Kissed by a murderous Nazi. Yum.
81-year-old Holocaust survivor Eva Kor recounted her memories of being one of Dr. Josef Mengele’s human guinea pigs in a letter to Oskar Groening, a former member of the SS at Auschwitz-Birkenau who is on trial in Germany for 300,000 counts of accessory to murder:
In May 1944, when we were taken to Auschwitz, my name was Eva Mozes. My family and I were part of the Hungarian transport. My family included my father Alexander Mozes, 44 years old; my mother Jaffa Mozes, 38 years old; my older sister Edit, 14 years old; my middle sister Aliz, 12 years old; and my twin sister, Miriam, 10 years old. Within thirty minutes after arriving on the selection platform, Miriam and I were ripped apart from our family forever. Only she and I survived, because we were used in experiments conducted by .
Within half an hour we became part of a group of twin girls aged two to sixteen: thirteen sets of little girls and one mother. We were taken to a processing center where they cut our hair short and took our clothes away. That evening they returned them with a red cross at the backs. Then they lined us up for tattooing. When my turn came, I decided to cause them as much trouble as a ten year-old could. Two Nazis and two women prisoners restrained me with all their force. They began by heating a needle. When the needle got hot, they dipped it into ink and burned into my left arm, dot by dot, the capital letter A-7063. Miriam became A-7064…
For the next two weeks I only have one clear memory: I was crawling on the floor because I could no longer walk. I was crawling to reach a faucet with water because they did not even give us water anymore.
In 1984, Kor founded CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors), in an effort to locate other surviving Mengele twins; and in 1995 she opened the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terra Haute, Indiana. She calls herself a “forgiveness advocate,” teaching children:
1. Never give up on yourself or your dreams. I did not know how to survive Auschwitz, but I was determined to do it. Here I am 70 years later because I never gave up.
2. Treat people with respect and fairness to eliminate prejudice from your life.
3. Forgive your worst enemy and forgive anybody who [h]as ever hurt you. I forgave the Nazis and I forgave everybody who hurt me.
Kor is one of the Holocaust survivors testifying at Groening’s trial. On its first day, Groening told the court that “it is beyond question that I am morally complicit. This moral guilt I acknowledge here, before the victims, with regret and humility.” Kor told him, “I appreciate the fact that you are willing to come here and face us.” She offered the defendant her hand, and he took it, brought her into a near embrace, and kissed her on the cheek.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz as this week ends is…
Is Eva Kor an Ethics Hero, or an Ethics Dunce?
“I am probably the only survivor who has forgiven all the Nazis, including you, in my name alone,” Kor wrote to Groening. “My forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrators from taking responsibility for their actions, nor does it diminish my need and right to ask questions about what happened at Auschwitz.”
“I told the media that he was a small screw in a big killing machine, and the machine cannot function without the small screws,” she wrote later on her Facebook page. “But obviously he is a human being. His response to me is exactly what I was talking about when I said you cannot predict what will happen when someone from the victims’ side and someone from the perpetrators’ side meet in a spirit of humanity.”
I’m sorry to say it, but this is forgiveness porn, and compassion grandstanding. She forgives him, but only in her own name, meaning…what, exactly? That she can’t absolve him from the 300,000 human beings he helped liquidate? Damn right. So she “forgives” him, but testifies against him in the trial that may send him to death? That’s some forgiveness you got there, Eva.
She is, in my diagnosis, grandstanding. If she forgives this man for what he did to her, but doesn’t forgive him for the crimes he inflicted on so many others, then she is acknowledging the Kantian flaw in her conduct. If everybody forgave Groening, and people like him, then there would be no consequences for the violators of human rights to suffer, and life itself would be devalued as a result. Thus Eva is parsing and limiting her forgiveness, so she can appear compassionate, kind, saintly—and superior—without in any way undermining the grievances of those who are not willing to engage in such meaningless gestures as thanking an accused murderer for facing his surviving victims, as if he dropped in on the trial as a courtesy.
Her forgiveness may be genuine and sincere, but it is still a farce. She will forgive him and be lauded for her compassion; he will be convicted, and imprisoned for life, presumably with the consolation that not all of his victims hate him. It would be better if he were given his freedom—the concept of war crimes is pure hypocrisy—and forced to live with his conscience and the contempt and hatred of civilized people for the rest of his life.
The closest previous situation I have written about was this one, concerning Eric Lomax, who is in the Ethics Alarms Heroes Hall of Honor. Lomax read that the Japanese soldier who had tortured him during World War II was consumed with remorse and guilt over his wartime crimes, and particularly over one American soildier upon whom he had inflicted particularly cruel treatment. Lomax realized that he was that soldier. He tracked down his torturer and arranged a meeting with the elderly Japanese veteran, who apologized and begged for forgiveness.
“When we met, Nagase greeted me with a formal bow,” Lomax wrote. “I took his hand and said in Japanese, ‘Good morning, Mr. Nagase, how are you?’ He was trembling and crying, and he said over and over again: ‘I am so sorry, so very sorry.’ I had come with no sympathy for this man, and yet Nagase, through his complete humility, turned this around. In the days that followed we spent a lot of time together, talking and laughing.We promised to keep in touch and have remained friends ever since.”
Lomax was an Ethics Hero. Why isn’t Eva Kor?
1. His torturer specifically asked his forgiveness, was sincere and remorseful. Kor gave her forgiveness away.
2. Kor has made a fetish out of “forgiving Nazis.” Lomax wrote that he was not forgiving anyone but this man, who begged for it.
3. Lomax was a soldier, and though another soldier had mistreated him, he could understand how the positions could have been reversed. The Golden Rule applies. Kor was a civilian, and the man she forgave had the blood of her family and race on his hands. Kor’s obligation to the 300,000 who contributed that blood was far greater than any imagined obligation to Groening. Would she really advocate that everyone should forgive him? Obviously not, since she is aiding in his prosecution.
4. Some things should not be forgiven, and the Holocaust is one of them.
It’s a nice story, but Eva Kor is an Ethics Dunce.
___________________________
Pointer: David Elias
Facts and Graphic: Tablet Mag
Ethics Alarms 
The more I read this story, the more it annoys me.
Let’s watch the sparks fly on this one…
Yes, let’s. A good friend—Jewish— posted the story on Facebook, and the reaction was the predictable “Awwwww!” But the more I read it after my initial “Awwww!” the more it bothered me.
“There’s nothing wrong with killing a million people,…….” Yes, I can see why this might be provocative.
Here’s the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on “Forgiveness”:
“Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense, lets go of negative emotions such as vengefulness, with an increased ability to wish the offender well.[1][2][3] Forgiveness is different from condoning (failing to see the action as wrong and in need of forgiveness), excusing (not holding the offender as responsible for the action), pardoning (granted by a representative of society, such as a judge), forgetting (removing awareness of the offense from consciousness), and reconciliation (restoration of a relationship).”
Accordingly, she can forgive him by letting go of her anger and other negative emotions towards him, even wish him well, but still expect him to be held accountable for his actions.
Also, I’ve heard it said that forgiving is necessary for the emotional healing of the person who was wronged. If that’s true, than forgiving would benefit her, perhaps more than it benefits him.
“Wish the offender well?” Like:I hope it’s comfy in jail for the rest of your life?
“Accordingly, she can forgive him by letting go of her anger and other negative emotions towards him, even wish him well, but still expect him to be held accountable for his actions.”
I have no negative emotions toward you; I just want you to burn in hell?
Sorry. Can’t get to forgiveness from here.
>>”I have no negative emotions toward you; I just want you to burn in hell?”
Since you bring up Hell, I will discuss a religious, specifically Catholic, perspective on forgiveness. Catholics and Jews worship the same God, albeit with different understandings, so this view may be similar to Ms. Kor’s view, though I do not presume this to be the case. I will discuss the theology of forgiveness in depth, touch upon forgiveness in a secular context, and then draw this back towards Ms. Kor and company. This will be a long one…
Catholics believe in forgiveness; forgiveness, however, does not preclude consequences. When a baptized individual sins, commits a wrong, he may approach a priest to seek forgiveness from God. This forgiveness is freely given by God. There is still, however, a penalty due for that sin.
Catholics believe in two forms of penalty: “eternal” and “temporal”, the former being eternal damnation, hell; the latter a temporary form that may take any number of forms. Feeling shame is a temporal punishment. Time in jail is a temporal punishment. Time in purgatory following death is a temporal punishment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory).
“Penalty” is not quite accurate; Catholic theology teaches that the consequences one suffers naturally stem from the very act of sinning. If one commits a terrible sin such as genocide, and never repents, the natural consequence is eternal damnation. The unrepentant Nazi sends himself to Hell.
God is a strange beast. God wants that Nazi to repent. God freely offers eternal forgiveness if its is asked for. To rebuff this free gift of penance means one is so soiled rotten as to only be fit for Hell.
The repentant Nazi, however, is not totally off the hook. The terrible crimes and sins he committed ruin his soul and make him unfit to enter Heaven. He must willfully purge himself of these imperfections; he must willfully accept just punishment for his crimes. To a Catholic, this may mean willfully submitting to life in prison, submitting even to the death penalty, submitting even to a delay after death waiting in purgatory before entering heaven if necessary.
Now, a captured Nazi is going to go to prison, whether he “submits” or not. The difference between Heaven and Hell, however, is the personal acceptance of responsibility, and the personal acceptance of the consequences.
…
Forgiveness from God is easy, because God is perfect. Let us now discuss forgiveness between two mortal beings.
Forgiveness by a mortal is difficult, because we are not perfect. We justly expect consequences will be fulfilled, whether they are “personally accepted” by the wrong doer or not. We can also have a disordered desire for revenge, where the desired consequences are grossly disproportionate. (As an aside, to a Christian, revenge is particularly frowned upon, as it considered a usurpation of God’s roll as mediator of justice, ensuring that every bit of due consequence is faced, whether on earth in prison, or upon death in purgatory).
We all recognize the difficulty of forgiveness, and are naturally suspicious when it seems overly generous. I do not presume to know Ms. Kor’s degree of religious devotion, nor am I an expert in Jewish theology. However, from a religious perspective, there is nothing necessarily contradictory about offering full and profound forgiveness while expecting the natural consequences to be experienced.
Indeed, one particularly selfless reason to offer full forgiveness is to show love, reflecting the love of God, to motivate the wrong doer accept his punishment and repent. Accept just punishment to experience redemption.
As Jon discusses, forgiveness formally means letting go, but not excusing.
There is no excusing Nazi genocide.
…
In a secular context, of course, eternal fate is irrelevant. Forgiveness, however, still is relevant as a means of healing. Consequences are a necessary ingredient. Prison and fines, punishments, serve the secular purpose of deterring future crime, chastising previous crime, and if need be physically preventing future crime by those repeatedly so chastised.
Prison, however, is an economic incentive, or rather disincentive; to a perfectly rational mind, it is to be avoided in most cases. Other economic incentives, however, can make the risk of prison acceptable (although the human mind has a horrible sense of probability). Thus criminal behavior continues because there are tempting rewards.
Forgiveness is a moral incentive. It appeals to deeper human instincts that hold rational behavior in check. The desire to connect with others holds selfish rational behavior at bay; a desire to be good, to be fair, persuades the rational mind away from socially destructive but self-serving behavior. Forgiveness is a means of connecting, rebuilding relationships broken by criminal behavior.
Society needs punishment, because some rational fools have no heart. Pardons and leniency in sentencing, however, can be appropriate at times, because sometimes a moral recognition of true penance benefits society more. Pardons and leniency are conditional; certain terms must be met. True forgiveness is unconditional. True forgiveness is offered freely, whether the wrong doer freely accepts punishment. That there will be punishment, however, must be presumed.
Forgiveness appeals deeply to one’s humanity, because once given, it provides moral incentive to be earned through penance. Forgiveness does not preclude punishment; that is pardon, which is a different tool altogether. Pardon is perhaps the economic incentive to make a moral change; genuinely reform and perhaps get a lighter sentence.
Society, however, can never tolerate genocide. Proven Nazis must never be pardoned; no economic incentive can ever be hinted at for genocide. Forgiveness, however, has no economic value. It does not get you out of prison; indeed it is only earned by voluntarily by acting against your economic interests and placing yourself there.
The Nazi here was forgiven. The Nazi’s only possible source of redemption is to personally submit with no condition, leave unconfessed no detail, and beg no mercy. His forgiver is helping him own up by testifying against him, helping him become the prisoner he must accept that he must become for society’s sake.
Her forgiveness is worthless otherwise.
Correction: *I will discuss the theology of forgiveness in depth, touch upon forgiveness in a secular context, and then draw this back towards Ms. Kor and company. [If you could substitute this line; missed it when copying]
Yup.
Wow! Didn’t you say you were twentysomething?
What Rich said. Yes.
Terrific post.
1. I would submit that this does not comport with the public’s understanding of what forgiveness means, and therefor, while technically and theologically accurate, is of mostly academic interest.
2. So absent redemption, pardon, repentance and absolution, how is technical forgiveness even a factor in ethics? If its main effect is to make the forgiver feel better, then why isn’t this an example of relieving a burden on the conscience of those whose conscience needs to be burdened for a personal gain?
3. I don’t believe forgiveness for terrible acts in any way lessens the likelihood or frequency of such acts, and might quite conceivably make them more likely.
4. By this definition of forgiveness, a person whose loved one was killed by a drunk, hit and run driver could say to the drunk: “I forgive you entirely and completely. Give me a hug. Now here’s my lawsuit for 12 million dollars in damages and pain and suffering, which will make paupers out of you and your line forever.” And you see nothing inconsistent in this.
5. I do.
Jack, to your first point that “this does not comport with the public’s understanding of what forgiveness means, and therefor, while technically and theologically accurate, is of mostly academic interest,” it’s actually not uncommon in religious groups and generally-accessible spiritual new-ageish writings.
Here are just a few from page one of googling “forgiveness is not about the”
1. A discussion of Jesus stories from “the community of St. Anthony,”
http://www.st-anthony.net/many-voices-blog/forgiveness-is-not-about-the-past-but-the-future
2. the “Elephant journal,” musings of a new ager,
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/06/7-truths-about-forgiveness-lavinia-lumezanu/
3. Andy Andrews, “New York Times Best-Seller,” in “Why You Should Forgive People Who Are Not Sorry,” at
http://www.andyandrews.com/forgive-people-sorry/
4. from “The Overwhelmed Brain: the Journey to a Stress-Free Life,” The Challenge and Freedom of Forgiveness” at
http://theoverwhelmedbrain.com/forgiveness/
5. The Samaritan Family Counseling Center, “http://samaritancounselingswga.org/myJSSImages/file/summer14c.pdf”
Living it out may not be that common, but the exhortation to do so can be found pretty easily.
Great links! I am gathering that religious forgiveness is a self-serving con.
Ah ha ha ha ha, I’m going to sit back and chuckle at the likely upcoming shitstorm.. 🙂
I wonder what you make of this story of a woman who forgave the man who killed her son?
http://www.today.com/news/how-do-you-forgive-killer-mother-moves-past-tragedy-4B11203330
Obviously, she didn’t like her son that much.
Kidding. Sounds faith-based, and if sincere, makes no sense whatsoever, a version of “Thank-you, sir, may I have another?” One can eschew bitterness, rage and anger without letting a perp feel like he got away with something, and can “move on.” Could forgiving Jews walk to the showers with that smile on their faces? I’m sure that would have made the SS feel better about it all.
>> 1. I would submit that this does not comport with the public’s understanding of what forgiveness means, and therefor, while technically and theologically accurate, is of mostly academic interest.
Perhaps. “Forgive and forget” the public’s most common understanding of forgiveness. Forgiving and forgetting a wrong are taught to be a package deal; it is really two separate acts.
There is a Spanish grocery store near by with a sign in its window regarding bounced checks, “We forgive, but we don’t forget”. Forgiveness is meant to inspire a costumer to be honest with payment in the future; but any future transaction will still be subject to greater scrutiny.
>> 2. So absent redemption, pardon, repentance and absolution, how is technical forgiveness even a factor in ethics? If its main effect is to make the forgiver feel better, then why isn’t this an example of relieving a burden on the conscience of those whose conscience needs to be burdened for a personal gain?
Forgiveness is meant to inspire future ethical behavior in the one forgiven. It is a perhaps a “non-ethical” consideration (though not an *unethical* consideration). It is fundamentally necessary for any sort of relationship, because two individuals will always end up wronging one and another in some way.
Forgive and forget works in these everyday kind of wrongs. I suppose forgiveness can be ethically withheld, too, when there is no sign of remorse in the other party, especially for more serious violations. This too can have a moral incentive for the other to reform.
The case of the Nazi is perhaps an outlier not well captured by the ordinary rules. Ms. Kay has strong duty to society is to use her knowledge to put the Nazi in jail, assuming she has relevant knowledge. She also chooses to forgive the Nazi, and thus build a relationship with him. The first is a duty, the second a prerogative. Exercising both creates strange results not necessarily applicable elsewhere.
>> 4. By this definition of forgiveness, a person whose loved one was killed by a drunk, hit and run driver could say to the drunk: “I forgive you entirely and completely. Give me a hug. Now here’s my lawsuit for 12 million dollars in damages and pain and suffering, which will make paupers out of you and your line forever.” And you see nothing inconsistent in this.
>> I am gathering that religious forgiveness is a self-serving con.
In someways, it is self-serving. But forgiveness does not erase the natural consequences. There will be anger. There will be distrust. There will be need for reparations. Forgiveness is more about approaching the situation in good faith, whether or not the wrong doer reciprocates. Lubby-dubby, give-me-a-huggy theatrics are not necessary.
Forgiveness must be accompanied by pushing for no more than proportionate justice. Pardon or leniency within the range of just consequences might be used to reward good faith on the wrong doer’s part; they might also provide mere economic incentive to settle early. Forgiveness and penance are internal dispositions that need not be explicitly stated.
I suppose Ms. Kor’s actions might border on theatrics. The circumstance of the case might excuse such theatrics as incidental. Only her internal disposition can fully tell whether her forgiveness was offered in good faith.
Thanks, Rich: most helpful and enlightened thing anyone has written yet:
1. If the point of forgiveness is to inspire the forgiven to be better next time, then helping the prosecution is redundant, and slo suggests a lack of faith in the power of forgiveness.
2. It’s not a non-ethical consideration if the idea is to bolster trust and trustwortiness. Using a mass-killer as the forgiven is problemmatical, no?
3. In a relationship, like a marriage, forgiveness has to be an acknowledgement of mutual fallability, that the action being forgiven is not fatal to the relationship, and that the slate is wiped clean. This kind of forgiveness is impossible or insane when dealing with a mass murderer.
4. Forgive but don’t forget, it seems to me, is not really forgiving. “I forgive your betrayal, but believe me, I’ll never forget it, and will never trust you again as long as I live!” Is that really forgiveness?
5. Forgiveness is a subset of kindness and compassion, which is ethical. But one can be kind without being forgiving, and I argue Kos’s situation was exactly that, or should have been. It was kind not to recoil from his kiss, and not to bite his nose off. She was not obligated to forgive him too.
6. That’s right: the rules don’t apply to Nazis and Holocaust survivors. Some things are unforgivable, just as some things should always be forgiven. “Never forget!” and “Always forgive!” can’t occupy the same space.
3. …This kind of forgiveness is impossible or insane when dealing with a mass murderer.
Agreed. Forgiveness is perhaps a multi-layered onion. Only a God who is perfect could peal back all the layers of protection and be truly open to perfect forgiveness and pardon. Incidentally, Christianity teaches God did thoroughly open himself. Those He wished to forgive, humankind, nailed him to a tree in response.
I do not blame caution when offering forgiveness.
I may have over reached when I said forgiveness is something offered without condition; it is a moral incentive that can be given or withheld to influence behavior. I can only speculate that Ms. Kor is motivated to offer forgiveness to provide moral incentive for the Nazi to fully confess. I would not fault her for that motive, although her choice to publicly forgive makes that motive more difficult to discern.
The motive obscuring publicity dunce-worthy? You say “yes”, of course, though I see the publicity as perhaps incidental, and not necessarily evidence of “forgiveness porn”. The situation is sufficiently fishy to warrant observation and comment, but not clear enough to make a final conclusion.
“4. Forgive but don’t forget, it seems to me, is not really forgiving. “I forgive your betrayal, but believe me, I’ll never forget it, and will never trust you again as long as I live!” Is that really forgiveness?”
Try this on for size instead: “I forgive your betrayal, but through this experience I have learned something about you that I didn’t know before. Now that I know you are capable of betrayal, going forward I will take steps to limit your ability to betray me again. Reducing or eliminating future incidents of betrayal is good thing for each of us and for our relationship together.”
True story: Once upon a time my father caught a family member looking at his checkbook when she was visiting. We still love and spend time with her–she’s as much a family friend as a blood relative. But now when she comes to visit, the checkbook is stored in a rolltop desk that gets locked.
–Dwayne
A very successful woman friend of mine – MBA, illustrious career – discovered her husband had cheated on her. He said the reason was their sex life had suffered. She said, “Hell, I like sex too, this is a solvable problem.”
When she told me about this, years later, they were happily married and problems had been resolved for some time. I asked her, “How could you forgive him?” She said, “Life is way too short to waste time on guilt and blame when you could be living life and having sex.”
I then asked her, “What if he did it again?” She unhesitatingly replied, “Oh I’d be out of here so fast his head would spin. You only get one do-over with me!”
What was clear to me was that she was strong enough in her own self that she could both forgive and not forget, and yet not have to take precautions to prevent being hurt. She was fully confident in her ability to get along in the world with or without someone else, hence she could completely give herself over to loving her husband..
That to me is the ultimate goal to aspire to – not to ratchet up our level of risk-mitigation.
There is a graphic novel series written by Neil Gaiman titled “Sandman”, and in the fourth installment, “Season of Mists”, Dream is called upon to arbitrate the passing of the key to the realm of hell because the Devil quits, the end always stuck with me:
Dream gives the realm to two angels as dictated by God, and the angel Remiel says “There will be no more wanton violence; no further suffering, inflicted without reason or explanation. We will hurt you. And we are not sorry. But we do not do it to punish you. We do it to redeem you. Because afterward, you’ll be a better person … and because we love you. One day you’ll thank us for it.” To which the condemned reply “But you don’t understand … that makes it worse. That makes it so much worse … ”
I recommend the entire series, it’s beautiful and thought provoking. Regardless, I don’t think you’re wrong on this case, I think that forgiveness for the sake of forgiveness, and especially without expressed contrition is cheap. But I’m struggling with: “If she forgives this man for what he did to her, but doesn’t forgive him for the crimes he inflicted on so many others, then she is acknowledging the Kantian flaw in her conduct. If everybody forgave Groening, and people like him, then there would be no consequences for the violators of human rights to suffer, and life itself would be devalued as a result.”
I think there’s a difference between forgiveness and abdication of responsibility. That you can forgive a person for what they’ve done to you, while still recognizing a need to hold them responsible. Forgiveness is a personal thing, which can help both victim and perpetrator, while the responsibility is a societal pressure, both as a lesson and a deterrent. Just like law and ethics aren’t always identical but might have overlap, forgiveness and responsibility are related.
I, too, have heard it said that forgiveness is more for the victim’s sake than the perpetrator.
That was my initial thought too. Forgiveness is not absolution for the forgiven; but it does mean freedom, finally, for the forgiver.
It’s also nice to know that you’re worthy of forgiveness,by forgiving.
In which case, this kind of forgiveness is a selfish act.
It’s a self-interested act, which is not the same as a selfish act. It is not unlike killing in self-defense.
The victim’s forgiving of the victimizer at least kills a measure, an extent, of the victim’s victimhood that the victimizer can no longer inflict. A victim who takes charge of their victimhood and kills as much of their victimhood as possible, like Kor, is benefitting themselves AND their fellow pilgrims.
Very thought-provoking analysis, as usual. I will be pondering this one for a good while.
At the risk of repeating what others have said:
1. Forgiveness is not the same as denying that a crime happened.
2. She can only forgive him for what she experienced, other people have the right to forgive or not without regard to her actions.
3. She’s not God, she has no power to remove the consequences from him.
4. Even if it’s grandstanding, which I doubt, it’s her forgiveness to give not ours.
5. Forgiveness is a very difficult thing to do.
6. We should cheer it and honor it when we see it. It makes the world a better place.
7. If in practicing ethics one cannot tell the difference between forgiveness and absolution the practice of ethics has a serious flaw.
Tell me how forgiving mass murderers makes the world a better place.
Jack, I think you are being obtuse.
By creating one less person who infects the rest of the world with their constant rage-filled, self-driven, obsessive desire for revenge.
This reminds me of perhaps the most provocatively-phrased ethical statement I’ve ever heard: from Herman Kahn, the late head of the Hudson Institute. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with killing a million people; what’s wrong is killing them without thinking about it.”
He loved pissing people off, but his point is an ethically relevant one. Hannah Arendt, speaking about the Nazis, said something similar when she coined the phrase “the banality of evil,” referring to the mechanized industrial nature of the killing. It is the depersonalization that we find so chilling – not the scale per se, but the thoughtlessness of it.
To that same point – it’s the thought, not the scale – see the New Testament, Matthew 18:21-23.
I got to spend over an hour with Herman in the Seventies, just chatting. One of the thrills of my life. He was arguably the smartest man alive, but what impressed me was that he really listened and acted, at least, as if he thought what others were saying was enlightening him. Funny, curious…just a nice guy.
Jack, I am in awe that you met Herman Kahn! My dad knew him a tiny bit, and always spoke of him as you did. As I recall, he broke the record for the Army’s IQ test.
Count me impressed that you met him!
You are confusing forgiving with forgetting, absolving, reinterpreting, granting remission and pardoning. They are similar but not the same. Forgiving is what you do the others are what society does. Society is not obligated to absolve etc just because one person forgives. The person being forgiven is not allowed to walk free just because one person forgives.
Forgiveness is done by and for the person wronged by and for the person wronged. I’ll admit it looks like grandstanding when it’s done very publicly. I can’t speak about the psychology behind it, but calling forgiveness out as unethical causes me to wonder about ethics.
I don’t forgive mass murderers, because they didn’t murder me or try to. She can because she was a victim.
So the person who just witnesses evil can’t forgive it, but the one who experiences it should? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Nope. We are society. If everyone does what the individual does, is it right, ethical, good for society? No. Then it’s not right for the individual either. Just a relief of the duty to care.
The individual cannot remove the consequences from an act. Nor can society. Forgiveness is for people. For their peace and for their sanity. Pardons and absolvings are for God and the law. Carrying the weight of anger, bitterness and vengence is too big of a bourden for individuals, Forgiveness enables people to relieve themselves of the tremendous burdens of anger, retribution and vengence. A society made up of people who can’t or won’t forgive would be very much like the sick one we find ourselves mired in right now with the prospect of much worse to come.
Upholding community, societal and cultural standards is a burden. And it’s one individual citizens are obligated to bear. That means not forgiving the unforgivable just because it makes things more pleasant for the injured.
Nonsense. Not forgiving in no way precludes rational, ethical conduct. You have to give a pass to evil to be ethical? I doubt that, WG.
Kudos to EthicsAlarms. I have been impressed to find out that, despite initial impressions, I have found opportunities to agree strongly with Rich, Lucky, Joed, OtherBil – and now Wyogranny! Who’s next – stvplln? I would no longer bet against it.
Seriously speaking though – I am finding it very affirming that we can all find grounds on which we can agree. It’s what keeps this from being merely an echo chamber (though on occasion I’m sure it can feel that way to all of us).
Keep on finding the common ground, it’s worth the journey; I suspect there’s something ethical about it.
“Kor has made a fetish out of ‘forgiving Nazis.'”
Setting aside both the sentimentality of Kor’s expression, which makes me squirm under the circumstances (as Jack has addressed them), and the several deconstructions of “forgive” which have led to such an interesting personal discussion here, I see her as neither heroic nor dunce-like, but psychologically typical of an adult who is still — and probably forever, considering the cover-up “solution” she has found – not dealing with her brutalization in childhood.
She has made an excuse to step inside the tiger’s cage with impunity and tease the tiger. I know, the analogy doesn’t seem to fit, since it is doubtful that the tiger feels shame or remorse, but those weren’t the responses the teaser wanted (and definitely not what she needed). Cringing and groveling will do just fine. So too will the attention and applause of her courageous proximity to one of society’s enemies (emotionally as well as physically: the kiss is a romantic’s dream!) serve to validate the original victimization. It doesn’t remove the fear of the tiger or the memories of the terror and pain; it may not touch the rage that is still there – if those are truly gone, if she has moved on, then she would have no need for the public gestures or publicity.
I have seen this sort of response over and over again in abuse survivors as a way of getting around the hard job, very like that of surviving deep grief, of recovering one’s sense of self. In the end, however long that takes, it is not about the source of the pain. The difference here is that there is a cult of pride around Holocaust survivors rather than a culture of shame, so Kor can exploit herself, her past – possibly unconciously (I have no way of knowing) – beyond her declarations of having got rid of the anger, helplessness, frustration, confusion, and so on to build that “fetish” monument, CANDLES. The first two propositions are vapid generalizations in the context of the Holocaust and the third {“3. Forgive your worst enemy and forgive anybody who [h]as ever hurt you.”} is cripplingly bad advice.
Torture, rape, child molestation, spousal abuse, male or female – here’s a compendium of what is advised on the subject of forgiveness:
Let go of the guilt, the anger and the shame. The only person you need to forgive is yourself … for having trusted untrustworthy people … for being naive … for being too young to understand what was happening … for not knowing what to do in a situation … for dissociating … for not fighting back … for not going to the proper authorities … for going to the proper authorities … for making unwise choices …. for lacking physical strength … for making choices in extreme situations without all the information in the world available to you ….
It’s HARD.
I like what you’re saying here. You might just be zeroing in on the truth of the matter.
What a marvelous exposition, Penn. This almost exactly tracks with my assessment, but also enhances my own understanding of it considerably. But we seem to be in the minority here..
“Some things should not be forgiven, and the Holocaust is one of them.”
I’m in Amsterdam for a couple of years. The horror is everywhere and unspeakable. Never mind the Anne Frank house, which I refuse to go to. There are three little brass emblems embedded in the sidewalk in front of a house I walk past to and from the grocery store. The three emblems, as do tens of thousands all over Amsterdam, name the three people who lived in that house until they were hauled off to Auschwitz in freight cars and murdered during the German occupation of The Netherlands. Absolutely unfathomable.
And I particularly despise the use of the term “The Holocaust.” I much prefer the term “the time not very long ago in the middle of Europe when a bunch of people industrially murdered tens of millions of men, musicians, artists, intellectuals, women, girls, grandmothers, children, and infants, among others, and stole all their money and belongings.” “Holocaust” makes it sound like a hurricane or some other natural catastrophe. Same with “concentration camp.” Camp? As in summer camp? Give me a break. How about “murder factories?”
And sadly, the same thing is happening right now in The Uma, so-called. Awful.
Not forgiving means being stuck in the past. Forgiving, for one’s own sake, unburdens victims of their victimhood and allows them to pursue the remainder of their lives, not forgetting the past, but not making the past what their lives are about. (Maybe someone has already said this. There was so much to digest in the previous posts that my brain can’t really process all of it.)
It means forgetting the past. We must always keep one foot in the past. Among America;s many problems is that the vast majority either refuses to practice that or is too lazy and arrogant to try.
I firmly disagree with you on this. There are many people from my past whom I have forgiven for whatever they have done to me. I haven’t forgotten what they did to me. I learned from what they did to me. I often remember what they did to me. But those experiences no longer define me and the path of my life.
Yes, a foot, but not the soul (however you define this), in the past.
False dichotomy, and false choice. Why is forgiving a wrong-doer required to stop the wrong from defining you?
Because harboring negative feelings is psychologically damaging. Without forgiving, and avoiding forgetting, I can’t imagine being able to “put it behind me.” The negative unforgiving feelings would continue to rear up and make me re-live the original damage. Maybe that’s just uber Catholic me. But I imagine that most therapists would agree with me.
And that’s the trend that lets sociopaths run amuck in 21st century America. Bill Clinton is “forgiven,” so he gets to con us by advocating against sexual discrimination and harassment on national TV. Such people laugh at the forgiving, because they are victims. Do you TRUST those you have forgiven? If not, then it’s a self-deluding sham. If so, it’s…irresponsible.
“We must always keep one foot in the past.” Well, we must always strive to do that. But if we have learned anything about ourselves, about our history, it is that try as we might, we still fail, and forget. Laziness and arrogance certainly are causative factors. “Never again!” is sandwiched between Armenia plus a bunch more places in the past (like Nanking), and a bunch of places in the world today. As a species, humanity has proved itself over and over as incapable of preserving its own history such that doing so keeps contemporaries forever liberated from the failings of their ancestors. We haven’t figured out yet how to make the most of forgiveness (or the lack of forgiveness, or refusal to forgive).
We float and swim desperately and in vain in an ocean of what I call “grudge tides.” I wish it wasn’t so. But there it is.
Which problem yields the efficacy of cancers like moveon.org and its ilk.
I know I sound certain on this issue, but when something is an ethics quiz, it means I’m not. And usually not likely to be. So the commentary to the contrary is extremely valuable..
Jack,
You have characterized forgiveness such as Kor’s as “selfish.” NOT forgiving is less self-interested than forgiving, and is more often and more verifiably truly selfish. NOT forgiving reflects one’s donning of an “earned victimhood” that arises from a sinister self-righteousness. The rationalization for NOT forgiving is a Frankenstein’s monster of The Victim’s Distortion (#27), Ethics Accounting (#21), Hamm’s Excuse (#18), Self-validating Virtue (#14), “I deserve this!” (#11a), and, at its ultimate, unethical core, “Tit for Tat” (#7) and “Everybody does it” (#1).
I know the above is true, from personal experience and self-awareness. Perhaps not everyone struggles the same way I have, and do, with NOT forgiving. But on this topic, I’ll just say that I sense that I am a much closer kin to Kor than to you, and I can only hope the world is better for that.
Humble Talent has explained well:
“I think there’s a difference between forgiveness and abdication of responsibility. That you can forgive a person for what they’ve done to you, while still recognizing a need to hold them responsible. Forgiveness is a personal thing, which can help both victim and perpetrator, while the responsibility is a societal pressure, both as a lesson and a deterrent. Just like law and ethics aren’t always identical but might have overlap, forgiveness and responsibility are related.”
I see absolutely nothing self-righteous about refusing to forgive someone who murdered your loved ones and hundreds of thousands more. There’s no rationalization behind that at all. Not forgiving is part of the process of insisting on responsibility and accountability. We don’t have to, and should not, mistreat those we will never forgive. Withholding forgiveness is enough in many cases. And the kind of forgiveness being advocated here is probably false, a pretense, more often than not.
The tragedy and irony are in forgetting what we ought to remember, while remembering what we ought to forget.
I became a Christian when I was a teenager, and for me that meant going through a lot more inner turmoil than otherwise. I was confronting things about myself that I would likely had not considered without looking into the mirror of Jesus’ words. To make a long story short, it ended up…keeping me out of a lot of trouble.
Jesus equated fantasizing about doing wrong with actually doing the act, in terms of moral culpability before God. Hating was equal to physically hurting; lusting at a married person equal to adultery, etc. Obviously, this is not true in terms of the real-world, physical consequences of one’s actions…but from the point of view of an omniscient judge of souls, it makes sense.
The idea, as I grasp it, is that God’s judgement is over the condition of our souls; not necessarily the damage we’ve caused externally. Some people could be terrorists, rapists, or thieves, and WANT to be, but they’re too cowardly or lack opportunity. Good for the world, but not any better as a measure of their character. Only a God could know how many of us, our friends, neighbors, etc. would be monsters if they could get away with it. It is outside of our ability to make those kinds of judgements, and this, I believe, is the reason for the command to “not judge.” We cannot judge “goodness” though we can and do (and must) differentiate between good and bad behavior, punish the bad, reward the good, and assign trust and responsibility based on past history. None of this I would call “judging.”
Some of us could, and WOULD, be the villains of history had we been born in different circumstances, lacked mentors, education, parents, role models, etc. “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It’s not necessarily true (there’s no way of knowing), but it is logical that a lot of our morals, ethics, and good behavior arise from environment as well as from within. We just don’t have the tools to quantify that sort of thing.
And so there’s a need to forgive on a spiritual level, because we ourselves are ALL in need of a great deal of forgiveness before God. To put people who have committed certain deeds in an “evil” box metaphysically, while striving to picture oneself among the “good” is wrongheaded from that point of view. But apart from the metaphysical, containing and punishing evil behavior is exactly what we must do. Here on the ground, there are more practical considerations to be made concerning what is good for society.
That’s why I don’t see it as hypocritical to love one’s enemies, while, say, fighting them in a just war. In a materialist worldview, it would be hypocritical, because nouns and verbs are the only measure of anything. What good is loving someone if it doesn’t stop you from hurting them? (Now that I think about it, this may explain why materialist philosophies were behind some of history’s greatest atrocities in the last century. If you’ve already decided that you need/want to kill people, and you’ve no spiritual obligation towards them before God either…)
I forgave the man who stabbed my sister to death, not because I wanted to, but because God has commanded it. I believe that this command is for my own good, and has been. I don’t lie awake at night fuming at the man, being eaten up inside. Whether that makes it a selfish act to forgive, I’m not so sure. As discussed here, it sounds more like a healing act. If you punch me in the face, I’m not going to refuse a bandage because it would be “selfish.”
Does forgiveness enable more bad behavior? It shouldn’t, but “pop-forgiveness” probably does, due to a general lack of knowledge about what forgiveness actually is. Forgiveness does not erase accountability. I think the statement “forgive your worst enemy” feels revolting (an ick factor?) because we still physiologically equate “forgiveness” with “letting my worst enemy walk all over me.” I prefer to think of it as “the door is always open for you to win back my friendship if you make restitution for all you’ve done and apologize, because I don’t hate you.” It is a position of strength. It takes away an enemy’s ability to break your spirit, without prohibiting you from doing what’s necessary to prevent him from breaking other things. And what if there is genuine repentance on the part of the offending group/person, and a desire to break the cycle of retribution? Peace would not be possible if the wronged party could not forgive.
For me, forgiveness meant that I do genuinely hope that my sister’s killer repents, suffers the necessary amount of emotional torment that a truly sorry person would go through after committing murder, willfully chooses to spend the rest of his life in prison for what he’s done, never touches a woman again, spends the rest of his life soul-searching, and thus finds forgiveness from God (ironically, my sister’s atheist friend is the only one at the sentencing who wished that he would burn in hell.) I have the same concerns that Jack probably does about extravagant “forgiveness porn” trivializing evil, but I made it crystal clear to the jury that he deserved to, and should die (that wasn’t happening in California, but he did get life without parole), and that the only way that forgiveness was going to benefit him was if he did the above acts to prove he was sorry. Which I doubt will ever happen, seeing as he didn’t even plead “guilty” which a truly sorry person would have done. Still, I wish he had.
I thought to mention—having just read most of this thread—that there is a wonderful film by Chang-dong Lee (Korean) called “Secret Sunshine” that deals on the issue of forgiveness. The woman converts to an Evangelical form of Christianity in what appears to be a strategy to avoid her grief over the murder of her young boy and forgives his killer, and the bulk of the movie is about her discovery that she cannot. (His other film “Poetry” touches on similar themes and is one of my favourite films of all times).
It is the film-maker’s own probing of the notion of Christian forgiveness and it is really pretty brilliant. But having watched it a few times I have come to understand that he is not and perhaps cannot really enter into what is almost a ‘metaphysic’ of forgiveness, which Isaac writes about with more thoroughness.
Moderator/Author Comment:
Great, wise, diverse and enlightening discussion everybody.
You make me proud to have readers like you.