Failures of Forgiveness

From Cicero to Oprah Winfrey, conventional wisdom says that forgiveness means letting go of negative feelings and behavior, striving for reconciliation, and seeking perhaps the only means to a better future. Forgiveness is what the mature extend and the bitter hold back. Myisha Cherry argues that this thinking could not be more wrong. If this is how we approach forgiveness, we may actually be less likely to mend our wounds. Even worse, we may perpetuate harm in the world as we aim to do the opposite. In The Failures of Forgiveness, Cherry shows how we can change our personal and social relationships with forgiveness for the better, taking a different-philosophically grounded and psychologically supported-approach to thinking and talking about it. Only with this, she argues might we have a chance at recovery from wrongdoing, growth from healing, or a renewed sense of trust, hope, and "moral repair."