2008 Woodie Awards
To forgive is divine, but is it always possible?
Stephanie White-Olson
Issue date: 11/14/05 Section: News
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Greenwood started out by giving everyone a small slip of paper, asking them to write down something that happened to him or her that they thought was unforgivable. Ethnic cleansing, the Holocaust, and other events were viewed as unforgivable. But why do people kill?
He stated humans are animals and it is the animal instinct in us that makes us killers. But as instinctive as we are killers, humans have a need for balance. People want balance in their life, and this is viewed as forgiveness, fairness, justice and the "eye for an eye" instinct.
"But forgiveness is not justice. Forgiveness is about the emotional condition." Greenwood continued. He indicated in order to forgive someone, true reconciliation needs to occur.
By attempting the act of isolation, the effects are shown to be worse than the intial pain that was inflicted upon you by the other person. Greenwood said, "Forgiveness is overcoming the past. The pain remains, but it's overcome by reconciliation. We must overcome our demand for justice."
He stated in order to forgive others, we need to first forgive ourselves because we create situations which often lead to only hurting ourselves. People who are trying to be fair and just can very easily become the opposite of what they stand for: "We hurt the one's we love, and anyone else who gets in our way."
Greenwood said although we have this animal instinct, we have invented laws and social norms to stop us from acting as animals.
"Thou shall not kill" was invented because we do kill. Also, an eye for an eye was invented in order to prevent escalation that a person may only take the same amount that was taken from them.
A good example would be if someone's family member was murdered chanaces are, if the eye for an eye concept is used, the victim's family member will ask for the murder's life as repayment.
When the lecture was opened for questions, a few were raised regarding crimes that would be almost impossible to forgive, such as someone killing a family member.
