Forgiveness: Our Superpower
By Michael Nagler
We just watched an edition of StarTalk with Neil Degrasse Tyson and friends, interviewing Dr. James Kimmel, JD, lawyer and psychiatrist, teaching now at Yale School of Medicine about the neuroscience of revenge and its opposite: forgiveness.
On one level, no surprises. We all knew that revenge causes a perverse form of pleasure and can become addictive, and that forgiveness confers a great sense of relief 𑁋 for individuals and nations. What science is able to provide now is the neurochemical reality; that it is the anterior cingulate that undergoes a pain response to grievance by releasing dopamine and that conversely, the prefrontal cortex mediates the backing down from the ‘revenge network’ by deactivating that response. Once again, science confirming spiritual lore, from its own angle. The perspective, and the astute discussion among the distinguished participants, clarified a lot, made a lot that was generally understood concrete (neurophysiological and chemical), and had very good takeaways along the way. Chief among these for me were three important takeaways:
Interestingly, and reassuring, the dopamine high that gives a pleasure sensation is short-lived while the relief when forgiveness evaporates the craving for revenge can be forever. Just think how evolution (God 𑁋 your choice) gives us a universe that does indeed support us to be ‘good’, to have good will, in our very physiology and nervous system. Indeed, as we listened we could almost hear Gandhi explaining that evil, in Sanskrit, asat, literally means ‘non-existent’ while good, sat means ‘that which is,’ and coming to the stupendous conclusion that ‘that which is’ can never be destroyed while that which is not doesn’t even exist, not to speak of lasting; “and that is the doctrine of Satyagraha in a nutshell.”
Second, in what we are pleased to call criminal “justice” society seeks revenge upon revenge-seekers 𑁋 for as James Gilligan pointed out, in twenty-five years of working with men who had murdered others every one of them was seeking revenge and recovery of their dignity for a grievance, real or imagined. No wonder our criminal justice system doesn’t work!
Which brings me to the next fascinating takeaway:
Forgiveness is healing, real or imagined. The brain response is exactly the same, even if we just imagine ourselves forgiving someone who aggrieved us. Forgiveness, even if we imagine ourselves forgiving, shuts off the anterior cingulate pain pathway. Once again science weighs in on the controlling power of consciousness. Of course, we are edging close to a realization that consciousness 𑁋 decidedly not matter 𑁋 is the primary substrate of reality. Let’s say it: the mystics were right all along.
We have some curative, restorative methods of treating addiction these days, and they work just as well, mutatis mutandis, whether your addiction is to a chemical substance or to revenge.
Revenge is always a possible response: the brain networks, from the anterior cingulate to the pre-frontal cortex, and the neurochemicals are always ready, except in a Jesus or a Buddha (or we would add of course Gandhi). People sometimes contrive grievances to get the dopamine! Tragically, this allows unscrupulous persons to manipulate the public into severe revenge responses; Dr. Kimmel cited Hitler and the Dolchstoßlegende or ‘stab in the back stories’ to blame the Jews and others for their losses in WWI and everything else they could be blamed for, as well as 𑁋 you may have guessed it 𑁋 “stop the steal.” War is a nationalized revenge network, a case of revenge addiction on a national (or racial) scale.
And all this is true in reverse; as he concluded, “forgiveness is a human superpower.”