Some years ago, pop psychologists began to popularize what I will call the "forgiveness movement." Obviously, it's earliest origins are in the New Testament doctrine of "turning the other cheek." As it was taken up in the family dynamics school, it became a means therapists advocated for those burdened by dysfunctional baggage to lighten their emotional load.

The definition of forgiveness upon which this movement turns is vexed; it doesn't sit comfortably with me. The forgiver is supposed to attempt to understand what drove the other person to do what s/he did, to accept that person's limitations at the time, and to accept his/er own role in what went down. The purpose of this cognitive reconditioning is not to "validate" those actions, but to "let go of the anger" surrounding them. This is supposed to enable the forgiver to "get unstuck," no longer be "defined by the past," and "move on with one's life."

The issue of whether and how it is possible to forgive in an important one not just for individual relations, but for domestic and international policy as well. Here, for example, I am thinking of the drive among some African American activists for reparations, the negotiation of postcolonials with the cultural impact of occupation, and the controversy surrounding capital punishment.

Let me begin by saying that I am sympathetic with the aspect of the movement that calls for introspection. No doubt there are cases of innocent victims, but often in human relationships the harm done is messy and mutual. Which isn't to say that it's necessarily equal. It takes time and thought to lay blame in the right amounts at the right doors. Only when we have examined the complex dynamic are we able to arrive at something like a just vision of what went wrong, what its impact has been, and what might be done to set it right -- as much as is possible.

Yet, to "forgive" someone in the way this movement advocates seems to smack of false piety. Is it possible to forgive someone who has neither asked for forgiveness nor sought to repair the damage and not betray one's own sense of dignity and worth when the other person / group hasn't made good on the damage done? No. That's just mental casuistry -- on the same level of progressive theorists in the Humanities who believe in the power of discourse alone to transform the world. Forgiveness is not a dish best served warm at a table of one.

For "true" forgiveness, trust must be re-established. That is a slow and sometimes impossible process. An outright apology is a start. What comes after that must be a demonstration of altered thinking and real goodwill -- the outright concern for another's welfare that wasn't as present or as important as it has become, a recognition of their value now and for the future. The injured party must be able to recognize such changes and accept them, too -- and acknowledge what about the victim role has become satisfying in itself (a source of moralizing empowerment, of ego advancement, of protection from further risks and the possibility of new harm).

Even so, if forgiveness becomes possible, and trust is re-established, we ought to acknowledge that the relationship is permanently altered and so are those in it. The vulnerability to which the forgiveness movement appeals is our desire to have what we thought we did before things were broken. We want somehow to be made whole, to return to a prior condition before the harm done. When we accept that this is not possible, as individuals or communities, we have achieved some wisdom. We must expect such experiences to be transformative and for the wholeness we achieve after them to be of a different order.

The feel-good, pop psychology-authorized forgiveness movement is what the Marxists would call good old-fashioned false consciousness at the social level and denial at the individual level. There is no quick fix for trust after it has been broken with another -- or, what's even more difficult, oneself.

Consider, for example, the response Bill Cosby has gotten of late for his remarks to the African American community about the responsibility they need to take for enabling their own success -- or, even more controversially, for having disabled it for so long. To accept this charge, the African American community would first need to accept that they have failed as a community to encourage their children in education, to strive in business on a mass scale, to buy into the American Dream as immigrants with a less injurious past have done.

There is a psychic block to owning one's own self-harm. How are they to begin to forgive themselves? It is easier to wholly blame another, especially when that other originated the harm done (as was the case with slavery) and perpetuated it at reduced scale. We might apply this just as well to adult children of alcoholics or other dysfunctional family systems, in which the parents originating abuse and may continue in destructive, although much reduced, negative behaviors.

Self-forgiveness thus becomes an even more difficult question for the African American community than how they are to forgive historical America or white America or monied America (which may or may not contain its "Uncle Toms"). Yet, it is the most crucial question for the healing of a group or an individual. The original injury often pales in comparison to the concurrent and recurrent self-injury. This is what removes the lingering iconic, mythologized, emotional power from any who have done one harm.

Which goes to an old Buddhist teaching tale on the power of insults. The Buddha was insulted by a man, yet showed no response. The man insulted the Buddha again. "Master," a student said, "how can you allow this man to insult you." The Buddha replied, "If this man attempts to give me something, and I do not accept it, then to whom does it belong?" If we could all be so impervious to slings and arrows. Yet, there is a healing lesson here for an after-the-fact response, one in which the harm done is given to the past, and the significance of the harm done is returned to sender, as his or her to own, whether he or she will or not. In that, there is real dignity.