In a 2002 lecture, Derrida perversely argued that even when your wrongdoer stands before you and asks for forgiveness, it cannot legitimately be offered. Time has passed, and this person is not the same one who did the crime. Only in the moment of harm, when the wrongdoer has every intention to do more harm, does "I forgive you" have the purity of meaning it requires. Of course, as Derrida admitted, this is an impossible standard: "To ask me to forgive is to ask me to be mad." Madness indeed, but precisely the sort on which our sanity depends.

"Considering Forgiveness" originally appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' Summer 2009 Table of Contents.