Review article
https://doi.org/10.34075/cs.56.1.4
Some of the Obstacles to Forgiveness in a Secular Society
Zorica Maros
orcid.org/0000-0003-4908-2900
; Catholic faculty of Theology, University of Sarajevu, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
The paper does not present a separate theory of forgiveness from a strictly secular scientific discipline as contrary to a theological one (presuming it is possible at all). On the contrary, the paper analyses the obstacles and difficulties in understanding forgiveness, and with it reconciliation, arising from the basic features of contemporary culture and the attitudes of individual citizens. Therapeutic culture, with an emphasis on individualism, has marginalized the theological understanding of forgiveness, and its associated tendency to compete in victimization, the rigid constructs of victim and perpetrator, made post-war reconstruction impossible. Besides, terminological vagueness about the concept of forgiveness appears as a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, a prophecy of the kind that affirms the power of error. After presenting some features of modern society, especially the therapeutic culture and with it facilitated competition in victimization (suffering), the paper analyses certain terminological ambiguities related to the concept of forgiveness. In conclusion, the theory of superior identity is presented, which weakens the impenetrable constructs of the identity of the victim and the perpetrator, thus facilitating the processes of forgiveness and reconciliation, with the aim of post-war renewal of communion.
Keywords
therapeutic culture; victimization; forgiveness; reconciliation; superior identity
Hrčak ID:
253698
URI
Publication date:
29.3.2021.
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