A friend recently wrote,
[A]t an early age I started to become a little suspicious of the golden glow of forgiveness. I often noticed how people used forgiveness as a tool to make themselves appear superior to others. Many felt their ability to forgive their enemies made them a better person. It was like they were saying, “the fact that I can find it in my heart to forgive your horrible behavior shows that I’m a bigger and better person than you”.
By the time I got to seventh and eighth grade I began to notice how often people forgave others for something they didn’t even do maliciously. At times they were being forgiven for something that they probably should have been thanked for or praised.
It was about this time that I realized that before you could forgive someone you first had to blame them.
Read it all: GuidoWorld » The Darker Side of Forgiveness