Dear Marion, 
You gave me much to think about with your letter
about the no-fault line. I remind myself of my
resolve not to prosyletize, and ask how I should
conduct myself in a situation where you have strong
convictions about a matter, convictions which I not
only respect, but which I share, but convictions
which in my mind are derailed by a paradox that I
cannot shake off. The difference between us seems
to be that this paradox to which I am susceptible,
which intoxicates and debilitates me, is one to
which you have demonstrated remarkable immunity.

It's probably outside the range of your experience of
journalism. When I was an adolescent, there was a 
Philadelphia newspaper, The Evening Bulletin, which
promoted itself with a series of memorable cartoons,
all with the identical caption: "In Philadelphia nearly
everybody reads the Bulletin." The drawings, which changed
from week to week, all showed a placid group of people,
a small crowd, each one of whom was deeply engrossed in
reading his Bulletin, everyone except for one frantic idiot
who was shown waving his arms in wild gestures warning of
an impending catastrophe envisioned only by him, such as
the collapse of a skyscraper, the crash of an airplane,
the emerging of a fiery dragon from the cavernous subway
tunnel, - cataclysms of which the newspaper readers were
uniformly unaware, or to which they, blissfully immersed in
their newspaper, were indifferent. The irony is so appalling,
that I asked myself in retrospect, whether there might not
have been some intelligent editor who perceived the
absurdity, but was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

"Ich sehe 'was, was du nicht siehst!" is one of the few
games I remember from my childhood. The English version,
"I see something you don't see," seems to me almost
identical: an ultimate truth in human relations, pedagogy,
education, an appropriate caption also for our correspondence
which, born on June 12, 2009, is about to reach its third
birthday to become 2 years old. There is a point at which
our game: I see something you don't see! becomes objectionable
and prosyletizing. You tell me when to stop.

Implicit in your exposition is an argument that deserves closer
scrutiny. You write:

"Fault line or No-Fault line between the individual
and the community? Our boundaries bleed. I experience
my individuality as only incompletely severed from my
community's character.  I didn't invent my personhood,
nor my beliefs, all by myself.  I chose these properties,
worked them over, molded them to my liking and made them
mine, yet it's clear where these ideas and behaviors
came from. 
 
"With this in mind, the contradictions and confrontations
between the individual and the group become softened,
textured, nuanced.
 
I agree. It seems obvious that the individual is the product
of his social environment, of his society; a circumstance for
which language, if nothing else, is conclusive proof, but which
in no way ameliorates the hate and vengeance with which that
society on occasion destroys him. Admittedly, the 53. Chapter
of Isaiah is difficult to contemplate; but I read it as a
fundamental characterization of human society. Optimists who
allege one should look on the sunny side of life are not hard
to come by. Goethe was one of them - that's why he was incapable
of writing tragedy. I've probably cited his poem from
Westoestlicher Divan about the poet knocking on the gates of
paradise, claiming admission on account of his optimism:

"und doch sang ich glaeub'ger Weise,
dass mir die Geliebte treu,
dass die Welt wie sie auch kreise,
liebevoll und dankbar sei,"

Who am I to contest such nobility of spirit. I hear it,
but I don't believe it.

You continue:

"Take the case of you and me...." and overlook an important
distinction. Two persons who are friends (or enemies) are not
related as individual to society. Society is an aggregation
which transforms the participant into an interchangeable group
member who loses both his identity and his autonomy; whose
thoughts and acts express the purposes of the group. The 
aggregation of individuals into a social group is a variable
process, poorly defined, and potentially reversible. Its
ultimate expression is the army, or more generally, the public
or private governmental agency whose members are officials who
have reliquished their identities, who think the thoughts and
who perform the actions which their organizations prescribe.
The "ethics" of the soldier, or more generally of the official
are an interesting and important issue. I don't know of any
serious discussion of this topic since Kant, who seems to me
to have been terribly wrong. Kant assumed that the universe
was governed by pervasive Leibnizian laws, and that official
duties coincided with the existential obligations of the
individual, denying the devastating conflicts of conscience
in which honest persons frequently find themselves trapped.

Two dramatic literary examples come to mind:

1) A poem by Hans Christian Andersen rendered into German by
Adalbert von Chamisso as "Der Soldat", and set to music by
Robert Schumann as Op. 40, the story of a soldier assigned
to a firing squad to execute his best friend:

Es geht bei gedämpfter Trommel Klang;
Wie weit noch die Stätte! der Weg wie lang!
O wär er zur Ruh und alles vorbei!
Ich glaub', es bricht mir das Herz entzwei!

Ich hab' in der Welt nur ihn geliebt,
Nur ihn, dem jetzt man den Tod doch gibt!
Bei klingendem Spiele wird paradiert;
Dazu bin auch ich kommandiert.

Nun schaut er auf zum letzten Mal
In Gottes Sonne freudigen Strahl;
Nun binden sie ihm die Augen zu -
Dir schenke Gott die ewige Ruh!

Es haben ins die Neun wohl angelegt;
Acht Kugeln haben vorbeigefegt.
Sie zittern alle vor Jammer und Schmerz -
Ich aber, ich traf ihn mitten dann ins Herz.


2) The scene from Schillers Wilhelm Tell (Act 3,
Scene 3) in which Tell is arrested after shooting
the apple from his child's head:

Stauffacher:
O nun ist alles, alles hin! Mit Euch
Sind wir gefesselt alle und gebunden!

Landleute umringen den Tell:
Mit Euch geht unser letzter Trost dahin!

Leuthold nähert sich:
Tell, es erbarmt mich - doch ich muss gehorchen.

Tell:
Lebt wohl!

Walther Tell sich mit heftigem Schmerz an ihn schmiegend:
O Vater! Vater! Lieber Vater!

Tell hebt die Arme zum Himmel:
Dort droben ist dein Vater! den ruf an!

Stauffacher:
Tell, sag ich Eurem Weibe nichts von Euch?

Tell hebt den Knaben mit Inbrunst an seine Brust:
Der Knab ist unverletzt, mir wird Gott helfen.


The lament of Leuthold, the soldier who arrests Tell,
"Tell, es erbarmt mich - doch ich muss gehorchen."
seems to me to be thematic not only for the "good Germans"
under the Nazi Regime, but for intelligent, sensitive,
law-abiding officials and citizens, taxpayers and 
tax-collectors, in _all_ modern "democracies":

Now it's your turn.

Jochen

P.S. The above was written before I received your letter:
"Excavating faultlines" which deserves a separate answer.