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Journal DaytonCIM's Journal: Youth and the Decisions Made 14

Journal by DaytonCIM

Guenter Grass

Should we punish a man for a decision he made 61 years ago?

Should we weight that which he did at 17 over that which he did in the subsequent 61-years? Including winning a Nobel Prize for Literature? And promoting peace over aggression?

And if you're wondering what did Grass do to promote peace? Read The Tin Drum.

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Youth and the Decisions Made More

Youth and the Decisions Made

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  • I'm fairly sure we lost more troops than Poland did in that war, and we began handing out citizenships, what like the day after? I think Poland should get over it. Germany's not going to come pouring over the border anytime soon. Seriously.

    • Poland lost about 16% of their POPULATION in WWII. Only Lithuania and USSR come close to this figure. If you are going to practice moral relativism, please do elementary research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualt i es [wikipedia.org] "We" gave citizenships to war criminals and their accomplices. Not a real high bar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_paperclip [wikipedia.org]
      • whoa! thanks for the link. My only point is that it's been a looooong time. I of course don't really expect someone someone to just drop it so easily. I was only saying it should be about time to I'd think. 61 years is an awful long time to hold a grudge against someone who

        a> didn't kill your father

        and

        b> seems to be a productive member of your society.

        Not that I can claim to understand, I'm not a 70-ish year old man who lost his dad 65-ish years ago. Of course my dad is a pecker head so what do I
        • Sure. I didn't mean to be so catty, as it seemed, either. Gunther Grass presents a problem now, only for those who see people and things as polarities. Good/bad, etc. Because he was such an advocate and gifted illustrator of a particular inhumanity, it is unsettling to know - but also understandable - that he was voluntarily involved. To the rigid thinker, this imperils the validity of his work and art. I believe that it adds to its complexity, and provides another context for the emrgence of his consc
      • Paperclip was necessary, as distasteful as the deeds some of them were part of, the Rosenburg's and the Alger Hiss' of the world were breeding a far worse threat than even Hitler's dead regime.
        • To save free societies, we must use the method of fascists? Again, I call this a heineous moral relativism. The next thing you'll say is that Operation Gladio - which culminated in the murder of an Italian Prime Minister that was blamed on the Red Brigades - was a gift to the Jeffersonian ideal.
          • Rocketry and other scientific knowledege is not good or evil by itself, it's the deeds done with the technology we need to worry about. Without Von Braun and the other paperclip scientists, would we have been able to reach the moon by now, much less 37 years ago? How about maintaining a deterent to the Soviets with ICBM's? The fischer-troph process which may keep the peak oilers weting their beds for a couple of centuries? How about the friggin IC's that are allowing us to have this discussion. All of
  • That's pretty much the summary of Les Miserables: At what point has a man sufficiently redeemed himself that persecution of past crimes should stop?
    • I hardly think that revoking one's honorary citizenship qualifies as "persecution". And Grass lied about it until quite recently. Not to mention the fact that Poles have ample reason to be sensitive about SS activities on their territory (yes, I know, Grass was Waffen SS, and apparently not involved with either concentration camps or Poland itself).

      If they want to revoke the honorary citizenship on the basis of his lying about his wartime status for sixty years - and knowing that there would never been an
      • Jean Valjean lied about his status for years, too, as Madeline, mayor of Montreuil.
        • Having one's honorary citizenship revoked is hardly comparable to being sent to the galleys. And enlisting in the Waffen SS is something quite different from stealing a loaf of bread.

          I don't think that I would vote to revoke it, because he is a worthy person regardless of what he did at age 17. But I am not a citizen of Poland or Gdansk. I don't think that their conclusion is of necessity unjustified. However, in something like this compassion tells more of a person that righteousness. Rather than usin
          • And that's where Javert comes in - he was doing what was legally right, but morally wrong. That's why he committed suicide in the end - he finally came to understand this this conflict existed within himself, but could not reconcile it.

            Obviously Poland won't commit "suicide", but the two stories have some high-level similarities, even if the details are very different.
            • It's been more than thirty years since I've read the novel, so the nuances are probably lost from my memory. What I would really like to see is some other city recognize him for who he is now, rather than who he was sixty years ago.
              • these decisions are never supposed to be easy.

                I can only hope that who i am now mitigates who i used to be.

                One of my brothers and i have long talks about who we used to be versus who we are. We have not come to any conclusions, nor do we really expect to: all that we have come up with is that we are not who we were, and that that's a good thing, and that we hope it's enough.

                Should my accomplishments be considered less because i have hurt people? (i have.) What if they were people you knew? (they probably we

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