Meditation Six: Love and Forgiveness

There is always something perverse about love and forgiveness, but I enjoy them precisely for their relentless violence in causing disruption to any given order. And before we get into such disorder, we must first address the issue of the "who" and the "what" because it is for this reason that we tend to obfuscate the absolute singularity of a person.

And so, to address this difference between the who and the what, we must give examples of an extreme. One extreme is someone who commits murder against the other. By virtue, this action is unforgivable. There is no good reason to forgive this person. Why? Because true reconciliation is impossible, not even the punishment dictated by the Law can compensate for the total existential agony of this sort of loss.

I use this example because losing a loved one prevents any possibility of reconciliation. Why? Because nothing can be done to return the individual that was lost. Not even the capital punishment of death carried about by the State can settle things right in a total sense. The State can only grant what is deserved in correspondence to the crime committed. Granted, if the State functions precisely the way it is intended.

But we all know that, amid our anger and resentment, the murderer always deserves more than what is dictated. We know this because the loss of a person we love is irreplaceable, an absolute singularity that no longer is. No amount of reconciliation can resolve this agony in toto. What do we do with such ridiculous things as love and forgiveness in this scenario?

However, before we address this, we must look at what I call the logic of exchange. The logic of exchange is a simple yet powerful concept. It is the idea that what I give to you, I should also receive in return. The pinnacle of the Christian sentiment is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

Whether we want to admit it or not, much of our society is organized around this idea, and what is more ironic is that when it works, it really works, but when it does not, we simply do not know what to do with ourselves. And my concern is when it does not work when the exchange by virtue fails. Notice how the logic of exchange is always concerned with "what" is exchanged rather than "who" is exchanged.

The violence of exchange is that we tend to do precisely that; we exchange the absolute singularity that a person is, the "who," for a "what”. For instance, a woman may find a man annoying. But this annoyance is nothing but a quality, a "what”. And when she does this maneuver, exchanging the who for a what, she replies, "He is annoying”. The totalization of the "what" replaces and obfuscates the man she speaks about. Why? Because qualities in themselves are universal.

Anyone can be "annoying”, given the proper context and circumstance. Even those that are not typically annoying can become annoying when the individual is presented with frustrating situations. And so, as long as the woman is concerned with universal qualities, she has yet to see the man as the absolute singularity that he is.

But in response, love does a violent thing. Love does not allow the reduction to persist. Love is always a twisted tautology. Why? Because when we speak of love, one is always already in love. Even when we finally strike the courage to admit something so bizarre as to say "I love you" to someone who has completely disrupted our lives for which they are to blame, it is only a confession. A confession that has already been committed for which we are now finally admitting openly.

Then, we ask ourselves the most haunting question. Why do I love them? In an attempt to answer this question, we discover that no identifiable quality can begin to make sense of this bizarre event we call love. True love, if I am permitted such a bold use of "true”, is when we realize the qualities of the individual do not correspond to the singularity that they are.

We are perplexed in discovering we are in love with someone whose qualities should dictate contrary to the experience. We may even say that this individual is too young or old to accommodate our preference. But this is the precise violence of love. Love is not interested in what you want; you're already in love.

Love could care less if you are ready or not. This is why we hate falling in love; in some sense, it is never the right time. What love demands is a violent and despairing surrender that one finally confesses to oneself: yes, I admit, I am hopelessly in love.

What we distaste about love is precisely its helpless and hopeless nature. Why? Because even if you are in love, there is no guarantee that the other loves you in return. Once again, it is as if a murder has been committed. You discover the other does not love you in return. Does this not sound familiar? That in both love and murder; there is no return. In both situations, you find yourself helpless and hopeless. Reconciliation is not possible; the one you love does not return.

What love understands about the singularity is that there is no reason one can give to possibly explain why they love such a person. It simply just is. Only then does the person understand the difference between the "who" and the "what". This is when love decides to make us confess an even more impossible sentiment: "I love you no matter what."

"Not matter what" is how we understand the singularity of the person. The qualities of the individual may be accurate, but once more, they cannot capture "who" they are. We realize, in the most embarrassing way, we love them for who they are and not "what" they are. However, love cannot persist from the encounter alone. But it is the encounter itself that teaches us how we can possibly extend such a meeting.

Here, we come across the most paradoxical realization that despite you always being already in love, love demands that you choose. That you decide to love despite being already in love. Because without this choice, love itself cannot persist. It merely becomes a flashing force before our eyes, fading slowly into the background of things. This is also how we trick ourselves into believing such ridiculous romantic fantasies concerning love.

Convincing ourselves that there must be a "right time" or a "one and only soulmate that is completely and utterly made for me." No, it is precisely because love allows us to choose that it also allows our fantasies to exist concerning it. But as usual, love also permits the consequences of your fantasies to terrify you in return. Why? Because love intends to violently remind you that you can only love who they are and not what they are.

But again, love also wants you to choose despite its own insistence. This is why love is a traumatic event in itself. It will perpetually ask you what you love: "A who or a what?". And sometimes, we pick a "what," and other times, we choose a "who," revealing the gap we encounter when in a relationship.

It makes sense of all the fighting, frustration, anger, lust, and resentment we find in our daily relationships. The pure concept of love is to love them for their absolute singularity. And yet, it seems as if love cannot indeed be unconditional because we are constantly being asked to choose between the "who" and the "what." Knowing that sometimes we pick "what" over "who."

Yet love's insistence that we choose is the same site for the conditioning of the unconditional to exist. All conditions can become unconditional as long as we strive to continually choose them regardless of failure or success.

Even when I mistakenly look at a woman and see "what" I like versus "who" she is, the redemption of choice is always present. I am once again asked to choose, despite my failure. Love's redemption and unconditional nature are precisely its demand to choose.

Thereby, when it comes to forgiveness. We are being asked something similar: Can you forgive "what" they did or "who" they are? This is why Derrida expresses that "pure forgiveness is for the unforgivable." He is acknowledging the absolute singularity of a human being that cannot be reduced to "what" they have done.

This is why we often confuse reconciliation and forgiveness. Reconciliation is occupied with "what" can be reconciled. In the case of murder, rape, and other atrocities, we quickly discover reconciliation is impossible. Even the idea that one is not yet ready to forgive is a statement of possible reconciliation.

Reconciliation fools itself into believing that one can finally let go of such atrocity if time continues. But it is always done in some kind of remorseful surrender. The suffering is so violent that the ego must perform something even more violent against itself. The reconciliation transforms into an unconscious repression to alleviate the overwhelming agony done to the ego.

This is when love becomes a pathological symptom. As a result, the repression leads us to perform a twisted neurotic enactment of love that is simply our own repression. Essentially," I only love you as much as I love my own repression." 

This is what happens to the Christian ideal of loving your neighbor. That I love my neighbor so long as I can continue loving my repression. Of course, this all sounds like a hopeless situation. We all have repression and are deeply in love with our own symptoms. That is the perverse nature of things. That one cannot help but love their symptom precisely because it prevents the irreconcilable agony of the past.

But you know, this is why the poison is also the remedy. The helpless and hopeless situation of this inevitability also makes love possible. Love arises because you are already hopeless and helpless. Love carries within it not only the possibility of repression but also it's undoing. However, it is only when we choose to love, despite being always already in love ( whether it is your symptom or not), that the impossible becomes possible once more.

Love now turns and asks: Do you pick your symptom ( the what), or do you pick them (who they are)? And only in the possibility of love asking you to choose does forgiving someone make the impossible become possible. Suddenly, you realize the one who has committed the worst crime against you also loves their symptom. The murderer failed to choose the absolute singularity of another person over their symptom. They, too, are helpless and hopeless.

The horror of the Law is that the Law can only punish the symptom. People are punished for "what" they have done and not "who" they are. It is impossible to punish an individual for "who" they are. For the very structure of the Law cannot be predicated on a who but a what. A who cannot be guilty, but a who can be guilty of a "what."

Please, do not be fooled by this provocation. Remember, I said that we all love our symptoms. And it is our symptom that makes us believe the "what" is “who” we are. In other words, we reduce our own singularity to a symptom. We proudly or remorsefully say this is "Who I am." No, I entirely reject the idea that the individual has full sovereignty to know oneself. At best, the individual deeply knows their symptom and the way it functions, presenting a fantastic mirage of "knowing oneself."

This is why love always begins with an encounter of two. The other who willingly chooses to love you can reveal to yourself that you are more than your symptom. That you are more than "what" you think yourself to be. For it is through the other's love that you encounter your own absolute singularity. And so it is the same for the unforgivable crime. One is presented with the choice to choose the absolute singularity that the criminal is over their own symptom.

Forgiveness cannot resolve the "what" of their crimes, but it can determine the possibility or impossibility of seeing their own absolute singularity. That when you choose to see their own absolute singularity, you slowly begin to see your own. That what you do for them, you do unto yourself in an almost unconscious whisper:

"I love you more than your symptom" = "I am more than my symptom."