Individual Responsibility and Guilt

 

A review of Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) by Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman is a philosopher who has written well-regarded books on Kant and on the problem of evil. Last year she published a book with an unusual title: Learning From the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil.  Neiman lives in Berlin and directs the Einstein Forum. She is interested in how Germans deal with the crimes of the Nazi era. In her opinion, Germans after World War II ended were largely defensive, refusing to own up to their guilt. Nowadays, though, things are better.

German youth feels appropriately guilty, though much work remains to be done.

Matters have so much improved in Germany, she contends, that Americans who live in the South can learn from the way German youth accepts guilt for the past and seeks atonement. Southerners need to acknowledge guilt for slavery, segregation, and lynching. To help them do so, Neiman spent time in Mississippi and participated in another discussion forum.

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