The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

man of conscience? We condemn the brute; he is a barbarian; we condemn him as we
condemn every barbarian. How then can we dare to condemn the man of conscience, as if
there were no difference between him and the barbarian?
We condemn the intelligent man of conscience because there is a difference; * because,
though at heart not a savage, he allowed himself to become one, he did not resist. It was not
that he lacked conscience; he smothered it. It was not that he lacked sensibility; he coarsened
it. It was not that he lacked humanity; he deadened it.
The brute runs to feed Moloch because to him Moloch is not a false god, but a Delightful
True Lord, the Master who brings him exaltation. In exaltation he shovels in the babies. He
has no conscience to stop him, no moral education, no moral insight. Perhaps he was never a
server in his church. Does he even know what wickedness is?
The intelligent man of conscience also shovels in the babies, and it does not matter that he
does it without exaltation. Conscience, education, insight—nothing stops him. He goes on
shoveling. He knows what wickedness is. By now he has been shoveling for so long that he
knows what Moloch is, he is intimate with Moloch. He is a morally sensitive man, and he
shovels babies to glut the iron stomach of the idol.
The morally sensitive SS man goes on shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling.
A virtuous childhood as a server in his church lies behind him; he shovels. A virtuous
future as a model of remorse lies ahead of him; he shovels. He shovels and shovels, all the
while possessed of a refined and meticulous moral temperament—so refined and so
meticulous that it knows the holy power of forgiveness, and knows to ask for it.
I discover a quotation attributed to Hannah Arendt: “The only antidote to the
irreversibility of history is the faculty of forgiveness.” Jabberwocky at last. She is the