Comments on: Nick Cave on forgiveness https://sorrywatch.com/nick-cave-on-forgiveness/ Analyzing apologies in the news, media, history and literature. We condemn the bad and exalt the good. Sat, 12 Sep 2020 03:02:55 +0000 hourly 1 By: snarly https://sorrywatch.com/nick-cave-on-forgiveness/#comment-215151 Wed, 19 Feb 2020 03:14:26 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=6237#comment-215151 In reply to Kiwiwriter.

I’m so, so sorry people did that to you. Unforgiveable. And you do NOT have to forgive.

The world is a better place with you in it.

–Snarly

]]> By: snarly https://sorrywatch.com/nick-cave-on-forgiveness/#comment-215150 Wed, 19 Feb 2020 03:13:06 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=6237#comment-215150 In reply to LD.

Great comment.

It’s an interesting question, how to find peace after being wronged. I (Snarly) feel that Cave’s statement is too much of a generalization. As we say on SorryWatch quite often, “Apologies are mandatory. Forgiveness is not.” I worry that we fetishize forgiveness; we eat up stories about it. Your distinction between “letting go of anger” and “forgiveness” is meaningful.

And I’m so sorry that person hurt you.

]]> By: LD https://sorrywatch.com/nick-cave-on-forgiveness/#comment-215149 Wed, 19 Feb 2020 00:14:05 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=6237#comment-215149 I’m questioning the understanding of what forgiveness means in this context. The general therapy-type focus on how failing to forgive means that the person who wronged you is still controlling you seems manipulative.

The most hated person in my life behaved unforgivably. I will never *forgive* him in such a way that, even if he weren’t dead, all could be well again between us. I’m not angry at him anymore but am comfortable saying that the world is a better place without him.

It seems like “letting go of anger” isn’t what is conventionally understood as “forgiveness”. Forgiveness implies that things are ok now. Carte blanche acceptance of bad behavior doesn’t feel like grace to me.

]]> By: Kiwiwriter https://sorrywatch.com/nick-cave-on-forgiveness/#comment-215148 Tue, 18 Feb 2020 14:47:48 +0000 https://sorrywatch.com/?p=6237#comment-215148 The page is a powerful piece of writing, and very wise, but having had unforgivable destruction and damage done to me in my life by people who chose to inflict these wounds, and in some cases thought doing so was hilariously funny, I just can’t.

They turned me into that “raisin in the sun,” and at the end of my day, I feel that my life was a failure and a waste…of time, ability, and talent.

I’ve been told that “the world would be a better place if I was dead” and there are times I believe it.

Some of them did so under the power nd color of authority.

So it’s hard to forgive people who needlessly inflict that on you.

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