Collective guilt and responsibility: Some reflections

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 307-318

  Alweiss, Lilian ^a  

^a TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

Author keywords

A. Margalit; B. Williams; Guilt; H. Arendt; Moral; Personal and collective responsibility; Political; Shame

Indexed keywords

EID: 33751556028     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885103002003004     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. H. Arendt (1945) 'Organized Guilt and Universal Responsibility', in J. Kohn (ed.) (1994) Essays in Understanding, pp. 12 1-32, p. 121. London: Harcourt Brace.
2. This essay was originally published under the title of 'German Guilt' (1945) Jewish Frontier 12.
3. The proposal itself was never implemented. The victors in 1945 did not assume collective guilt, hence the Nuremberg Trials.
4. Ibid. p.126.
5. Ibid. p.131.
6. Ibid. p.132.
7. Ibid. p.131.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid. p.132.
11. M. Heidegger (1962) Being and Time, tr. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, section 12, p. 56. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
12. Arendt (n. I), p.127.
13. H. Arendt (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, p. 251. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
14. G.W.F. Hegel (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A.V. Miller, section 658, p. 400. Oxford: Oxford University Press. For Arendt it is the loss of such a shared sense of responsibility that has given rise to Nazism and totalitarianism. The loss of civic virtue and civic responsibility has enabled the possibility of desk-murderers such as Eichmann. Murderers of his ilk were normal job holders, bureaucrats and good family men, concerned with nothing other than economic security. Their goal was not to create and sustain a world in common through political action but to enhance their own well-being. Politics was purely a means to some personal ends. Since they saw their private self as completely separate from their public self, they could say with a clear conscience that they were acting purely in their professional capacity. They were good functionaries and nothing more. What Arendt deplores most is that they lacked a sense of responsibility as members of a political community; what they thereby lost was a shared sense of reality. Arendt believes that such political abdication of responsibility defines our modern condition.
15. Arendt here refers to G.E. Lessing's play Nathan the Wise which addresses the idea of religious tolerance.
16. H. Arendt (1955) 'On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing', in Men in Dark Times, pp.3-31, pp. 17-18. London: Lowe & Brydone.
17. Arendt (n. 1), p. 23.
18. Heidegger (n. 10), section 29, p. 135.
19. H. Arendt (1987) 'Collective Responsibility', in J. Bernauer (ed.) Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt, pp. 43-50. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
20. One of the main concerns in Arendt's work is that in modern times the authentic meaning of both public and private has been obscured by the rise of another category that she calls the social. Cf. H. Arendt (1958) The Human Condition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21. Arendt warns that we would only be playing into the hands of Nazi warfare were we to believe it possible to argue from a position of moral superiority: In political terms, the idea of humanity - excluding no people and assigning a monopoly of guilty to no-one, is the only guarantee that one 'superior race' after another may not feel obligated to follow the 'natural law' of the right of the powerful and exterminate 'inferior races' unworthy of survival; so that at the end of an imperialistic age we should find ourselves at a stage which would make the Nazis look like crude precursors of future political methods.
22. Arendt (n. 1), p. 131.
23. Indeed it is questionable whether the Germans paid reparations willingly or whether they yielded to political pressures. However, this is not a question I shall address in this article.
24. Needless to say, the German Democratic Republic did not accept liability.
25. A. Margalit (2000) Ethik der Erinnerung: Max Horkheimer Vorlesung. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch.
26. Ethik der Erinnerung: Max Horkheimer Vorlesung Ibid. p. 56.
27. Ethik der Erinnerung: Max Horkheimer Vorlesung Ibid. p. 29.
28. Ethik der Erinnerung: Max Horkheimer Vorlesung. Ibid., p. 57; my emphasis.
29. Ethik der Erinnerung: Max Horkheimer Vorlesung Ibid.
30. J. Habermas (2001) 'Glaube und Wissen: Zum Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels: Eine Dankrede', unpublished.
31. Arendt believes that forgiveness is necessary in politics. It releases the agent from the unintended yet irreversible consequences of his or her actions. Forgiveness is not based on the sentiment of love but inspired by respect. Forgiveness, unlike guilt, is forwardlooking; it constitutes a shared world: Forgiving serves to undo the deeds of the past, whose 'sins' hang like Damocles' sword over every new generation., ., Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer's apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell. (Arendt (1958, in n. 18), p. 131) Yet, it seems that forgiveness equally implies an acknowledgement of guilt. We can only grant forgiveness if we assume someone to be guilty in the first place.
32. I should like to thank my colleague William Lyons for drawing my attention to the phenomenon of shame.
33. Or as Arendt observes: 'The normal reaction to this state of affairs would be indignation' (Arendt (n. 12), p. 251).
34. J.P. Sartre (1958) Being and Nothingness, tr. Hazel E. Barnes, p. 277. London: Routledge.
35. Being and Nothingness Ibid. p. 222.
36. B. Williams (1993) Shame and Necessity, p. 82. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
37. Arendt (n. 1), p. 131.
38. Williams (n. 33), p. 94.
39. In the same way guilt may well account for our personal responsibility yet this does not prove in any way that it is an essential component.