Word: confessionally
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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...
He sat before the Supreme Soviet while his startling admission of incompetency was read out: "I . . . request to be relieved." There was a reason for Malenkov's whimper: the regime could not afford a bang. So came his odd confession and the clumsy charade that followed: 1,300 hands...