Questions for Sullivan on Derrida on Forgiveness

These are questions I have about an episode of James and the Giant Podcast where James Sullivan (I call him James from now on, I hope he would call me Dave) discusses Derrida's (I call him Derrida, he's dead) essay On Forgiveness. No essay can cover all the bases completely, but I will discuss some of the gaps that prevent me from fully understanding or agreeing. If the podcast concludes something like, here is a long list of things we might think of as forgiveness, but they really aren't, I agree. But I disagree with nearly every explanation of this conclusion they give.

First, let me attempt a short summary of what I think the podcast was about. James has Derrida argue for the idea that no one can attain the ideal of pure forgiveness. An organization or a state cannot forgive, it only can happen in an actual person's heart. If forgiveness is conditional on repentance or restitution or anything else, it is not really forgiveness, it is a negotiated transaction, a deal. For the forgiven person even to ask for forgiveness spoils it to some degree. Justice and forgiveness are completely independent and distinct: justice can be fulfilled without any forgiveness, and forgiveness can exist without any justice.

According to James, Derrida carefully considers these cases of faux forgiveness. But according to me, neither of them takes it where it needs to go. Derrida and James think of forgiveness as an interaction between two persons, one that requires both of them to participate. But I can forgive someone who knows nothing about my forgiveness or someone who died without repenting or asking for forgiveness. Forgiveness requires a subject and an object, but the object does not need to participate actively. A person forgives or does not forgive, that's all. Resentment transforms to resignation, blame transforms to cause and effect. Forgiveness drains the situation of moralistic judgement.

After I am forgiven, forgiveness is over. Whatever I do with the knowledge that I am forgiven is something else: maybe redemption, maybe repentance, maybe reform, maybe indifference, even hostility or resentment, but not forgiveness.

Now a short digression: If I forgive you, this will affect our relationship, but these after-effects are not forgiveness itself (or even examples of it). Perhaps we both desire these after-effects, but I cannot accomplish forgiveness merely by wanting to forgive. It is not fully voluntary, it's more like wanting to learn calculus. I can try, but I may fail. If I try and I succeed, does that diminish the result compared to the same situation if I accomplished it without effort or intent? Do we care about the process as much as the result? I don't think I do.

Now back to the show. I will quote from James' podcast and comment as we go along. The action starts at about minute 6. 

“He [Derrida] deconstructs three main categories of forgiveness and we'll go into each one. First, forgiveness between two individuals; second, forgiveness between the state and an individual (by the state I mean any sovereign power, could be a king, government, school or church); third, forgiveness between states. This refers to the relationship between different nations.” Already this seems odd. I think I have never heard anyone speak of forgiveness between nations, and that if someone did that I would take it as highly metaphorical. Similarly, when an accused person gets a verdict of “not guilty” in court, I would not expect anyone to describe this as the state forgiving someone. If instead we use it to describe a guilty verdict, complete with a sentence to punishment, and the completion of the sentence, does that count as forgiveness on the part of the state? I don’t think so. In a way, this is Derrida's point, but if so it’s a trivial one, and made in a roundabout and confusing way. Justice is separate from forgiveness.

Perhaps this is metaphor? But then it is bad metaphor. Maybe that is Derrida's point, or part of it, and part of James' interpretation. Why spend so much time debunking a metaphor that is rarely (never?) used? 

What isn’t a sovereign power, if we include schools and churches in that category? Why shouldn’t corporations also count? Or families and individuals? What does such a weak distinction accomplish?

“When we talk about forgiveness in this text, in order to simplify even our base conception of what forgiveness is as an idea, we will take it to mean forgiveness in the Abrahamic religious sense.” What does this accomplish? What alternatives are we abandoning? My conception of what forgiveness is certainly has been influenced by religious ideas, but how would this article (and Derrida's original) have to change if we dropped this assumption?

Maybe Derrida and James want to contrast ordinary forgiveness with the sort of forgiveness that a Catholic receives during confession? (Or is that absolution, not forgiveness?) That does seem to require more than one participant and genuine repentance from the guilty party. But then no human is actually doing any forgiving. The difference between the sort of forgiveness that I can experience as the one doing the forgiving and the sort of forgiveness that Catholics experience as the objects of god's forgiveness seems like an interesting criticism of that religion, but Derrida and James do not go there. So  why specify that we refer to the Abrahamic flavor? What are the other flavors?

“‘In principle’, Derrida begins, ‘there is no limit to forgiveness, no measure, no moderation, no to what point.’ [...]  Forgiveness is often confounded, sometimes in a calculated fashion, with related themes: excuse, regret, amnesty. But Derrida states that these are separate things from forgiveness; they are heterogeneous. Do not confuse them.” We should avoid confusing forgiveness for these other things, but what is forgiveness and how does it differ? This is not unpacked. Is it a mental state? An emotion? A declaration? An activity? A transformation? A process with a product? A ritual to perform? A role to play? 

“The idea of forgiveness requires an idea or conception of the unforgivable, and these two are tied together ... forgiveness and the unforgivable. You can only forgive, Derrida deduces, the unforgivable. What else is there to forgive? If you forgive the forgivable then you have done nothing; certainly nothing extraordinary or virtuous. Forgiving the unforgivable is Derrida’s paradox.” This just seems wrong. How shall I argue against this? Maybe I could refute them if they gave reasons to think so. But they don’t bother. I guess it is obvious? 

Why should I think of forgiveness as something that ought to qualify as extraordinary? It may occur less often than the alternative of holding a grudge. Is that all? 

Is it virtuous to forgive? Do Catholics number it among the 7 virtues? Nope. Did the Stoics consider it a virtue? Nope. Maybe contemporary culture has come to associate forgiveness with Jesus and other saintly figures, and so it got promoted? The Lord's Prayer exhorts us to forgive our debtors or those who trespass against us, but does that mean forgiveness is a virtue or is that just good advice?

Maybe Derrida/James means that only the purest forgiveness is true forgiveness, so only the unforgivable is truly worthy of forgiveness? Why would I think that?

What else is there to forgive, besides the unforgivable? Certainly, anything that bothers me, I can forgive. Maybe anything that someone wants forgiveness for? The unforgiven.

“We cannot pinpoint forgiveness in itself because it is abstract. We can point to acts of forgiveness, examples of forgiveness, but they are all representations of the thing and not the thing itself.” This is hard for me to follow. Would examples of elephants be representations of elephants and not elephants themselves? They are elephants but not "elephant". Okay, forgiveness is not a concrete thing we can point at, like an elephant. But James and Derrida are dancing around the point. Solid examples to point at satisfy me, and I am perplexed by this denial that examples can help. Why not? Can we find something helpful then, please? Maybe Derrida attacks all abstractions and generalizations, and this is only an instance?

“What I ask, does forgiveness feel like? Does it have an associative emotion? How do we describe it?  Is it something an individual has, since it is something which must be given?” They ask, but do not tell.

“It is infinite, which is why it holds so much importance in religious language, because it mirrors or mimics the divine.” Huh? I mean... Huh? Just going to leave that lying there?

“We’ve already stated that pure forgiveness can only exist between two individuals: the guilty and the victim; and that there must not be a third that intervenes.” And actually, the guilty need not participate actively. Note that this also implies that I do not actively forgive, it is an event that happens to me, not a process that I engage in or a decision I make. This seems too restricted. I can decide I want to forgive. I can take actions or think thoughts intended to get me ultimately to forgive. And if I can do these things, others might also do them either intentionally or unintentionally. Why does this make the forgiveness impure? If it does, why do I care about purity?

“Language itself intervenes as a third. Can there be, Derrida asks, in one way or another, a scene of forgiveness without a shared language?” Can’t I forgive my cat? It feels a lot like forgiveness. But perhaps cats are not capable of responsibility or guilt. But again, forgiveness is something I do. It has an object, but the object does not participate actively. If I am capable of feeling resentment toward my cat for something it has done, or holding it "responsible", can't I also forgive it? Certainly I am capable of doing the opposite, of placing blame on it, holding a grudge and wallowing in resentment. But perhaps this is faux forgiveness also, since the cat can't take responsibility, having no obligations or rights that would depend on its nonexistent ability to understand and participate in a reciprocal social interaction. Our relationship is one-sided, paternalistic; we can't achieve reciprocity. Can I distinguish between forgiving the cat for sinning and recognition of the fact that the cat is incapable of sinning? The result seems very similar, though I arrive there by a different process.

"Derrida, in this entire essay, makes claims about the guilty party or person being transformed in asking for forgiveness. This is because the person who does something unforgivable is different from the person repenting or asking you for forgiveness, which means they are no longer guilty as such, or as guilty. Think about someone who while blackout drunk does something utterly unforgiveable. [...] The person the next day is not the same person." In what relevant way are they different persons, rather than the same person in a different context? How does this difference accomplish what Derrida claims, without making the entire exercise of forgiveness into a mistake? Derrida and his interpreter leave this unstated.

If I forgive you, you are the same person that violated me, at least for the purposes of dealing with the aftermath of that event. If you have shown yourself to be dangerous, I shall adjust to the danger. If you have shown yourself to be careless, I shall adjust to the uncertainty this creates. If you have shown yourself to disregard social customs, I need to find a different basis on which to interact with you, or avoid interacting. From these various vantage points, you are necessarily the same person. How is the context of forgiveness different? Is my forgiveness impure if after you damage my car I take back the car keys I lent you? Does forgiveness require me to act as if I still think you are a safe driver after you prove the opposite? Or can I forgive you, take appropriate measures, and move on?

Does forgiveness erase guilt? Guilt lives in the context of justice, which Derrida and James separate from the context of forgiveness. Guilt also lives with morality, but it is a different sort of guilt. Perhaps forgiveness has nothing to do with either.

Can I forgive as the result of a conscious strategy? Can forgiveness come as a by-product of reconciliation, redemption, or some other conscious process intended to produce it (among other things)? If forgiveness is a state of mind, how does the process that created it prevent it from being what it is? So James must mean that it is not a state of mind, or at least not a state of mind or mental event alone. Or perhaps the context that they use to disqualify forgiveness does so by spoiling the state of mind also? If I have already forgiven someone, will this be spoiled by them asking for forgiveness or claiming to repent? But then it is not really conditional. Must all sorts of preliminary preparations, if done with the conscious intent of producing forgiveness, undermine their own objective?

Why do I believe that forgiveness has nothing to do with the unforgivable? Can Derrida and James agree with me on this, but reach the same conclusion? Their claim is oddly psychological and a priori at the same time. Their analysis hints at a theory of language and meaning that seems unhelpful in this instance. Maybe if I understood that theory better and convinced myself that it applies in other contexts, I might abandon my objections.

What if I approached this as one who seeks to understand rather than as one who seeks to find fault? Derrida's purpose, seen through James' lens, seems primarily negative, to convince us that several ways of talking make no sense. I already think most of them are nonsense, though maybe not as nutty as the idea that forgiveness depends on the unforgivable. What can I gain from Derrida and James? What is at stake? They certainly inspired a lot of questions.