Responding to wrong doing

Abstract

I argue that educators, by introducing young people to various ways of responding to wrongdoing, help prepare them for the task of acting in and taking responsibility for the world. I begin by (a) introducing Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the world, the characteristics of action as unpredictable, boundless and irreversible, i.e. the frailty of human affairs. I then move to (b) what Arendt calls the ‘power of forgiveness.’ Forgiving is an action, and as such is free and unpredictable. Moreover, (c) forgiving concerns the person not the deed. To understand the implications of this, I introduce Arendt’s understanding of being a person in distinction to being merely human. I then ask whether all deeds are forgivable, which brings me to (d) the new crime against humanity. Finally, I ask (e) whether one can be reconciled to acts, such as genocide and whether solidarity with the wrongdoer is possible.