Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elazar Barkan is Professor of History and Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He is the author of The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (2000), and Retreat of Scientific Racism (1992). Alexander Karn is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Claremont Graduate University.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Aus dem Klappentext

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Taking Wrongs Seriously

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Contributors...................................................................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments................................................................................................................................................................xvPART I: An Ethical Imperative: Group Apology and the Practice of Justice1 Group Apology as an Ethical Imperative ELAZAR BARKAN AND ALEXANDER KARN.....................................................................................................3PART II: Amending the Past: Conceptual Approaches and Impediments2 Apology, Truth Commissions, and Intrastate Conflict ROBERT I. ROTBERG.......................................................................................................333 Punishment, Reconciliation, and Democratic Deliberation DAVID A. CROCKER....................................................................................................504 Forgive and Not Forget: Reconciliation Between Forgiveness and Resentment DANIEL LEVY AND NATAN SZNAIDER....................................................................835 The Transitional Apology RUTI TEITEL........................................................................................................................................1016 What Some Monuments Tell Us About Mourning and Forgiveness VAMIK D. VOLKAN..................................................................................................1157 Apologies and Reconciliation: Middle Eastern Rituals GEORGE EMILE IRANI.....................................................................................................132PART III: Case Studies: Australia, America, and Europe8 The Apology in Australia: Re-covenanting the National Imaginary DANIELLE CELERMAJER.........................................................................................1539 The BIA's Apology to Native Americans: An Essay on Collective Memory and Collective Conscience REBECCA TSOSIE...............................................................18510 The New Patriotism and Apology for Slavery ROY L. BROOKS...................................................................................................................21311 The Tulsa Race Riot Commission, Apology, and Reparation: Understanding the Functions and Limitations of a Historical Truth Commission ALFRED L. BROPHY.....................23412 The Apology Moment: Vichy Memories in 1990s France JULIE FETTE.............................................................................................................25913 Justice, Apology, Reconciliation, and the German Foundation: "Remembrance, Responsibility, and the Future" J.D. BINDENAGEL.................................................28614 The Worst is Yet to Come: Abu Ghraib and the Politics of not Apologizing ELAZAR BARKAN.....................................................................................311Index..........................................................................................................................................................................331

Chapter One

ELAZAR BARKAN AND ALEXANDER KARN

1. The Practice of Justice: An Ethical Imperative

In his Republic, Plato flirts with the notion that humans are diverted into the path of justice only by coercion and force of law. Given the opportunity to commit injustice and avoid punishment, reasonable humans choose to act in their own interest, because that is what nature deems good. Rehearsing the tale of Gyges, who one day finds a magic ring which confers on him the power of invisibility, Plato (as Glaucon) concludes "that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust." Although we may praise in public the individual who exhibits self-restraint when presented with an opportunity to live "like a God among men," privately, Plato suggests, we regard this character as "a most wretched idiot." We do not-indeed, cannot-expect to see justice practiced voluntarily, since humans, unless confronted by the possibility of exposure and punishment, are unwilling either to speak truthfully or pay their debts (for Plato, the twin hallmarks of justice).

Of course, Plato (as Socrates) ultimately rejects Glaucon's proposition, arguing instead that humans submit freely to justice and law because they profit by doing so. There are ample rewards for those who restrain themselves in the face of temptation and make amends in the case of transgression. Justice, in this scheme, represents more than a middle road-as Plato's Thrasymachus characterizes it-between what is best (that is, to do evil and escape punishment) and what is worst (that is, to suffer injustice without remedy). Instead, the practice of justice becomes a certifiable good, an exercise in right behavior, inextricably linked for an idealist like Plato to the unfolding and refinement of history and reason. Philosophers, having identified the nexus between justice and right, need only to map its terrain for their fellow citizens in order for society to blossom fully and prosper. In the ideal state, sapient humans, well taught by the philosophers who govern them, hope to be punished for their trespasses and wish to be set on the path of justice:

He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized; the gentler element in him is liberated, and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of justice and temperance and wisdom, more than the body ever is by receiving gifts of beauty, strength and health, in proportion as the soul is more honorable than the body.

Here, Plato suggests that humans, given proper instruction and opportunity, will gladly accept censure and punishment in cases where they have lapsed into injustice. In the ideal state, humans are conditioned to feel the injuries of others as their own and are motivated to do whatever is in their power to repair these wounds because they view the exercise of care as an avenue to self-improvement and social perfection. Freely chosen in the first instance, the practice of justice rises steadily in Plato's perfect world to the level of ethical imperative. As long as our faculties are undisturbed and our wits intact, we cannot help but practice justice; for Plato, it is in our nature to do so.

Outside the pages of the Republic, humans, not up to the standards of the philosopher-king, are often less than perfect. We retain a capacity for acts of immense irrationality (not to mention cruelty and callousness), and we adapt ourselves readily to the moral disorder which Plato once hoped to eliminate from the world. We humans, it seems, can get used to anything, bending our practice and shifting our allegiances to enhance our chances for fulfillment and self-gratification. And yet, in spite of this moral elasticity, we retain a commitment to the practice of justice, even for injuries suffered generations ago. There is an impulse in us which flies in the face of Glaucon's cynicism and refuses the uncertainty of the postmodern age. Our striving for justice, however nave or idyllic it...