Hiroshima and Repentance

John Hersey's Hiroshima made waves in the Atomic Age when it was published in The New Yorker in 1946. I read it in a gulp on the way home from work tonight, and can certainly attest that it's a riveting, significant piece of journalism from the finest traditions of the trade.

It's also a harrowing account of real humans involved in an extraordinarily nasty event, and makes for an interesting juxtapositional reading as I read this bit from CNN on an "unrepentant" individual who tried and failed to assassinate Margaret Thatcher in Brighton years ago.

Patrick Magee, who tried to kill Thatcher, has this to say about the concept of repentance:

"I wish there had been another way. ... If there were other options open, I would have jumped at them," he said.

Pressed by lawmakers on whether he had repented, Magee said, "I don't understand repentance. I think it has a religious meaning. I can regret."

"I did what I did in full consciousness," he said. "I did what I felt needed to be done. Why do I need to ask forgiveness for that? But I can feel regret."

Also from the article:

To his critics Magee appears to be unrepentant, and headlines over the years, such as 'Brighton Bomber: I would do it again,' paint a picture of a man at best deluded and at worst dangerous," Marina Cantacuzino of the Forgiveness Project wrote.

"Magee has a problem with this premise," she said, quoting him: "It's perfectly possible to regret something deeply, every day of your life, and yet still stand over your actions," he says. "At the end of the day it's about legitimacy and who is allowed to use force. If everything is examined through the prism of legitimacy you can break it down to different gradations. Why should it just be the prerogative of those in power?"

These two pieces made for interesting reading especially as I monitored my reactions to them. To the story of Magee, my first reaction was, I have to admit, revulsion. Thou Shalt Not Kill doesn't seem to have a lot of wiggle room, even in you couch it in terms of gradations or legitimacy.

Then I read Hersey's powerful report of the bombing of Hiroshima and Cantacuzino's statement came immediately to mind:

At the end of the day it's about legitimacy and who is allowed to use force. If everything is examined through the prism of legitimacy you can break it down to different gradations. Why should it just be the prerogative of those in power?

Thou Shalt Not Kill ought to apply to countries, right? So I can't be revulsed at Magee's unrepentant attitude and defend America's actions in dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, can I? It's difficult to build a theory of the world, a philosopy of life, if you keep finding exceptions to how behaviors are acceptable in one instance, not in another. I begin to understand the Quaker conscientious objectors during World War II, who looked into the Bible's do-not-kill commandment and said, yeah, that applies to me, even if my country has been attacked, even if it is at war.

But can we use such thoughts to justify a killing, couch it in regret, but say, in all probability, I might do that same act again? Just because a nation takes that stance, should an individual, a moral, ethical individual, take a similar stance? Doesn't an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leave us, at the end, blind and toothless? This takes us down the slippery slope to relativism, demeaning the moral and ethical guidelines that ought to be the rule of law. "Wrong is wrong even if it helps ya," as Popeye says in that delightful movie.