(N.B. This post's a little rough around the edges; I wrote most of it near the start of this year and haven't given it the level of polish it deserves.)
When I was in year seven, I used to torment a boy — who was several years above me and twice my size, mind you — by throwing my lunchbox at him whenever I saw him in the yard. Eventually, teachers had to intervene.
When I was in year seven, I was pressured into all kinds of embarrassing antics by a boy in my classes
who was probably happy that they were all laughing at someone other than him. Nothing ever became of that.
A few months back I stumbled across this short piece by Gint Aras,
writing for The Good Men Project, titled Should we forgive apologetic bullies?
. Take a look: it's short and bittersweet. In it, Aras poses the titular question, asking about reformed bullies, about past aggressors who really do seem to have seen the error of their ways.
The idea of retribution transcends cultures. One need look no further than our traditional stories — whether it's the hubris and (literal) downfall of Icarus, the creation mythos of Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, or the countless deluge myths that exist across cultures, punishment has always gone hand in hand with crime.
It's not too much of a stretch, then, to say that we're born with a sense of tit-for-tat justice. (One imagines that creatures who let their selfish brethren off the hook did not do a particularly good job at staying in the gene pool.) It's not taught. Society didn't invent our moral compasses: it merely reinforced them.
So here's a question. Whence cometh forgiveness?
