The Immorality of Forgiving Genocide

One of my favourite passages in all of fiction is in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevski. I can almost hear the cringing -- but in truth he that most translations don't do him justice. In Russian, it's much easier to read and more easy-going...

(Book 5, Chapter 4). Ivan, the atheist intellectual criticises Christian forgiveness by telling a story of an estate-owner who had an 8 year old boy torn apart by dogs because the boy threw a stone at one of his dogs. Christianity would have some future moment of reconciliation (in the afterlife, to put it simplistically) where all is forgiven but Ivan doesn't want this.

"I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the torturer, even if the child were to forgive him!...I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering...And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket...It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket." (It's much more effective as the full passage not the snippet).

Unpopularly among atheists, I don't think the problem of evil is really a problem for religion. But what a magnificent way to state it! Nobody's done better. The passage highlights a more important point. Our society seems to believe in the psychological value of forgiveness. There's merit here but only to a point -- I reckon it's exaggerated in western society because of its Christian background. As a case in point, there are plenty of Christian views that crimes against humanity should be forgiven.

Of course if it makes victims feel better they should do it -- who am I to dictate what to do to someone who's gone through something unimaginable? Nut I think it's a huge mistake. Like Ivan's mother embracing her son's torturer, it makes the whole concept of humanity meaningless. The Brothers K has the very famous line if there is no God then everything is permitted, I reckon instead if everything's forgiven, everything's permitted [and meaningless]. We have no right to forgive the Armenian genocide, Holocaust, Rwandan genocide etc. Not forgiving affirms something positive, a kind of dignity about people. Or is that a paradox?

Dostoyevski was of course a religious fanatic whose favourite thing was putting a strong opposing case into the mouths of his atheist characters and then refuting it (in this case through the saintly character of Alyosha). This one has Dostoyevsky in a bind -- he can only pull himself out by pretending (like Baron Munchausen).