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Guilt About the Past [Paperback] [2010] (Author) Bernhard Schlink, by Bernhard Schlink
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- Published on: 2010
- Binding: Paperback
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Bernhard Schlink From the Podium
By Grady Harp
For those readers captivated by the extraordinary prose and gift for relating involving stories ('The Reader', 'Flights of Love: Stories', 'Self's Punishment', 'Self's Deception', 'Homecoming', 'Self's Murder') this book of essays from the writer who also happens to be a professor law. Presented as a series of lectures in 2008, they are such fine reading and deserve publication in book form. These six short but pungent essays explore Guilt - both as a personal feeling and as a collective shroud. Grouped together they comprise some of the more enlightening book on the subject, using of course the German people and the aftermath of WW II.
In both his introduction and the first essay Schlink appropriately delves into history going back to the 1300s when law were in force that punished members of families for something one member of a family did; entire families could be by law put in a sack and drowned for the malfeasance of one person. He then rather quickly reminds us of the collective guilt of the British in India, of Americans and slavery, of Canadians and First Nations and so on. According to Schlink 'when some members of a collective commit crimes, its other members have a duty to identify them and expel them from the group. If they don't, they become "entangled" in the perpetrators' crimes and share their guilt; the behavior of the few is then credited to the many. After 1945, Germans should have identified the Nazis in their midst and severed ties with them. When they didn't - when they preferred to forget Nazism - they became guilty as a collective for what had been done.' It is the courage to accept the past and at the same time investigate how to restore pride in a nation bludgeoned by the world for atrocities for the past.
Schlink discusses moral consequences in his fourth essay addressing how ridiculous for politicians to apologize for things done in the past 'when it's not them who should bear any guilt for anything, and perhaps those being apologized to are not there to offer forgiveness. Given racial slaughters, of course, some reconciliation is always beneficial.' When members of a collective (such as Germany in WW II) commit crimes as in the Holocaust it is the onus, the obligation to identify the perpetrators and segregate them from the collective: those who did not come forth share the guilt and become equally guilty as a collective.
In the final chapter of this book the author addresses the books and films that he believes to be accurate and responsible and also points out those he considers inferior and misleading. Being a writer of one of the more popular of these books gives him an edge in critiquing the writings of others. And even in this role Bernhard Schlink remains a figure of fairness, a man of opinions that matter. This book is a reliable survey of Guilt about the Past, whether that be counted in centuries, in decades or in days. It is pertinent information for us as well as a fine documentation of the philosophy of collective guilt. Grady Harp, June 11
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
"For my generation the past is still very present... "
By Friederike Knabe
... states Bernhard Schlink, internationally known primarily for his novel The Reader (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage International), in the second of his six thought-provoking essays on "Guilt about the past". A highly respected jurist and law professor (emeritus) in Germany, he presents a number of philosophical arguments intended to advance the important debate on guilt about the past and its profound influence on all who follow, whether individuals, institutions or states and, whether directly associated with the perpetrators or the victims. Conscious of the criticism he received for his novel, his last essay, "Stories about the Past", touches on literature and other media. In the broader context he acknowledges that "his fiction and much of German literature has guilt about the past as a strong leitmotiv."
Throughout his essays, Schlink introduces a number of fundamental concepts that have characterized the debate about past guilt, especially since the end of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Central for the first post-war generation and those since, are the concepts of 'collective guilt', 'mastering the past' (which is the author's translation for the German term "Vergangenheitsbew�ltigung" that has no equivalent term or phrase in English or in French), and 'reconciliation'. He explains these concepts in their context, aiming at a broad-based understanding of their application. For understandable reasons, his illustrations are taken from his own personal experience and professional background.
Starting out by setting the historical and legal frameworks, Schlink, in concise and accessible language, goes back to ancient Germanic law as well as other tribal legal systems. Then, the commonly applied understanding of "collective guilt" incorporated the two clans to which the individual perpetrator and the victim(s) belonged. The penalty or revenge for any injustice committed applied to the whole clan. It was the victim's clan that made the claim for atonement money. "This collective responsibility, liability, and atonement operated through all levels of society and affected adults as well as children". Children could be drowned with their guilty parents.
Over time, the concept of collective guilt and responsibility has faded and, by the time of the Enlightenment, had been replaced by the understanding of "subjective and individual guilt". Despite the individualization of crime and punishment Schlink posits that family or community remain closely associated with the perpetrator(s), unless they disassociate themselves from them and repudiate the criminal action. The author expands on the meaning of "solidarity of belonging" that affects the behaviour of the children and even the people in the same country of those guilty of the crimes. The concept of collective guilt is defined within this context and Germany after the Third Reich stands as a clear example for it. This analysis, he admits, has not necessarily been accepted readily by Germans of his generation. Nonetheless, especially Germans living outside their home country have been confronted with the notion of Germans' collective guilt for Nazi atrocities that their parents or grandparents may, or may not, have committed during that time. His arguments on the varied ways by which Germans have been implicated over several generations in the crimes of their parents are profound and convincing. They do not allow to take the easy route that many had preferred and embarked on following the collapse of the regime in 1945. We are, as Schlink contends "the generation [for whom] the past is still very present..."
Especially of importance to me, as a close contemporary of the author, is Schlink's analysis of the notion underlying the term "mastering the past" (Vergangenheitsbew�ltigung). Having grown up with this concept hanging over all of us, the more positive connotation of the English phrase was new and highly relevant to me. His contention implies an active process that has to be worked through, yet that, with effort, will end in a satisfactory conclusion, where the past has in fact been "mastered". Such a process will "bring the past into such a state of order that its remembrance no longer BURDENS [my emphasis] the present." While we as the descendants of the perpetrators have to come to terms with their guilt and our relationships to them, the descendants of the victims will have to go through a different, yet comparable, generational process. In this context, Schlink very persuasively argues the difference between remembering as opposed to forgetting or repressing. While he, understandably, relates his arguments to the Holocaust and the Third Reich, his positions are far reaching and much more widely applicable.
His central essay, "Forgiveness and Reconciliation", is for me the most critical as it addresses the future relationships between descendants of perpetrators and those of victims over the next generation(s). It deserves to be read and absorbed slowly and deeply. He discusses such issues as the transference of guilt to another generation, the "political ritual" that often accompanies forgiveness of actions in the past, committed by a previous generation, the need and potential for reconciliation, whether in the private or public spheres. "The perpetrator's children cannot ask for forgiveness [...] neither can the victim's children grant it. They are not each other's victim or perpetrators." However, he contends, they can reconcile. "Reconciliation means that further attempts to coexist should no longer fail on account of guilt and recrimination."
Based on a lecture series held at Oxford University in 2008, Schlink's six essays provide insights and arguments for an deeper assessment of own positions and behaviours when we ask ourselves how we and societies as a whole can learn from the events and mistakes of the past not to repeat them. He provides challenging ideas on how the past can be reflected in our thinking for better coexistence between individuals, communities and nations and, last not least, how this thinking can influence our literature and other fictional media. [Friederike Knabe]
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
`The past is unassailable and irrevocable.'
By Jennifer Cameron-Smith
The six essays contained in this book were originally presented as the Weidenfeld Lectures by Bernhard Schlink at Oxford University in 2008. Bernhard Schlink is a professor of law, and a writer. Professor Schlink explores the phenomenon of guilt based on the German experience after World War II.
`The lesson we drew from the past was a moral one rather than an institutional one.'
Professor Schlink argues that when some members of a collective commit crimes, other members have a duty to identify and exclude them. By not doing so, they become caught in the crimes themselves and share their guilt. However, responsibility for not punishing a crime is not the same as being responsible for the crime in the first place and this guilt should be confined to their inaction about identifying and expelling Nazis not an assumption of the guilt for the original actions of the Nazis.
This is an important distinction: it is up to the original perpetrators to seek (and perhaps be refused) forgiveness. Those who were not directly involved cannot be contrite for acts they did not commit. The children of perpetrators may not owe the children of victims an apology but respect is essential. How else is it possible (and it is surely desirable) to seek reconciliation as a way of acknowledging and moving on from the past.
These six brief essays raise a number of different issues, perspectives and possibilities, including:
How does the legacy of the past impact on different generations?
Can the past be dealt with through law, is retroactive punishment a possibility? (And, should it be?)
What are the problems surrounding literary representations of the past, especially fictional treatments of the Holocaust?
I found these essays thought-provoking and far broader in application than to post-war Germany. We each live in some form of tribal society and thus thinking about the possibility of collective guilt in some circumstances and its consequences is worthwhile.
`The future of the presence of the past is history.'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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