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" Forgiveness, she continues, exists only between people who are qualitatively different from one another. Thus parents can forgive their children as long as the children are young, because the parents are their absolute superiors. Between equals, the gesture of forgiveness destroys the foundations of human interaction so radically that after such an act, there can basically no longer be a relationship. To forgive someone can mean only to forego taking revenge, to pass by in silence, and that is a fundamental leave-taking, "while revenge always remains close to the other person and does not sever the relationship."
Revenge "remains close to the other person" because people manifest themselves to each other in speech and action. That is, even in their mistakes and misdeeds, people are people and form relationships. In the same entry, Arendt went even further to say that forgiveness between equals was a "sham event." The burden that someone has put on his own shoulders is apparently lifted, while the other, the forgiving person, must accept a burden and at the same time appear to be "unburdened," to rise above the other and his misdeed. Only thus can the wrongdoer be unburdened of his wrong action. No one, Arendt wrote, can be that unburdened. "
― , Unlearning with Hannah Arendt