a big problem with present day understanding of history, and by extension everything about human affairs, is an inability to read "the past" on it's own premises, and not project our own post ww2-era induced cultural post traumatic stress hyper-sentimentalism onto it

take something like war, or leadership, or Christendom, or "the establishment of peaceful social relations of trust and friendship, on a personal level", in english. we say "forgiveness" to mean a certain scenario, a certain narrative

this narrative is based on ww2 which is the ur-narrative of all of our current historical-cultural frameworks. when we try to imagine "forgiveness" in the 12th century, what's happening in your brain is trying to put a 20th century narrative in place in the 12th,

and going "well this clearly doesnt fit. these people must have been insane/stupid, to believe in x y and z". but it is not actually understanding them at all, but projecting "the best metaphor/image you have" on to it. and in the case of forgiveness, it's something like

"A weak innocent, being unfairly bullied". tv narratives and hollywood is a repetition and affirmation of this. it is a historisation, a theory of history, that claims that everything can be understood using the framework of ww2.

that by deconstructing the "moving parts" of ww2, you can reassemble them into any valid "human form", any shape that is valid to human experience and interpretation. all conflicts are about a heroic underdog

in this framework, christian morality becomes, only, "a bullied underdog, refusing to take revenge". turning your nose up in pride that you wont "stoop to their level", and return violence with violence. this i believe is a misunderstanding of history and by extension all things

"forgiveness" as principle or concept becomes only applicable to a very specific social construction/interaction. this is why there is no functional "leadership" or "tutorship" in the west, and there is no cultural social cohesion.

because what "forgiveness" is, is part of the process of creating genuine social relations. it is not just this macro scale phenomena, it flows though all levels of human sentience and all human affairs on a micro scale.

to establish a genuine relationship with another person is to in a discrete way "forgive" them - for being weak, for disappointing you, for failing to be what you wanted them to be, for being flawed

these are all things that don't fit into the "schema" of the world provided through our historical-cultural mythos, that claims the world sprang into creation fully formed in 1945. these are all things that dont "make sense", and cannot be accounted for

"clemency for the defeated - forgiving your enemy for having failed to defeat you, for being *too weak*. forgiving your enemy for LOSING" this is pure madness to say - but it is what happens every time you "have a drunken fight with someone, and then becomes best friends"(tm)

this is what I mean by "a reinterpretation of forgiveness is necessary"

to make a friend you must first forgive them for failing to be a great enemy

this can be directly observed in wolves and dogs and small children who are left to play unsupervised

every time someone takes pity on you, every time you are diagnosed, every time you are asked to accept any kind of label of victimhood, you are being called a gew

now I dont like to get into that shit but that is what's happening on a mythological-linguistic level. take it or leave it