world.

B (19:13)

Well, I think sometimes when we offer that as an. As an example or reason, Right. People introduce that as a reason, as it suggests, no matter what's at stake, no matter what the problem is, no matter what the wrongdoer is doing or not doing, no matter what the conditions of your life is, do it for you. Do it for you. And always doing stuff for you is always justified. And I'm afraid that that excuse is always used or that reason is always used as kind of like an overriding reason to forgive right? Now. Here's the thing. It could be the case that when you talk about let it go, could be the case. I don't need to let anything go. I'm good. Then the question is, what will forgiveness look like in that particular context? Right? It could be, oh, I let it go. I went to therapy. Oh, I let it go. I go to a spa every weekend. I work out. I let it go every morning. Right? So I want us to be kind of, you know, kind of particular about what the letting go is. And there's a whole bunch of things that you can do for you that can give you. That can allow you to let it go. That has nothing to do with forgiveness.

A (20:15)

So you think you can forgive someone and still be angry?

B (20:19)

Oh, definitely. Definitely. I think. I think another kind of personal reason why I wrote the book is not just the political example that I offered up, but even in my own family. My sister came to me kind of a decade later about something that I talk about in a book concerning my stepfather and his behavior. When my mother was on her deathbed, and my sister, basically, she detected kind of the anger in my voice, and she basically says, you know what, Maisha? You need to let it go. You need to forgive him. And at first I was offended because I didn't want to be kind of perceived as an unforgiver. And then I thought about it a little bit more, and as a philosopher, I kind of did my research, and then I arose out of that, and I basically said to myself, I have forgiven him. My forgiveness just looks different from my sister. For my sister, she let go of resentment for the purpose of reconciliation. And for me, the anger is still there. I can't do anything about that. So then the question is, okay, how do I know I have forgiven? I no longer have hatred towards him. I let that go just out of the memory of my mother and just a kind of reparative aim for My family in general. But the anger is still there. Sometimes I feel it more strongly than I used to. Sometimes it's not there. But just because the anger remains doesn't mean that the forgiveness hasn't occurred. If I engage in a kind of moral practice that is, I let go of hatred and I did it for myself as opposed to reconciling in the relationship I have forgiven.

A (21:49)

Can I ask what he did while.

B (21:51)

My mother was dying? He basically brought another woman into the home. So he basically cheated on my mother as he was dying on her deathbed. And we found out, my sister and I found out about this, and he asked for my forgiveness. The funeral, the day of the funeral. And I remember telling him, and I say this in the book at the time, you know, I just felt like forgiving him just wasn't kind of like the goal for that particular day. Mourning my mother's death, honoring her memory was more important. And so I basically said to him, you know, you need to reconcile with you and yourself and your God in relationship to this. But I have nothing to say. But I know that I have forgiven him. I no longer hate him. That was the emotion that I had, was hatred. And that is what I let go. And the anger is still there. It is what it is. I can't control that. But I did make an intention not to hate him.

A (22:47)

How do you distinguish hatred from anger or anger from rage or rage from contempt?

B (22:53)

Not everyone feels hatred towards wrongdoers. Right? There's no doubt that I did indeed feel hatred towards him. It's a kind of attitude that just makes it very difficult to reconcile. Right. It's hard for me to be in relationship with you when I think that you're below me in some kind of moral sense, that you're beneath me, that you're the scum of the earth. Right. If you are going to have a relationship, it's going to be quite toxic one, right? The same thing for hatred, right? If I. If I hate you, it's something about hatred that kind of leads us to kind of wish for the annihilation or the elimination of the other. Right? So how can I want to kind of repair anything in regards to you when I want you no longer to exist in some kind of way. Right. And that's that impossibility. But one of the reasons why I suggest that you can still probably have anger is that anger suggests that you have judged that a moral wrong has occurred in relationship to people. It suggests that whoever the victim was, you value them. So I valued my mother I felt that she deserves so much more than his treatment of her in her last final days. And it's also a demand that the person just do better in some sense. Right. It calls for. It's a kind of protest to suggest, I don't like what just happened and you need to do better because I continued to value my mother after she was gone. Because, you know, even as I talk about this with you, a part of me still gets angry because what he did was really, really wrong. Those judgments are still there, and that value is still there. And the hurt that he incurred on our family, it's hard for me to forget that. So that's why the anger is. Is there. And sometimes it. Like I said, it. It rises, it falls, but it's still there. But I can still say, because I let go of the hatred and contempt, I have indeed forgiven him. And I have not decided to seek any kind of revenge and destroy his life because you don't even know his name. So I'm not destroying his life. So I haven't done any of that other stuff. And, yeah, my account allows for that because it's just so multidimensional and so broad.

A (24:55)

It's hard for us to hold the idea in our head that forgiving can include both letting go and staying pissed off. But maybe the problem here is that we keep thinking of forgiveness as one thing, when, in fact, there are different ways to forgive and different kinds of forgiveness. It doesn't just have to look one way, although I guess we want it to because we want to see everything as simple and linear. But forgiveness ain't like that. It's a. It's a process, and it's bumpy and complicated.

B (25:26)

I hate to let it go so much, Sean. You have no idea. Because not only do we.

A (25:30)

Oh, no. Lean into it. Say more.

B (25:31)

Yeah. Not only do we think that the. It is the letting go of anger. And as I just said, you needn't let go of anger. Sometimes it remains with you because the judgments and the values that you still have. But another time, we think that the let it go is the. It is the memory and the hold that the past has on us. Right? And so when people say let it go, they're basically saying, stop holding on to the past. But like I said a few minutes ago, the past holds on to us. That's just the aftermath of wrongdoing. That's exactly what wrongdoing does. It puts a hold on us. It doesn't disappear. It doesn't go away. It remains with us. And so when people say let it go, you know, this whole notion of forgiveness and forget, because that forgetting thing is important. You can't forget the past, right? It stays with us. So it's not just the kind of cognitive memory, but it's also the traumatic memory that it has on us. Wrongdoing changes us. You talk to anyone who's ever experienced trauma, it changes us, it changes our biology, it changes our future relationships. It changes how we perceive of the world and perceive of ourselves. And so you can't let it go, right? But what you can do is try to repair your life for the future as best you can. And that will never look whole. That's what you can do. What you can do is make people accountable and responsible. What you can do is stop rushing people to forgive.

A (27:32)

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B (31:59)

It's definitely a moral tool.

A (32:02)

Can you say more about that, like how it can be useful in the way that forgiveness can?

B (32:06)

Yeah. The British moralist Joseph Butler in his 10 sermons that he delivered in One of the sermons, he talks about forgiveness and resentment. That's kind of the name of the chapter. And he basically suggests that if we did not have anger, he doubts that there would even be justice in the world. He doubts that we would administer justice in the courts. And so he cautions against eradicating anger. What he suggests is that we make sure, of course, that it's moderated, that we use it for good, etc. Etc. That we don't allow our biases to allow us to have more anger for certain people and less anger for others. But he finds it essential to justice. So when we talk about a moral emotion, these are emotions that are very important for our moral lives, right? Whether that is assessing good and bad, whether that's holding people accountable morally, but it's also as a way to motivate us to achieve the good over the bad. And that's one of the wonderful things about anger. You look at any kind of social movement, there's a whole bunch of emotions there. But one of the driving force to have them out on the streets protesting day in and day out is anger. We think about Black Lives Matter, for example. What is the emotion that seems to be synonymous with that particular movement? It was anger. Because one of the things that anger did, just by the fact of anger itself, it proclaimed that Black lives matter. Because one of the things that anger does, as I said before, is that it suggests that those who have been wronged are valuable. Because you can never get angry over someone or something that you do not consider valuable. If someone was to smash my car outside and I do not get angry, that's a good indicator that I no longer value the car. But because I value the car, if anything happened to the car, best belief, anger, rage would be the emotion. Right. So it's a way to communicate value. It's a way to let people know that what just happened is not okay. Right. Anger allows us to achieve justice. It motivates us to achieve justice, to make what was wrong, to make it. To make it right. So it's very. It's very important. That's why it's a more emotion.

A (34:34)

It kind of establishes value in some way. I mean, I'm a noted Camus admirer. I wrote my dissertation on his political philosophy, and his idea was basically that political solidarity, political revolt begins with a no.

B (34:50)

Yeah.

A (34:51)

It begins when a group of people look at something in the world and say, no, this won't stand. You've crossed a line and offended something like fundamental in me as a human person. And that's not okay. And that's anger. I mean, that's the beginning of the creation of a political community, really. And it's hard to imagine that being possible without something like anger or some adjacent emotion. But anger seems about right.

B (35:24)

Before I wrote Failures of Forgiveness, I wrote a book called the Case for Rage. So, you know, anger has been my thing for a while, and it just has these motivational components that I think is just very, very important. When I think over my life, whether that's from an interpersonalist perspective or whether that's from a kind of political perspective, what really gets me going, really gets me motivated, is anger. And I just can't imag. This is a lot of things that we would not have the motivation to do if anger. Anger wasn't there. You know, I would also suggest people have a tendency to think that when anger is there, there's no other kind of positive emotions that tags along. And as we're suggesting that value is connected with anger, that also kind of implies that if you're angry about something or someone as a result of wrongdoing, it implies that there's love there. Right. The fact that you want to make someone accountable through your anger shows that there's compassion, shows that there's empathy there. So I think one of the things that people try to do in order to silence anger is to suggest that if you're angry, then you're just antithetical to all the good stuff that we should be feeling and all the good perspectives that we should be having. But typically, when there's anger there, there's also, like I said, compassion, pity, and love. And what becomes powerful is when you combine all those emotions together, you're able to have a wonderful movement. You're able to do powerful, powerful things that is able to maintain this stuff even when the anger kind of dies down.

A (36:52)

Have we always just pathologized anger in this culture? I mean, have we always had this forgiveness, good anger, bad dichotomy? Seems like an old thing. Probably, yes.

B (37:02)

You know, it's an interesting history because even when you go back to kind of the ancient tradition, you have. I mean, we know about the Stoics. You know, they're going to say you have anger because you just judged the world, you know, inaccurately. Right. You believe there's this thing called suffering. Yeah. And if you can't change it, then why are you tripping? That's basically 2025 translation of the Stoics. But Aristotle thinks differently. I mean, he takes kind of righteous, indignation as to be a virtue and to get anger quickly or not to get angry at all, he considers a vice. Right. And of course, you go into the medieval tradition in relationship to kind of like a lot of theological influence on philosophy, then it's like anti anger. And then you go into kind of the 1700s and 1800s. You have someone, as I just mentioned, Joseph Butler, who wants to say to all the Christians in the room, he was saying, hey, you can forgive and you can still have righteous anger, and that's good for us to bring about justice in the world. And then, of course, there's a tradition of kind of masculine notions of anger. That anger becomes kind of synonymous with masculinity. And so men can do it, but women can't.

A (38:19)

It is kind of telling who we tolerate anger from, isn't it? It seems like there are certain kinds of people who are allowed to be angry and certain kinds of people who aren't. And maybe that's just a familiar story about power and who has it.

B (38:29)

But yeah, it's a story about power. It's also a story about anger because anger, as we said, as we've been saying, anger ascribes value to lives that you won't get angry unless you feel like you have a right to respect. So of course, we think that privileged white men can be angry because they just have a right to certain kinds of things. And so they have a right to protest when they're disrespected. But when you think about immigrants being deported, oh, they shouldn't be angry, they should be grateful. It's a suggested their life doesn't matter. So, yes, it's power, but it's also kind of value, which is also very connected to power, but can be different. And I want to suggest that once we begin to see, you know, kind of all lives as mattering or being valuable, there's probably perhaps much more stuff that we'll get angry about.

A (39:17)

Is there a danger in valorizing anger too much to the point that it does become more destructive and less constructive?

B (39:26)

Yeah. So I'm a. I'm a Aristotelian in this regard. Right. So I think that too much of anything is problematic. Also think that too little of anything is also problematic. And the challenge for us, according to Aristotle, is to try to find that sweet spot. It's always a challenge as human beings trying to find that sweet spot. Right. So it's getting angry at injustice, it's deciding to go out to the protest, begging your politicians to change things, and then just making sure. That you're not motivated to take a gun and do some things you probably will regret. Right. That's always the thin line that we're trying to challenge there. But I think that can also happen with love. I think it can also happen with compassion. So if you love people too much, like, too much, like excessively, then it may be a great indicator that you're probably perhaps taking the autonomy away or thinking that you know what's best for them, or it may leave you to excuse their behavior. Right. That's just doing the most. So the challenge is to find that sweet spot. Right. If you have, you know, empathy is good, but if you have too much empathy, then in the ways in which you're trying to imagine yourself in their shoes, even in the most extreme circumstances, then you're always going to offer them grace and forgiveness, perhaps when you shouldn't, in ways in which it's only going to allow them continue their particular behavior. So we like to. To beat up on anger and suggest, well, too much of, you know, will be problematic, but too much of anything, too much of any emotion, too much of any attitude is. Is problematic.

A (41:06)

A lot of what you're describing sounds a lot like what people call restorative justice. You know, the idea that. That justice isn't merely or shouldn't merely be about punishment, that it's also about repair and accountability. That is, forgiveness fit into that process.

B (41:27)

Yeah, that seems to be the ultimate goal or the goal that we should be aiming for. Right. So after wrongdoing, you know, it's not that we, you know, want the person to suffer or we should make the person suffer. Right. We're trying to figure out how we're going to recover, what is. What is the future going to look like? And we really mean that, I think, as human beings, in a very kind of moral way, in a very kind of healing way. So in that way, our interpersonal life is quite different from the criminal justice system, for example, and it depends on who's trying to get what kind of justice. Right. So if we go back to the Charleston case, there's no doubt that the family members got up to suggest that they were going to forgive, but at no point where they were like, release him out of jail, allow him to start over. They still wanted the justice system to do what it needed to do, but they also wanted to recover and relieve themselves from the hold of the wrongdoing. We definitely have a problem in the United States with the ways in which we administer justice. There is no restorative stuff Happening not on scale. We try to figure out how much we can make the person suffer as much as possible and even suffer after they get out of. Out of jail. And I think that just says a lot about how we conceive of wrongdoers in our particular society. And I think that's heavily, heavily problematic. So I don't think that in our interpersonal lives we should do what society does. But that's not to suggest that we have this utopian idea about what restoration and repair actually looks like.

A (43:13)

You know, it's. I think about this a lot in the. In the American context, right? Where, you know, we have this ugly racial history and we're both trying to acknowledge it, deal with it, and also eventually move past it. And I guess you could say we've made progress, but it's clearly really hard to do these things. At the same time, do you think it's possible to have national or communal repair in that way without some form of forgiveness? And if we do need that, at what point in the process can we get to the forgiveness? What has to be fixed or repaired before we can, like, reasonably expect that?

B (44:06)

There's no doubt in the South African apartheid case that the individuals who were responsible for bringing about truth in the community of all the atrocities that happened politically on the apartheid, which was what we call kind of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the individuals who led that commission truly believed that forgiveness was the way, right? So there's no doubt that they were trying to get the truth. They were trying to get people to testify about what happened to them. But the religious leaders and the community leaders mentioned forgiveness in those hearings. And so much so that that brought about people not only saying what happened to them, but perhaps even suggesting that they will forgive the wrongdoers. So in that context, they believe that forgiveness was the way. Now, I would suggest that forgiveness is not always the way, or if it is the way, it's not to imply that other things are not necessary. So even if we go back to the South African case, it wasn't just these people's forgiveness that was necessary for creating a democratic South Africa. It was the truth. So it's not just their testimonies, but the wrongdoers had to tell the truth. The wrongdoers had to state where the bodies were buried so that these people could move on with their particular lives. Right? A democratic South Africa need to actually take place. Right. Reparations needed to happen. So as much as we're familiar with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there were also the Amnesty Commission, there was also the reparations committee, which suggests. The committees are basically suggesting that there's a lot of things that we need to do. There's a lot of work that needs to happen in order to create a new South Africa. So even in the South African case, as much as we think that forgiveness was what happened, no political investment was what happened. Holding people accountable was what happened. Telling the truth was what happened. Repaying and restoring people financially was what happened. So I would say that. So even if we find forgiveness relevant, forgiveness can't do all the work, particularly in a political context like South Africa. But I will also suggest that when I think about American context, which is just totally different from South Africa, we never had a truth reconciliation commission. And so forgiveness was just never introduced as an option. Right. We never had anything like South Africa. And I would even say, unfortunately. So although there's some criticism about what happened and what happened afterwards, for people to always compare those cases, I think is just an awful analogy because there was never a political project of reconciliation in the United States as relates to black folks and descendants of slaves.

A (46:53)

We're just trying to be more efficient here, Maisha. We're just going to get right to the moving on part.

B (46:57)

But we love the analogy. We love the inspiration. Right? We have to compare cases. It sounds so good. It tells a wonderful happy ending. Because, you know, this goes back to happy ending point in South Africa. I've been to South Africa several times. There's still great inequality, the way the political system is now. So even things are not perfect after their. Or after some people have forgiven. Right? So that's another thing. But I would say the American context is quite different. That's not to say that the descendants of enslaved Africans have not forgiven, but I'm a descendant of enslaved Africans, and I want to say that I have not forgiven America for what they did to my ancestors. However, I have not taken a machete to someone's throat to try to take their land. I've not tried to overthrow the government. I vote every election. I try to do what I can to make this a more just society. And I think I'm not an outlier in this particular case. A lot of people still feel the anger, still feel the sadness, still probably perhaps even feel the contempt about the Founding Fathers and all that stuff. And yet America is still America. There hasn't been a great uprising of any sort of. And I'm saying this all to suggest that forgiveness was never a political project. A lot of descendants of enslaved Africans have not forgiven, and yet Things have not gone to shit. Well, in some respects it happened. But I'm talking about in this particular case that we're particularly talking about, which is a suggest that unforgiveness doesn't mean that everything is just gonna go crazy. Right. And then the question is, well, if forgiveness hasn't done the work in the African American case, then what has done it? Love for justice, love for democracy, self respect, wanting to pick up the legacy and wanting to respect the labor that our ancestors did do and what they fought for and what they believed in and trying to continue that particular legacy.

A (48:59)

And also a little righteous anger, right?

B (49:01)

Yep. And continual righteous anger. Continue a righteous anger. So that's why I think those two particular cases are examples for me of even if you have forgiveness, you need more stuff to make things right. And even if you don't have forgiveness, there's other tools, social tools, moral tools that can still make it the case that we can still live again or begin again.

A (49:25)

Well, you said forgiveness isn't always the way. How do you know when it is? And how do you know when it's. It ain't the way you try.

B (49:33)

There's a lot of people who have tried to forgive and they realize that even in the midst of them trying to forgive, they just can't do it. So I would say, and I mean it's one of the things that I echo in the book is that it doesn't hurt to try and trying you realize if you can actually forgive or not, because forgiveness is not always guaranteed. There's situations, circumstances and dispositions that would just make it the case that you can't achieve forgiveness or at least the aims of forgiveness. But it's also just that you can really forgive and it just doesn't go back the way that it was. Or you're just unable to build a new life with the person that you've forgiven. But you wouldn't know unless you tried it.

A (50:37)

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B (53:04)

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I'm not.

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Of course he did. Right Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here.

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B (54:32)

Yeah, this is good. And this is always a question that comes up, particularly when people kind of consider reparations, because reparations just part of repairing the world and trying to restore. And so this is, this is always a relevant question and usually the response is as follows. This is quite distinct when it comes to South Africa and also when it comes to America, is that yes, those who enslaved Africans are no longer alive, those who were in leadership positions are no longer alive. But the legacy of slavery still lives with us. What I mean by the legacy of slavery is such that the same white supremacy that motivated or allow people to ignore the suffering of black folks still lives with us today. The policies that happened as a result of trying to deal with that particular population, whether that's the backlash of reconstruction, et cetera, et cetera, and the backlash of the civil rights movement, there's a backlash right now. I mean, backlashes are part of or is a response and it's therefore a part of that kind of legacy of, of slavery. And so although I was not enslaved myself, unfortunately I am a victim of the legacy of slavery because it still lives with us today. Now, here's the interesting thing about why the case of America is unique in relationship to forgiveness. Because there's a legacy of slavery. It also suggests that there's something actively still going on. There's an act of injustice that's continuous to occur, that's different from slavery, but still exists. And because it is still active. For forgiveness to even be relevant right now is disrespectful, right? That's like asking someone who is stabbing you, can you forgive me? Why would I forgive you? Now you're still stabbing me, right? It's not like, like you're still hurting me. Forgiveness is completely irrelevant. I need for you to stop harming me, and then perhaps we can talk about forgiveness later. So I think the American context is interesting because the harms, some people are in denial about this, but the harms are still happening. Disenfranchisement, the discrimination, the backlashes are still happening. And so from a kind of political perspective, forgiveness shouldn't even be on the table. The eradication of harm should be on the table.

A (57:01)

Americans, we love redemption, but we just. We cannot get enough stories about second chances and grace. I mean, it's a kind of cultural attitude. Do you think that is an impediment to political progress?

B (57:14)

I'm going to rely on James Baldwin in answering this question.

A (57:18)

Can't go wrong with James.

B (57:19)

And you know, James Baldwin believed that America just loves the state of innocence. And in order to experience the comfort of innocence, you have to not own up to what you've done or you have to be in denial about what is occurring. So it's not just a certain story we've been talking about, kind of like the happy ending story or the redemption story. There's also an innocence story. That the narrative about America is that we're always right, that we're always. We always have just aims. Everybody else is the problem. We want to hold on to this notion of innocence, but that innocence part. America is innocent in every way. Americans are innocent in every way. And if they're not innocent, they're ignorant. So you really can't be held accountable for what they know and don't know. And I think that is the problem. The illusion of wanting to hold on to that particular innocence and not really face, you know, come to face or acknowledge who we really are, you know, because that's the whole kind of thing like this is not who we are. Like that's a statement. Only innocent people say this, right? People with illusions of their own innocence, their moral, Their moral high ground, their moral perception of themselves, they don't. Everything is always out of character for those kinds of people, right? And I think that's the problem. And that only just knows politically also. I know some people like that personally, right? Everybody else is always the problem. They are the innocent. The things happen, they just made a mistake, you know, so that happens also. And the reason why it can't happen politically is that that's a temptation for us personally as well.

A (59:11)

In the political context. It's just one of the very difficult things here is that on some level, forgiveness is just essential for living together. People are going to be wronged and they're going to be injustices. And not all of them can be fully repaired. Not all of them can be fixed at the root level. But we still have to live together somehow. And that's hard to do without forgiveness. But I also understand the point about dealing with the foundations, the problems, because otherwise nothing ever really changes. And it's very easy to say that we have to forgive and move on depending on which side of the power hierarchy you said. You know, I don't even really have a question here. I guess I'm just sitting in the tension and wondering if it's resolvable and if it's not, that's okay, because life is full of tension.

B (59:59)

Yeah, I mean, I would say that what you just said quite differently. So I would say forgiveness becomes relevant given the messiness of life, of, you know, we live in relationship with each other, we're bound to mess up, we're bound to wrong each other. And so forgiveness become relevant, Right. In order to get us back or allow us to recover from wrongdoing. It's relevant, but it's not necessary or central. Right. There's perhaps other things that we have, we can do in order to repair our world. I will also say that in some ways I'm glad that forgiveness is not necessary. I can change my attitude, I can change my emotions, or at least try to moderate them to a certain extent in order to achieve these reparative aims. It may be the case that I have a hard time changing my emotions. I'm moderating my emotions. The trauma's too deep. And so that's just the reality of life. Right. I can try to forgive and fail to. So what do we do? If forgiveness was necessary, that would be a problem for repair. And here's the good thing, where there's other things that can be done, right. To allow us to become whole in some kind of extent. Right. So I want to make allowances, is that, you know, once we say that forgiveness is necessary, then we make it hard to explain cases in which people have tried to forgive but they can't. And then are you saying that there's nothing that can be done for them? There's no decisions, there's no actions that can be made in their lives in order for them to recover in some kind of way. And I want to say, yes, it is. Right? So it may be the case they're unable to forgive, but therapy helps them out. Talking about their problems help them out, because even when they try to forgive, they can't do it. And I want to say there's Another moral tool. There's a moral tool for them. Thank goodness there is.

A (61:53)

I mean, you're. Honestly, you're making me sort of interrogate my own assumptions a little bit in real time. Because I. I mean, I guess I've always thought that forgiveness was essential for political life because how could it not be? But also in my political existence, I don't think I've ever really felt like I had to forgive anyone. Right. It just really hasn't been a problem in my political existence. And so that made it easier for me to. To sort of flatten the problem in the way that it did.

B (62:31)

Yeah. Also could be some situations that are just unforgivable. But it doesn't necessarily mean that because the act itself is unforgivable, that we can't coexist with the person who perpetuated the wrong or coexist with their descendants. Right, right. There's some philosophers who argue that you shouldn't forgive the unforgivable. Right. That's another thing. And what the unforgivable. Have an account of that.

A (63:01)

I was going to ask you that.

B (63:02)

I don't have an account for that. I don't have an. And the reason why I don't have an account for that is when we say unforgivable. Unforgivable for whom? Because even when you think about the great atrocities, there's some people who have been victims to those atrocities who have forgiven, and then there's other people who's been victims to the same atrocities who cannot forgive. And so that get goes to show that, hey, it depends on. On a person. So it's not necessarily the act itself that's unforgivable. People forgive. And some people are able to. The conditions make it the case. Their dispositions make it the case. Their community makes the case, their faith makes it the case in which they're able to do it. And for other people they can try. And it's difficult.

A (63:49)

Well, the book is called Failures of Forgiveness. We've been talking about the. The failures are the limits of it. But I do at least want to ask before we do go about the gifts of forgiveness, I mean, what are the. What are the best things about forgiveness? What can forgiveness do for. For individuals, for communities that really nothing else can.

B (64:11)

So I don't think it has anything unique. I think we have a variety of tools that we can use that can get us similar goals, and I think that's the powerful thing about it. But I will say that there's no doubt, I think that forgiveness can be A way in order for us to repair our relationships. It can be a way for us to repair our broken hearts. It can be a way for us to reconcile with our own self. I mean, we haven't talked about self forgiveness, but you know, in. Forgiving yourself is a way for you not to beat yourself up. It's a way for you to give yourself a second chance. And it's a way for you to learn from the past and begin again. And I want us to take advantage of the gifts. But anytime we command people to forgive or expect people to forgive or make people forgive, we end up causing more problems. And if we do want to repair the world, then we ought not to put burdens on forgivers to do the work of forgiving, that we should create the conditions to make it the case that wrongdoing doesn't happen in the first place. Or we create conditions that allow people to forgive easier and allow them to reap the gifts of forgiveness.

A (65:31)

We said forgiveness is a way to give yourself a second chance. Is it also a way to avoid responsibility?

B (65:38)

It could be when you forgive yourself. Here's my Aristotle. Forgive yourself too quickly, right. Too easily. You can't forgive yourself right after the wrong. I mean, you haven't really set with it. You haven't really, you know, learned from it. You haven't really seen what it's done to the people that you've harmed. So if you do it too quickly, then that's, that's, that's. That's giving yourself, giving yourself off the hook. But if you sit with it just a little bit, but if you sit with it too long, decide to engage in these kind of obsessive thoughts, thinking that the more you beat yourself up, the more you're able to right a wrong, then that becomes the problem.

A (66:18)

Can refusing to forgive yourself ever be a moral act? Almost like a way of honoring the harm you caused?

B (66:29)

So now you're starting stuff in which. This is the end of our conversation.

A (66:33)

I'm just asking questions here.

B (66:35)

I think, Shawn, I think things get a little bit more complicated when it comes to yourself. And the reason why I say this is because you really have to live with yourself. Right. I can break up with a partner and I may be sad like the first five months or so, but life goes on. I can't really break up metaphysically with my self. Like I have to live with myself.

A (67:00)

Yeah.

B (67:01)

And what we find is that people who refuse to forgive themselves usually engage in very self destructive behaviors. And there's a reason why that is the case. Right. But like I said before, it's not to suggest that you need to do it too quickly, not to suggest that you ought not to learn. It's not to suggest that you ought not to do some work such as seek an apology. But because we live with ourselves and we have to figure out how to continue to be with ourselves, the forgiveness becomes the way to do that.

A (67:31)

Well, I appreciate you coming on the show.

B (67:33)

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation.

A (67:35)

And once again, the book is called Failures of Forgiveness. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I really liked talking to Myisha. This is one of the those conversations where I could sort of feel myself changing my mind in real time. I could sense my own priors being challenged and that's a good thing. That should probably happen more around here. That's certainly my ambition, but it definitely happened here. And that's very cool. But as always, we want to know what you think. So drop us a line at the gray area@vox.com or you can leave us a message message on our new voicemail line at 1-800-214-5749. Please also rate Review subscribe to the POD that Helps us grow our Show. This episode was produced by Beth Morrissey, edited by Jorge Jest, engineered by Christian Ayala, Fact Checked by Melissa Hirsch and Alex Overington wrote our theme music. New episodes of the Gray Area drop on Mondays. Listen and subscribe. The show is part of Vox. Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. Go to Vox.commembers to sign up and if you decide to sign up because of this show, let us know.

D (69:06)

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