Various Responses to Simon's Dilemma 3
* The Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is one of the most prestigious spiritual leaders of Buddhism not only in his own country,
As a Buddhist spiritual leader, he asserts that we “should forgive persons who have committed crimes against oneself and humankind.”(129) According to him, however, this forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting those atrocities. Instead, it is necessary not to forget in order to prevent such atrocities from reoccurring. Thus, his opinion to
However,
From this perspective, she argues that the dying SS man’s request for forgiveness was wrong in following two reasons: firstly, by asking forgiveness, the dying SS man was asking
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Ozick starts her essay by mentioning the fact that the dying SS Nazi has Catholic education. However, whether or not the dying SS man had Catholic education before does not have any significant meaning in this story. So this fact has nothing to do with the question of forgiveness.
Secondly, Ozick reveals that the Third Reich was a sort of Moloch state demanding human’s live flesh and blood to live on by citing the Second Commandment of the bible. If that is the case, how can we deal with these collective crimes? Ozick asserts the necessity of vengeance, not forgiveness. She argues that forgiveness is possible only when there is a possibility of repentance on the condition that there will not be the same mistake. However, if a murderer kills somebody, this murder cannot be “revocable” and “reversible.” In these extreme cases, she argues that there is no room for forgiveness to the dying Nazi soldier.
Of course, Ozick admits, even if we revenge somebody, this act will not also be able to bring the dead back. Yes, it is true. But this vengeance can bring public justice to evil. Contrary to public justice, forgiveness sometimes became merciless to victims, not to murderers. “Vengeance, only vengeance, knows pity for the victims,” she says.
In the last part of the essay, Ozick deals with the problem of moral responsibility. As we already know, the dying SS personnel was not the same as other brutal SS soldiers; he had a moral temperament. He was educated in Catholic Church. He was also intelligent enough to think what his crimes would bring about.
However, Ozick argues that this difference cannot be a tool for immunity privilege of the SS man’s crimes. Rather, the Nazi soldier should be punished more severely than other brainless brutes because he committed the same crimes even though he had conscience and sensibility. “The intelligent man of conscience also shovels in the babies, and it does not matter that he does it without exaltation. Conscience, education, insight – nothing stops him. He goes on shoveling. --- He is a morally sensitive man, and he shovels babies to glut the iron stomach of the idol. --- The morally sensitive SS man goes on shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.”(219) Here Ozick seems to insinuate the heavy moral responsibility of the intellectuals.
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However, he asserts that we should differentiate ordinary soldiers from the leadership of the regime because what they did was to follow the orders from the above under the threat of death. Even though these ordinary soldiers are not without guilt, “there is a chasm between someone who intentionally plots to destroy the very souls of people and someone who is not only stupid and brainwashed, but fears death enough to be forced to do wrong.”(232) In this perspective, Pran says he would have forgiven the dying SS man if he were
His argument on (the necessity of the) distinction between the top leadership of Khmer Rouge and ordinary soldiers is very interesting point and seems to be very useful especially when we judge the degree of crimes. However, the problem is that this kind of distinction is not evident from the beginning. Sometimes it may be very difficult to differentiate those who are mainly responsible for the crimes from those who involuntarily follow the orders. How about those who voluntarily followed the orders or voluntarily involved in such crimes without any physical or mental threats? Should we forgive them? How and why?
Furthermore, it may be also argued that the distinction between two groups of criminals has nothing to do with forgiveness. Even though someone admits the necessity of the distinction between two or three (or more) groups of people according to their relative degrees of crimes, he or she can also argue that they do not deserve to be forgiven. In other words, the differentiation of the degree of crime has nothing to do with forgiveness because it is not about moral judgment but about the issue of legal punishment.
Thus, once again the question of forgiveness still remains untouched. Should we forgive the dying SS man. His relative degree of guilt is, of course, slighter than
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Furthermore, the author argues that
Even though the feeling of mercy and pity is one of the most significant virtues in Buddhist teachings, however, I think the author’s argument does not have any relevance to
Secondly, if human beings are surely supposed to suffer continuously in later world due to their misdeeds in this world, there is no room for forgiveness in this world. Nobody can forgive someone who commits crimes because he or she will surely be suffering someday in the later world due to his or her own deeds. Thus if we once accept the principle of chain rule of suffering, we don’t have to decide to forgive or not to forgive the criminals. In other words, this basic circular viewpoint of the world contradicts to another Buddhist principles; so-called unconditional possibility of forgiveness.
Thirdly, I cannot accept this Buddhist’s indiscriminative attitudes toward victims and perpetrators. It may be true that “inner transformation” is the most important moment for both victims and perpetrator. However, most innocent victims are already dead without having chances for what is called inner transformation or giving forgiveness to perpetrators. The problem was that
Finally, it is surprising to see this Buddhist’s ignorance of the situations. Ricard does not want to see the situations where
In sum,
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However, there seems to be nontrivial difference between these examples
For them, forgiveness may be “practical politics.” But, for
From this significantly different circumstance emerge Simon’s dilemma: he had to decide to forgive or not to forgive the dying SS man when he was a prisoner of concentration camp, not as a investigation commission member; he had to accept lots of innocent Jewish people’s death as their common fate in the camp; under this gruesome circumstance he also had to decide whether or not he could forgive the dying, repenting SS man on behalf of other Jewish victims.
Once this different situation is considered, then the question of forgiveness can be justifiably brought back to Tutu and other South African leaders in different form: Can you forgive them if you were still in the position of victims? Can you forgive white racist police officers, who are torturing you, intimidating you, killing your loving sons and daughters, if you are still forced into as a prisoner of Apartheid camp? Can you justifiably say that forgiveness is always practical politics in such a situation?
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Upon released from the camp, he had a chance to meet Comrade Ma who played major role in his indictment and imprisonment. However, she did not apologized to him or asked for his forgiveness. Instead, she advised him to forget the past.
In the end, Wu says that he would not have forgiven the Nazi soldier on his deathbed, but “I would have been able to say to him: I understand why you were a part of a horrible and vicious society. You are responsible for your own actions but everyone else in this society shares that same responsibility with you.”(274)
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