6 - Forgetting and forgiveness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 December 2009
Summary
What is it, fundamentally, that allows us to recognise who has turned out well? … he honours by choosing, by admitting, by trusting … He believes neither in “misfortune” nor in “guilt”: he comes to terms with himself, with others; he knows how to forget – he is strong enough; hence everything must turn out for his best.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce HomoWithout being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer's apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell.
Hannah Arendt, The Human ConditionRaven, the contract killer in Graham Greene's A Gun for Sale, associates distrust with solipsism and despair – “there was no one outside your own brain whom you could trust: not a doctor, not a priest, not a woman.” Greene's choice of subjects is not accidental. Medicine, religion, and love do seem to offer distinctive sources of hope because trustworthiness is essential to their nature. Without faithfulness these human activities would not be what they are. Betrayal in these contexts, therefore, is especially destructive of trust, and the moral balance is correspondingly more difficult to restore. Political disloyalties, too, undermine a communal trust.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Frames of Deceit , pp. 136 - 165Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992