Revenge vs. Forgive (RF)

We now turn onto the Right-Front Trail and consider two choices in addressing the damage done: Revenge and Forgiveness.

Take a purely economic example where someone damages your property: there are essentially two possible outcomes. The first is to demand that he pay for the damages. The second is to refuse to let him pay anything. There could also be some combination of the two in which you both share the costs.

But notice that in every option the consequences –here the cost of the damage - must be borne by someone. Either you or he absorbs the consequences of his conduct; neither the need for repair nor the associated expense vaporizes. More troublesome, is that most of the wrongs done to us are not as tangible as this example and cannot be measured in dollars. Someone may have deprived you of some happiness, opportunity, certain aspects of your freedom, or harmed your reputation. No price tag can be put on such things, yet we still have an instinctive claim on justice that does not go away - even when the other person says, “I’m really sorry.”

Here again there are two options.  The first is to forcibly extract compensation. However, even when you take reparation through revenge the evil done still does not dissolve. On the contrary, evil spreads, and it spreads most tragically of all into you and your character.

The second option, an alternative to revenge, is more problematic and yet far more effective.

You can forgive.