Forgiveness in "the larger political arena."

Unlike most (though not all) of you in the class, I actually have had the opportunity to see forgiveness at work in the world at large. It is generally agreed that the U.S. attitude to Germany and Japan since World War II has been a forgiving one. And as in all forgiving circumstances, U.S. forgiveness of Germany and Japan has been self-serving as well. In fact, the first helping at the feast of forgiveness is always on the plate of the one who does the forgiving.


Perennial questions

You have just asked, Wendie, what I call a "perennial" question - one that cannot be made to completely go away, only to cease being of nagging or otherwise worrisome concern.  In my experience, a peaceful relationship with your question may be established as follows:

SEE your question (which is different than having THE answer) in the context of another question: Are there degrees of unforgiveness?

My own answer to this contextual question - again based on my inner experience - is an unequivocal "yes!" I have experienced both tense and mild unforgiveness, as well as both prolonged and brief unforgiveness, with the intense variety tending to be prolonged, and the mild variety tending to be brief. 

The sum of my experience to date with the specific question you have raised is this:
1. My unforgiveness isn't over until it's over; 
2. I have never been devoid of opportunities to forgive.

The sum of my experience to date with perennial questions in general is this: 
1. If such questions did not exist,
2. human beings would not exist.

Human beings are the only species (according to our present collective certainty) that live in the context of perennial questioning. Accordingly, when I contemplate Bob Dylan's proclamation that "He not busy being born is busy dying," I see the difference being whether one lives by what one sees in the perennial questions, or by having final answers thereto.

In other words, I have experienced that every question worth its salt begs a further question that gives it context, and that worthy answers are those that allow their question sufficient context for continued begging.

I trust that none of what I have just said has totally extinguished your question.


Subject: Re:THE POLITICS OF GRIEVANCE       
Author: Daphne McCabe 
Date Posted: Oct-29-03 at 11:20 PM by Daphne McCabe 
 
In one of my undergrad anthropology classes, we studied the Amish culture, and how they (and many other tightly knit cultures) are at what is termed "the moral equivalent of war".  What this means is that non-believers are portrayed to be dangerous.  This essentially creates a "common enemy", which helps the culture keep its grip on its members.  During wartimes, historically across all cultures, crime rates and domestic violence rates drop.  They theorize this is because war creates a common enemy that helps channel negative emotions towards an external target.

Given this, it is not really in one culture's best-benefit to be forgiving, unless there is long-term gain of financial stability or access to more resources.  The US has every reason to be forgiving of other cultures b/c our financial system depends on exports and imports.  For cultures marginalized by our free-market system, there is less incentive to "forgive" the U.S.  In fact, the leaders of the culture have more to gain by keeping the U.S. as a common enemy.

 
The common enemy syndrome - Part 1

Your point is well taken, Daphne.

Tribes and nations, as well as ethnic, religious, ideological and other groups, tend to hold nothing else so dearly in common as their perceived common enemies. This is why their respective leaders consider themselves to be the custodians of their contituency's grievances rather than resolvers of such grievance. 

It is often expedient for any leader, on behalf of retaining, consolidating, and gaining power and control over his/her constituency, to amplify that constituency's grievances whenever possible. This is one of the ways in which power tends to corrupt the powerful, in favor of increasing in both number and intensity the grievances of those whom the powerful govern.

Presumably, nothing would unite humankind as a whole more quickly than a perceived common enemy. Such was the theme of H.G. Wells' novel, The War of The Worlds, in which earthlings were united against a common extraterrestrial enemy. 

Yet presumably, as well, the moment the presence of a common enemy ceased to unite disparate cultures, old unresolved grievances would once again take precedence, as in Kosovo.

What H.G. Wells did not forsee (in his writings, at least) is that a common extraterrestrial "enemy" of lifekind overall (not just of humankind) has always existed, which I will address in a subsequent post when I have had adequate time to think this through.


The common enemy syndrome - Part 2

As promised, here is my further thinking about the "common enemy" syndrome. I've had two weeks of time to think about it while moving, unpacking, and settling our new household.

In 1948, British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle remarked, "Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available . . . a new idea as powerful as any in history will let loose." He was right. Two decades later, as distant photographs of the entire Earth became available for the first time, the idea of planetary wholeness was likewise for the first time secured in humankind’s collective consciousness. Almost immediately, the until-then latently dormant environmental movement was launched as a consequence of the proir launch into outer space of camera-laden astronauts. (I experienced being a principal participant in that movement, as a co-founding board member of the North American Association for Environmental Education.) 

The Whole-Earth image became our species' first global spiritual icon, a symbol of unity and oneness that transcends all religious, ethnic, political, social, economic and other organizational and cultural structures that divide the human community. Because spirituality (reverence for wholeness) tends to unite what religions tend to divide, for the very first time the human species had an icon of planetary wholeness that tended to inspire universal awe. To this day, the Whole-Earth image is the only symbol of wholeness with which most human being have at least some inclination to identify. 

The Whole-Earth icon suggests that the well-being of lifekind overall, not primarily of humankind apart, is the ultimate "program" of our planet. 

The whole-earth image inspired a collective subliminal allegiance to a relationship which transcends all racial, ethnic, national, gender and other boundaries that tend to divide the human species. Though this allegiance represents the world’s most powerful potential for the realization of human co-operation on a global scale.