Follow-up on forgiveness, and anti-Semitism, and sharing one's life narrative

A couple of quick follow-ups on yesterday's Wiesenthal post.  I wrote:

Somehow, my radical left-wing politics did not exclude a most unattractive sympathy for certain aging veterans of the Third Reich.

MRAboy makes some interesting points in his comment; let me be clear about what I meant.  In my adolescence, despite my youthful socialism, I developed a rather typical fascination with the Nazis.  It's a very common adolescent phase actually, especially in boys -- every semester, I have one or two male students who report (improbably) having read everything written about Hitler and the Nazis.  My cheap psychological analysis is that in a world that has chosen to label the Nazis as the ultimate embodiment of human evil, some young men, motivated by that age-old desire to offend their elders, will develop a passionate fascination with the Third Reich.  Others will become obsessed with serial killers.  One presumes that it is a phase; I know it was with me.

As a Christian adult, however, I believe very strongly that we are called to forgive everyone who has wronged us.  That does mean everyone; MRAboy (as much as I almost hate to admit it) is dead on in quoting Matthew 5 here.   Forgiving those who have done the greatest injury to us is of paramount importance.  As a Christian, I don't believe that anyone -- Hitler, Mengele, Saddam, Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer -- is beyond the scope of God's forgiveness.  And in so much as any of these have wronged me personally, I am of course called to forgive them.

But where the Holocaust or similar atrocities are concerned, I am reluctant to preach forgiveness.  Ultimately, as I think most theologians have said, the decision to forgive or not lies with those who have been most wounded.   Though family members whom I never knew did perish in the Shoah, I was not personally harmed by the Nazis.   Therefore, it is of little importance whether I "forgive" the Nazis or not.  What matters is what those most terribly impacted by the Nazis choose to do.  And since I have not suffered as they have suffered, it would be the height of insensitivity and arrogance to insist that they forgive their tormentors.  The words of Christian forgiveness come lightly to my lips, because the injuries that others have done to me in this life have been few and slight.  I cannot honestly imagine the suffering of the survivors of a genocide, and will not prescribe how they ought to deal with those who inflicted that suffering upon them.

Sally writes:

I guess I'm a little curious about what you think is behind your penchant for revealing personal details that portray you in the worst possible light. And how, exactly, do you expect Jewish readers to react to the fact that you hated us when you were 15?

Well, the snippy answer to the first question is that I can afford more candor than most people. Tenure has its privileges, folks, and that is one of them.  The larger answer is that my faith tells me that my life -- indeed, everyone's life -- is an unfolding narrative of personal and spiritual growth.  One use of this blog is to document that growth, not merely for the amusement and edification of others, but to remind myself of how far I've come and how far I've still got to go.

You know what mystifies me about most "adult" blogs?  The certainty that most people have!  I've always been bewildered by those who are so clear on right and wrong.   Most folks don't seem to give voice to their doubts and their uncertainties.  We allow adolescents to do it on Livejournal, but we consider a combination of personal disclosure and intense ambivalence to be unseemly in an almost forty-something adult.  But I've spent years and years affecting an outer confidence that didn't match my insides.  I spent years and years covering up my "youthful indiscretions" and the rather unflattering secrets (like a puerile anti-Semitism) of my past.  Even now, I assure you, I keep a great many things private, largely to honor the dignity of those who love and have loved me -- above all, my darling wife.

So yeah, I am not afraid to disclose unpleasant aspects of  my past.  Yes, there's a narcissistic element to it.  But I've yet to see the non-narcissistic blog!  My goal is not to elicit shock or admiration; my goal is to document a man's journey towards becoming who it was that he was meant to be.   I''ve still got so far to go! If I can go a bit over the top into the evangelical rhetoric of which I am so fond, so much more of my filth still needs to be purified in the refiner's fire!  But as I go through that process, a process that will only end with my death, I want -- in some small way -- to offer encouragement to others who are struggling.

As for the second part of Sally's question, let me say this.  I have personally asked forgiveness from a number of Jewish friends and institutions.  When I was teaching abroad in Italy five years ago, I did a whole class on the Italian Holocaust.  I took my students to many synagogues and Jewish cultural centers.  I led them through the ghetto of Venice, which I still consider to be one of the places on all the Earth where I have felt God's presence most intensely.  I did everything I could to help my entirely non-Jewish class understand the horrors of the Holocaust and the unique and magnificent history of this most extraordinary of peoples.  Is that adequate penance for adolescent anti-Semitism?  I don't know.  But it left me feeling cleansed, and more importantly, my own passion for the subject had a profound impact on a number of my students, who were deeply affected by the course and our travels.

Is that enough for my Jewish readers?  My Jewish acquaintances?  I don't know.

I need to pick a Thursday Short Poem, and work on a lecture on nineteenth-century lesbian history and romantic friendships.  More soon.

Comments

[djw]

I think I agree with everything you wrote, but I think we ought to be as clear as possible about our terms, specifically, forgiveness. I think we ought to distinguish forgiveness, in the spiritual sense, from a reduction in the vigor of our search for justice against those who have perpetrated crimes against humanity. The former is much more personal than social and political.

The forgiveness question doesn't seem that complicated to me. In a spiritual sense, we needn't reach a consensus; it's a matter for each harmed individual to struggle with and reach a conclusion. We don't need to reach some sort of social consensus, and I'm not sure there is much to be gained by trying. Furthermore, support for vigorous pursuit and prosecution for the violation of the law and crimes against humanity don't preclude forgiveness in a spiritual sense; in fact, for many, the latter might be a precondition for the former--it's hard to imagine forgiving the genocidal war criminal who is living comfortably in hiding, extending his crime by avoiding responsibility for it.

[Sally]

One use of this blog is to document that growth, not merely for the amusement and edification of others, but to remind myself of how far I've come and how far I've still got to go.

This seems disingenuous. If the purpose of what you write here were merely to remind yourself of what a putrid asshole you were as a young man, you could do it in private. You wouldn't feel the need to burden the rest of us with that knowledge. And for what it's worth, I don't think I'm particularly amused or edified by the knowledge that someone I respect hated my guts for no good reason when I was a very small child.

Is that enough for my Jewish readers? My Jewish acquaintances? I don't know.

Oh, give me a break. We probably all did things we're not proud of when we were 15. You don't need to perform penance as far as I'm concerned. I just don't really want to wake up in the morning to the cheerful news that seemingly nice people used to loathe me. It just makes it harder for me to read everything else you have to say wth an open mind, and that's a shame, because you have all sorts of good and interesting things to say.

[Hugo]

Sally, if taking me seriously hinges on not knowing the truth about who I am and who I've been, I'd rather you simply dismiss me. I'm not willing to sacrifice candor in order to gain a wider audience or to maintain respect. Perhaps that's a self-destructive failing.

[Sally]

Um, ok.

Maybe once you've told all the Jews to go away, you'll have a nice, comfortable blog where you can admit that you were a bigot and everyone will hug you and tell you it's no big deal. That'll probably be more effective than implying that Jews should prove that we're as good and forgiving as Christians by saying that you're "cleansed" because you taught a class and went on some field trips.

[NancyP]

Not being Jewish, I don't take immediate offense to Hugo stating that he was a collosal (but nonviolent) ass at age 15 and that he grew out of it. It didn't directly hurt me then, and it doesn't hurt me now. However, it might be MORE interesting to figure out why some people grow out of it and others get stuck in hate mode, since as Hugo indicates, going through a phase of adolescent hate/savior complex/fascination with violence is fairly common, especially for boys.

[Mr. Bad]

Hugo et al.,

I know that there are many men - MRAs and others - who view feminists and their allies the same way that Jews view you vis-a-vis your dabbling in Nazi politics as a youth. We can try to forgive such people - mostly women - who either proclaim feminism or at the very least enjoy the advantages, privileges and other spoils that feminists have provided women in Western societies, but at the end of the day we pretty much consider any person who isn't an anti-feminist the way the Sallys of the world view anyone who isn't an anti-Nazi.

Food for thought.

[Anthony]

Having gone through a phase similar to yours, though pre-adolescent, and more fascinated with Prussian militarism than with the Nazis (and never anti-Semitic - I had Jewish friends growing up), I think at least part of the attraction is not the attraction to evil for the sake of shocking the adults, but instead the attraction to the martial virtues, which is of a piece with boys' fascination with toy soldiers, toy guns, images of war, and football. I think these things become especially attractive to boys because schools de-emphasize or suppress these things, and most teachers are female. Turning towards Nazism is a pathological aspect of something which is otherwise normal.

[Andrea]

Sally, that's off-center. Nothing in what he wrote suggested he wished to tell anyone to go away. I understand your feelings to a degree--I would have a hard time entirely trusting someone who, for example, once held virulent anti-Mormon views as a teenager(since I'm LDS), and yeah, I'd be afraid of finding more reasons to dislike someone I initially admired. But do you really want him to pretend it didn't happen? Stupid teenage prejudice is part of who a person is, and reading about someone overcoming it can be a constructive and evocative experience. Might help those who are still in the process--who knows?

djw, I agree with your distinction. forgiveness doesn't mean impunity for criminals. It's an internal, individual process that may strongly affect how we treat a given offender during the process of justice, but by no means prevents a society from meting out appropriate punishments for crimes.

[Rachel]

Your candor about what you perceive to be your failings is one of the reasons I most enjoy your blog, Hugo. As a writer of poetry (which often draws on the autobiographical) and personal essays (which almost always do), I'm fascinated by the transformative possibilities inherent in telling and retelling one's story...and I admire your openness about who you have been, who you are now, and who you hope to become.

To me, the process that you're engaged in has some similarities to what Jews call teshuvah, usually translated as "repentance" but more literally meaning something like "return." We're called-upon to do teshuvah at all times, of course, but it's a particular focus during the month leading up to the Days of Awe, and during the Days of Awe themselves. In teshuvah, we closely examine who we are and who we wish to be; we acknowledge the ways in which we have committed chet (usually translated as "sin," though it's actually an archery term meaning "missing the mark"); we seek to fix what is broken within us and in our relationships; and in so doing, we return to connection with God, who was waiting for us all along.

In that spirit -- may this continual process of revealing yourself to your friends and readers be helpful in your journey towards wholeness!

[Jonathan Dresner]

Jewish tradition distinguishes between sins against God and injuries against fellow humans: in the former case, it is between the penitent and God, and repentance (Teshuvah)requires not only supplication but an active "turning away" from sin; in the latter case, it is between the individuals involved, and even in the absence of a grant of forgiveness, the penitent is excused if they have made reparation and asked sincerely for forgiveness thrice.

I would not presume to know God's reaction to Hugo's life thus far, but he seems to fit the definitions well enough. With regard to the latter case, it isn't clear to me, aside from a mild discomfort, that he did "harm" to anyone to whom he should be forced to make reparation; except perhaps in the general sense of adding to a social problem, but his teaching and ministry since his maturity would fall into the category of suitable reparations, at least in my book.

It is actually somewhat heartening to hear of someone who struggled with this particular demon and won; perhaps it is more common than we think, but so far all we really know is that some, and we don't know what share, of the teens who pass through that particular "dark valley" do not come through as well, or at all.

[Dan]

What good does it do to continue to burn with hatred of the Nazis, who are nearly all dead now anyway? I believe that underlying Christ's commandment to forgive and love is the truth that hate enslaves, and love liberates.