[yowlingcat]

Terrible blog post which starts with a false dichotomy and a poor shoehorning of forgiveness into the prisoner's dilemma and works backwards from it.

The reason that the prisoner's dilemma is an inappropriate analogy is because it lacks the interpersonal element of one prisoner having mistreated the other prisoner and therein placing strain on it. As I expected, the entire post misses this nuance and completely misses the mark on accurately describing any such situation involving forgiveness. To frame the only two choices as "forgive/hold a grudge" is hyperbolic and childlike. Realistically, it's "get closer/create space." That creates a spectrum of how much space or conversely intimacy each parties want to have with one another. Of course, the blog post misses that dynamic completely in its excitement to apply the prisoner's dilemma to a situation it is inappropriate for.

I think a much better analogy for forgiveness is that trust is like a bank, or credit. It takes a long time to build up credit, but a very short time to destroy it. So it's not impossible to rebuild that trust, but it takes consistent long-term effort from the party that frayed that trust for it to be rebuilt.

And from the point of view from the party who is being asked for forgiveness -- the only appropriate way for them to respond without creating an unhealthy situation is to expect the situations that broke that trust to be rectified long-term. Otherwise, it's their prerogative to create enough distance for there to be safety. What they choose to do with that distance (hold a grudge or not) is up to them, but holding a temporary grudge is a pretty common way to work through the grief process and pathologizing it seems unrealistic and condescending to me.

Holding a permanent grudge seems unhealthy, but I don't think that surprises anyone.