Should anyone be ashamed of their nation’s history? Should anyone be proud of it?
In modern laws, if a person dies with unpaid debts, the legal heir, carrying the man’s name forward, does not inherit the unpaid debt, only the responsibility not to repeat such deeds in the future. However, suppose the heir inherits the estate (benefits) of his forebear. In that case, they become actively involved in the wrongdoing committed by their predecessor, as they are either benefiting from resources that do not belong to them, or someone else is being negatively impacted by the consequences of this wrongdoing. They now have to pay the price by giving up the privileges where they are owed, that is, relinquishing their inheritance until the debt is paid.1 This criterion defines the relationship between an individual and the deeds of his forebear.
Yet, there are no such academically agreed-upon guidelines on one’s emotional relationship with their nation’s history. In this essay, I argue that members of a nation should have nuanced emotions towards their history and should subject their emotions to moral reasoning framed by a fundamental criterion similar to matters of inherited debt. First, I assert that the nation belonging to perpetrators of historical injustice, in all cases, holds the moral obligation of being collectively responsible for the consequences of their nation’s history. Second, just as legal heirs are only bound to repay debts when they inherit assets from the debtor or passively cause harm to the creditor, members of a nation are deemed guilty for historical injustices only when they benefit from them or when the harm persists, given that the perpetrating nation is/was governed by the political entity that commits the crime. Pride, on the other hand, is often misplaced in instances of dominance or superiority. To avoid such misrepresentation of historic events, as well as ensure effective usage of emotions in action, I insist that pride in historic events is only justified when it reflects moral progress, especially by a nation that has been a victim of injustice.
To prove my thesis, I shall first clarify my intention behind the word ‘nation’ in this context. The Britannica dictionary distinguishes a nation and a state by defining the former as “a group of people with a common language, history, culture, and (usually) geographic territory,” while a state is defined as “an association of people characterized by formal institutions of government, including laws; permanent territorial boundaries; and sovereignty.”2 This distinction is imperative in the context of this essay, as we presume that all members of a nation share a common history (suffered a common injustice) and a collective identity (shaped by that injustice), which cannot be assumed when we define a nation as a political entity. For example, Poland as a state has an ambiguous stance on its role in the Holocaust, preventing us from making a moral judgment on its ideal emotional status. Contrastly, the Jewish nation, spread across Europe, lacks a single state and continues to retain a shared historical memory that shapes its collective identity.
The first argument I intend to present shall establish moral grounds for a nation’s members to take collective responsibility for their history. However, rather than facing the consequences of actions they had no agency over or trying to find loopholes in political theories, nations should take collective responsibility not as a burden but a moral acknowledgement of ‘to do otherwise would be wrong.’
Germany remains the best example of successfully carrying out collective responsibility by a nation. 96% of German school students receive compulsory Holocaust education by age 16. 3The German government has officially apologized for and acknowledged the atrocities committed during the Holocaust and has been paying reparations to the victims and their descendants who were affected by it up until 2023.4 The institutionalization of collective responsibility in Germany has led to increasing trust in the country. 72% of Israeli respondents (Jewish) in a 2021 survey said that Germany is ‘trustworthy’ and an ‘ally.’ 5 The UN deems such practices as “essential measures” for transitional justice, preventing cycles of violence and ensuring stability in the country.6
Without acknowledgment and reparations, descendants of victims would remain structurally disadvantaged economically, socially, and psychologically, making future equality impossible. Additionally, a 2008 study by Hayner found that truth commissions plus reparations by the nation (perpetrator) lowered the risk of renewed conflict by nearly half-meaning collective responsibility could be the difference between diplomacy and moral relapse, leading to further injustice. Considering the same, it would have been morally wrong for the Germans—by both deontological and consequentialist standards—to forgo these actions and allow a community to suffer such a fate when they had the option to prevent it. They would then be guilty of the Jewish nation’s fate and/or any future injustice that may have been avoided. Therefore, these acts are not carried out of mere shame or guilt of past injustices but rather in acknowledgment of the morally correct action to prevent future unfairness.
In contrast, Japan, with a long history of brutality, denied responsibility and reparation, erased their atrocities from textbooks,8 and refused to admit their actions. This has resulted in deep political schisms between Japan and its victim nations, such as the anti-Japanese riots witnessed in China in 2005.9 Refusal to fund mental well-being using reparations leaves a profound psychological impact: a 2019 psychiatric study found that 5 of 6 children of former comfort women suffer from psychiatric disorders.10 Additionally, descendants of victims often inherit economic instability and underemployment caused by inherited trauma.11 By refusing responsibility, Japan became morally complicit in the current suffering of its victims.
The current injustice they face is the ongoing consequence of the historical injustice during which they were suppressed. So what responsibilities, then, fall upon individuals within such nations? I shall now argue that members of nations like Japan are obligated to feel a collective socio-political guilt due to their participatory or passive attitude towards the injustice their victim nations go through.
This argument finds its roots in Jaspers’ framework of collective political guilt. The theory of collective guilt stems from Locke’s concept of social contract. The latter suggests that “individuals implicitly agree to abide by the rules of a government in exchange for protection of their rights,” 12 implying that all members governed by the state bear the consequences of the actions taken by the state that governs them. Jaspers streamlines this theory in his work, The Question of German Guilt, by stating that even if one does not commit the crime, as a member of the political community under whose name the injustice occurred, one is guilty because they live within, benefit from, or contribute to that system. 13
When a nation does become guilty of denying its responsibility, this guilt, as established above, extends to the members within that nation due to their failure to respond. The guilt does not include all the citizens under the government, only the nation “under whose name the injustice occurred,” according to Jaspers’ theory of political guilt, as it is their past actions that harm the victims and their nation that benefits from it.
For example, the groups that witnessed the longest-lasting impact of the British colonization of India were the backward classes. Although they already faced discrimination from society due to the caste system, the British institutionalized caste hierarchies through administrative classifications, recruitment, and taxation, posing a structural barrier for these communities. 14 This has caused the groups to face higher poverty rates, lower education outcomes, and disproportionate unemployment, preventing them from fully integrating into society. 15 In failing to assume collective responsibility for this harm while benefiting from the colonial wealth generated through the structural subjugation of the backward classes, the British people are politically and morally guilty under Karl Jaspers’ framework of collective political guilt.
However, the most significant critique of collective guilt remains, “Where all are guilty, nobody is.” Arendt16 worries that guilt obscures individual responsibility and dilutes moral clarity by assigning guilt too broadly. However, it is important to note that in this case, the actions are historic, and hence neither can any existing individual be held personally responsible for the injustice, nor can the scale of personal guilt be measured, as they had no interaction with the actual crime. All the existing members of a nation are equally guilty of the privilege they have or the harm they allow by inaction. Another concern highlighted by scholars is that guilt risks being self-paralyzing due to its personal and sentimental nature.16 In light of the same, I suggest that the guilt ascribed in this circumstance be considered a situation rather than an emotion, as suggested by Gatta.17 This transition shifts the moral burden from internalized shame to institutional accountability. Furthermore, in such instances of ongoing consequences of historic injustice, either 1) the perpetrators tend to perpetually suppress the voice of the victims, or 2) a deeper analysis of the historic events is required to understand the reason for their lasting impact. A situation of guilt leads to an opportunity for victims to attribute guilt to the perpetrators in a public space, as well as come face to face with our history, allowing a more careful analysis of the problem.
On this basis, it also makes sense that nations embrace collective pride if they, through their current actions, are responsible for moral progress. According to Aristotle, to take pride, one must excel at moral virtues when looking at events through a lens of objective truth.18
Consequently, national pride is justified only when grounded in virtue. So, the Germans may take pride in their moral progress as they ensure the virtues of compensation, responsibility, and justice to the victims of their actions. Meanwhile, Jews may take pride in the moral progress they cause in Germany or, moreover, the moral virtues (courage, resilience) they uphold in the face of injustice. Such pride is necessary among victim nations to help them repair their collective identity, recover from old wounds, and cope better with future occurrences of injustice.19 This aligns with Martha Nussbaum’s view that pride, like guilt, is not just a sentiment but rather a moral emotion tracking moral reality through evaluative judgments. 20
Lastly, it is important to note that H. Lewis’ critique of collective feeling among nations lays the foundation for this essay. Lewis claims that no one can morally be responsible/guilty/proud for the conduct of another. 21 Additionally, I would argue that allowing a moral judgment not caused by one’s actions to impact their moral compass would render the morality behind an individual’s own actions useless. Considering the same, the arguments made in this essay are based on actions that an individual has agency over. It is for the same reason that shame has not been considered an appropriate emotion in the context of historical actions that require moral reform. Research has shown that guilt specifically targets finding fault within the action, leading to more goal-oriented changes, unlike shame, which tends to target the self, triggering denial and blame-shifting.22
To conclude, considering that one cannot be held to a moral standard for actions they had no agency over, this essay argues that nations are morally obligated to hold collective responsibility for ensuring the well-being of historically vulnerable nations that they have negatively impacted. In case the victims still face bias or the perpetrating nation gains from the injustice, the perpetrating nation becomes guilty of failing to fulfill its responsibility. This guilt further extends to all members living within the nation due to their failure to respond to the ongoing inequality, according to Jaspers’ political guilt theory. According to the same theory, members also may feel collective pride over the moral progression of their nation, especially if their nation has historically faced injustice. These principles form the moral foundation for how individuals relate emotionally to their nation’s history, not by sentiment or inherited emotions, but by ethical responsibility.
Bibliography:
1Federal Trade Commission. 2020. Debts and Deceased Relatives. https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/debts-and-deceased-relatives.
2Encyclopaedia Britannica. “What Is the Difference between a Nation and a State?” Encyclopaedia Britannica, last modified January 11, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-the-difference-between-a-nation-and-a-state.
3UNESCO. The Holocaust and Education: Finding a Common Path for the Future. Paris: UNESCO, 2020.
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Reparations Programmes (New York: United Nations, 2008) https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/ReparationsProgrammes.pdf.
7Priscilla B. Hayner (2008). Truth Commissions: A Schematic Overview. International Review of the Red Cross.
https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/truth-commissions-schematic-overview
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https://thediplomat.com/2015/04/why-japans-textbook-controversy-is-getting-worse/
9Shanghai Swept by Anti‑Japanese Riots. Taipei Times, April 17, 2005
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/04/17/2003250774
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https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823220694/the-question-of-german-guilt/
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17Gatta, Giunia. “’There Is a Corpse in the Room’: On Political Guilt and Reparation of the Past.” Review of Politics 85, no. 3 (November 2023): 673–701. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670523000530.
18Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W.D. Ross. Book IV, on Pride. https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.4.iv.html
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20Nussbaum, Martha C. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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22Tangney, J.P. & Dearing, R.L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. Guilford Press.
https://www.guilford.com/books/Shame-and-Guilt/Tangney-Dearing/9781572309876
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