My view is: cultures which are quick to forget the past find it easy to move on. Cultures which cling to their history, find it harder to forgive-and-forget.
Expanding on that: you have a limited amount of bandwidth in terms of attention. If your gaze is on the past, it's much harder to move forward; sort-of like it's hard to drive a car forward by looking at the rear-view mirror. On the other hand, if you force your gaze to the future, it is much easier to move forward and keep moving forward.
As someone said, "forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past, for some hope of a better future".
Comments
"Why the difference?"
That's an interesting question.
My view is: cultures which are quick to forget the past find it easy to move on. Cultures which cling to their history, find it harder to forgive-and-forget.
Expanding on that: you have a limited amount of bandwidth in terms of attention. If your gaze is on the past, it's much harder to move forward; sort-of like it's hard to drive a car forward by looking at the rear-view mirror. On the other hand, if you force your gaze to the future, it is much easier to move forward and keep moving forward.
As someone said, "forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past, for some hope of a better future".
Not sure Europe fits that, looks back at the past but forgives a lot...