I don't know. Framing it in terms of opposition to a perceived political trend doesn't read that way to me, and my own relevant experience includes nothing to suggest that framing forgiveness in any way related to any kind of political anything would be a useful way of dealing with the ramifications of past emotional trauma.

Perhaps the original commenter will come along and clarify.

I'm not trying to frame it as oppositional to a political trend, but rather that it's unfashionable an angle to take, to not take up the mantle of victimhood. I was commenting on the relative location of my position because I'm aware of its unfashionability as I write.

If anything, I was being peremptorily defensive, not redirecting to some other external target.

That's fair, but I'm still very unclear on how the one relates to the other.

How is this idea, "to not take up the mantle of victimhood," meant to be useful in, for example, forgiving my grandfather for what he did that one afternoon when I was still a small boy, and everyone else was out on a day trip somewhere? - that one afternoon much of which I'm totally unable to remember, but still, thirty years on, makes me queasy to think about.

To be sure, what happened that afternoon is between me and my grandfather and not likely ever to be reconciled in detail, especially seeing how he died a couple of decades ago. But the facts of the situation are fairly obvious, especially since I'm not the only one in my family with a story like that. So I think it makes a pretty good worked example, or the basis for one at least.

If nothing else, I can attest that dealing with the emotional ramifications of having an afternoon like that in one's past is a long process - I've been working at it for some years now, and even that's just since I realized I needed to start trying. So what I'm asking is, what is "not [taking] up the mantle of victimhood" meant to have to do with a process like that? In what way is it meant to make that easier, or even make that possible?

I mean, this is a fair question, right? Maybe I've misunderstood somewhere, but as far as I can tell you've framed it as a general prescription, so it seems reasonable to think it should be applicable here. But I have to admit that I'm not seeing how.

Not forgiving someone means holding on to a grievance and adopting the identity of a victim. That's mostly what I mean. But there's more.

There's an emotional comfort that lies in wallowing in grievance, and a variety of social rewards from sharing it with others - attention, commiseration, and a kind of cathartic semi-religious feeling of confession from the recital, which takes on the form of a kind of ritual if you've done it enough times; you need to set it up right so that the payoff delivers.

Of course I don't mean to deny your lived experience, and when I say "you" above, I don't mean you specifically. I'm simply aware, and wary of, the psychological traps that lie down similar roads. I especially don't want to let people who've hurt me in the past to get to define my identity or mental or emotional state; or I simply become a fragment of a mirror of their life, and not my own.