Word: confessionally
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
The anecdotes and opinions keep caroming like talk-show badinage on Olympus. They meet the traditional challenge of autobiography: to speak entertainingly about others while revealing as little as possible about yourself. It is the pose that best suits a movie director, whose art is by nature voyeuristic rather than...
The first and fatal charm of national repentance," writes I C.S. Lewis, "is the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing-but, first, of denouncing-the conduct of others." The trap, he explains, is that the...
The collective confession can turn false. It can serve as convenient camouflage for bitter accusation. But Lewis is too pessimistic. There are authentic expressions of national contrition. And they are as moving as they are rare. This year has seen several remarkable examples: the American apology to France for having...
What distinguishes the authentic national confession from the counterfeit? For one thing, there is no confusion of we and they. We remain responsible, even if the crime was in fact committed by them. As when Japan's Foreign Minister apologized on behalf of the entire nation for the 1972...
For an individual or a society, that capacity is a sign of life, of vitality, of a soul that can still be moved. Some societies have too much such life. A convulsed revolutionary society (like Mao's China) lives by mass mobilization, mass emotion and mass confession. Continual revolution...