Breaking the Cycles of Hatred
Memory, Law, and Repair
Introduction
MEMORY, LAW, AND REPAIR
NANCY L. ROSENBLUM
You ask me to renew
A grief so desperate that the very thought
Of speaking of it tears my heart in two.
But if my words may be a seed that bears
The fruit of infamy for him I gnaw,
I shall weep, but tell my story through my tears.
-COUNT UGOLINO IN DANTE,
The Inferno, Canto XXXIII
Every injustice arouses anger, or should. A capacity to understand and
feel injustice is the mark of moral maturity; a taste for oppression is
the mark of moral deformation. "To have no idea of what it means to be
treated unjustly is to have no moral knowledge, no moral life." But of
the many faces of injustice, violent hatred stands out. These crimes
betray exceptional viciousness and inflict exceptional pain. They evoke
especially strong feelings because they exhibit none of the randomness or
misfortune of many forms of injury. The intent to terrorize, injure, and
degrade is intensely personal. The perpetrator belie ... read full excerpt from Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law, and Repair ebook
