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Article: History and conscience: on pride, shame and historical reflection.(History)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- September 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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HOW SHOULD NATIONS react to their history? Is it legitimate to feel pride for what our ancestors achieved? Is it legitimate to feel guilt or shame for their sins?
If human beings were creatures of pure logic, neither reaction would be legitimate. Go back a hundred years and whatever our ancestors did, we cannot possibly be congratulated or blamed, in all logic. We simply were not there. And yet people do feel pride and guilt or shame about their ancestors, both the remote ones, occasionally, and the ones quite near in time, rather more often. There is, moreover, a further problem. What differences are there between the concepts of "guilt" and "shame"?
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