Promising and forgiving

Arendt described these two acts as the remedies for action's two defects: promising binds an unpredictable future, forgiving releases an irreversible past. Both require someone who can be held to a word and someone who was actually wronged and chooses to let it go. A system can generate the sentence "I promise" and produce a schedule of commitments; it cannot be bound, and it cannot be the injured party who forgives. That is why contracts, apologies and pardons keep a person at each end.