By thus returning to the source and rereading the ancient text, the (primal) experience behind the concept can be regained and reinvigorated. According to the source, the only one who can forgive is the person who has been wronged. Moreover, forgiveness demands a dialogue, including specifically the expression of a change of mind on the part of the one who has done wrong. And finally, forgiveness concludes by "releasing" the offender, granting him the freedom to make a new beginning. Remorse, the wish that something had not happened, is for Arendt an impossibiilty, for it is precisely our incapacity to undo our actions that, in her eyes, guarantees human existence and reaffirms that we have truly been alive. According to Arendt, with a change of mind the wrongdoer proves nothing less than that he is, here and now, a different person. The idea of a new moment in which the participants can become different people than they were in the past is a recognition of doing and forgiving as acts of free will, which – assuming a change of mind – forgives the deed and thus grants freedom to both sides.
Forgiveness: The Desperate Search For A Concept Of Reality, in Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by Marie Luise Knott, translated by David Dollenmayer
Forgiveness: The Desperate Search For A Concept Of Reality, in Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by Marie Luise Knott, translated by David Dollenmayer
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