Honest Patriots : Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its MisdeedsIn Honest Patriots, renowned public theologian and ethicist Donald W. Shriver, Jr. argues that we must acknowledge and repent of the morally negative events in our nation's past. The failure to do so skews the relations of many Americans to one another, breeds ongoing hostility, and damages the health of our society. Yet our civic identity today largely rests on denials, forgetfulness, and inattention to the memories of neighbors whose ancestors suffered great injustices at the hands of some dominant majority. Shriver contends that repentance for these injustices must find a place in our political culture. Such repentance must be carefully and deliberately cultivated through the accurate teaching of history, by means of public symbols that embody both positive and negative memory, and through public leadership to this end. Religious people and religious organizations have an important role to play in this process. Historically, the Christian tradition has concentrated on the personal dimensions of forgiveness and repentance to the near-total neglect of their collective aspects. Recently, however, the idea of collective moral responsibility has gained new and public visibility. Official apologies for past collective injustice have multiplied, along with calls for reparations. Shriver looks in detail at the examples of Germany and South Africa, and their pioneering efforts to foster and express collective repentance. He then turns to the historic wrongs perpetrated against African Americans and Native Americans and to recent efforts by American citizens and governmental bodies to seek public justice by remembering public injustice. The call for collective repentance presents many challenges: What can it mean to morally master a past whose victims are dead and whose sufferings cannot be alleviated? What are the measures that lend substance to language and action expressing repentance? What symbolic and tangible acts produce credible turns away from past wrongs? What are the dynamics-psychological, social, and political-whereby we can safely consign an evil to the past? How can public life witness to corporate crimes of the past in such a way that descendents of victims can be confident that they will never be repeated? In his provocative answers to these questions Shriver creates a compelling new vision of the collective repentance and apology that must precede real progress in relations between the races in this country. |
From inside the book
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Page iv
... Moral conditions — 20th century . 5. Reparation — United States . 6. Restitution — United States . 7. Reconciliation . 8. Victims of crime - United States . 9. United States - Politics and government— History — 20th century . I. Title .
... Moral conditions — 20th century . 5. Reparation — United States . 6. Restitution — United States . 7. Reconciliation . 8. Victims of crime - United States . 9. United States - Politics and government— History — 20th century . I. Title .
Page 3
... moral assessments of the German, South African, and American past seemed almost impossi- ble. On that day, December 31, 9/11 + 111, my fingers returned to the keyboard with a new understanding of how difficult this book is to write. In ...
... moral assessments of the German, South African, and American past seemed almost impossi- ble. On that day, December 31, 9/11 + 111, my fingers returned to the keyboard with a new understanding of how difficult this book is to write. In ...
Page 4
... moral , psycho- logical , and political health , Americans need to remember more accurately and more publicly than has been the habit of our culture to date . On the face of it and for the moment , such a project encounters , in 9/11 ...
... moral , psycho- logical , and political health , Americans need to remember more accurately and more publicly than has been the habit of our culture to date . On the face of it and for the moment , such a project encounters , in 9/11 ...
Page 5
... moral and historical sense makes them ashamed but who have done so , not in a spirit of moralism but with explicit intention to confront a past for the sake of ridding the present and future of its lingering effects . I will call that ...
... moral and historical sense makes them ashamed but who have done so , not in a spirit of moralism but with explicit intention to confront a past for the sake of ridding the present and future of its lingering effects . I will call that ...
Page 6
... moral clarity. Most of all, however, the book concentrates on actions of citizens who, in recent years, have sought to demonstrate that there are forms of public action that constitute public repentance for flaws in how we have ...
... moral clarity. Most of all, however, the book concentrates on actions of citizens who, in recent years, have sought to demonstrate that there are forms of public action that constitute public repentance for flaws in how we have ...
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
In the Wake of Remembered Evil | 63 |
To African Americans | 127 |
Photo gallery | 206 |
Native Americans | 207 |
Agenda for the American Future | 263 |
Notes | 287 |
Bibliography | 333 |
Index | 339 |
Other editions - View all
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds Donald W. Shriver Limited preview - 2005 |
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds Donald W. Shriver Jr. Limited preview - 2005 |
Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember Its Misdeeds Donald W. Shriver Jr. Limited preview - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
African Americans Afrikaner Alex Boraine American history apartheid Berlin Boraine camp Cape Town Cayugas celebration century church citizens civil rights claim Columbia County Commission contemporary culture death debate Desmond Tutu District Six English event evil F. W. De Klerk forget former future German groups high school history historians history books Holocaust hope human Ibid Indians injustice Jewish Jews justice Lakota land leaders lives Mandela memory million Mohicans monument moral murder museum Native Americans Nazi neighbors never Niebuhr official Oklahoma past political Powhatan prison question quoted racism recent Reconciliation remember reparations residents responsibility Richmond riot Robben Island Rosewood settlers side slavery slaves society South African southern Steglitz story suffering survivors teachers thousand tion Todd-Curti truth Tulsa Tulsa Race Riot United University victims Virginia visitors York young