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PARTISAN REVIEW
Composed of two infinitives (in English, in the absolute form) and the
rudimentary copula
is,
the proverb takes the schematic form of a logical
proposition, even of a mathematical equation. But we quickly realize that
it applies not to everything in the universe but only to human actions,
particularly to wrongful and evil actions.
To understand.
The verb implies many things. First, as affirmed by
Terence and Montaigne and Vico, it implies that each of us contains the
whole human condition in potentiality, reaching to the furthest extremes
of virtue and monstrosity, altruism and autism. Second, the verb
to under–
stand
implies that we all have in varying degrees the capacity to explore
that range of moods and behaviors. We call that capacity for mental ex–
ploration and experimentation
imagination,
as if it were a faculty, almost
an organ. Imagination is obviously a highly complex process yet as essen–
tially human as primary processes like feeling and reason. Third, the verb
to understand
often implies that when imagination seems to carry us con–
vincingly into another mind by empathy, we tend to interpret that
person's behavior as caused by some form of fate or determination. In the
twentieth century we may choose between an exterior fate contained in
society, culture, and the environment, and an interior fate - either genetic
inheritance or the unconscious. To "understand" someone's behavior in
this sense means to attribute it to a set of causes and to remove it from the
domain of choice and free will. That form of understanding denies indi–
vidual agency and responsibility for one's actions. Under such
circumstances, not much remains to forgive. Fourth,
to understand
may
also mean a mental operation not of empathy but of detachment and
measured judgment. We seek such understanding in order to obtain a fair
trial. Here any inside narrative is subject to correction by the outside
narrative of other witnesses. But the received interpretation of the prov–
erb sets aside this meaning of
to understand
in favor of the previous
meaning of empathy, of entering another person's consciousness.
After "to understand" we have another pair of words to examine:
to
pardon
and
to forgive.
In common speech we barely distinguish between
them. The French generally use the one verb,
pardonner,
to cover all the
ground. "Mon Pere, pardonnez-Ieur, car ils ne savent pas ce qu'ils font."
(Luke 23: 34) But the English for Christ's words on the cross could never
be "Pardon them, for they know not what they do." When we translate
the French proverb as "To understand is to forgive," we have made the
right choice for English. To forgive supposes an act of imaginative em–
pathy toward a fellow human being. To pardon engages the system of
justice. To clarify these nuances, we need to look at a cluster of terms the
English language offers us in this context. I ask for the reader's patience in
an attempt to deal more precisely with words than is always necessary.
