Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Vergangenheitsbewältigung

Sorry for the long German word in the title, but it wouldn't have been the same if I had translated it. The literal translation is "coming to terms with the past", but in German the word is most often used in relation to the Nazi past of Germany. Via Brokentoys I've stumbled upon the story of the rabbi killing Nazis in Call of Duty 5, and saying that virtually burning down the Reichstag helped him psychologically with that past. Which personally, as a German, I find an excellent way of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. At least it makes more sense than blaming Germans born after 1945 for the sins of their ancestors.

I am just wondering how the same rabbi would feel about the hypothetical game Call of Duty: Intifada, in which you play a Palaestinian in the uprising shooting Israeli soldiers. Call of Duty 4 has American soldiers shooting Arabs in a fictional Middle East country, how would people feel about a game in which the Arabs shoot the Americans? Maybe this sort of coming to terms with the past is best reserved for conflicts from more than one generation ago.

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