If we can exit a relationship, pressure to reconcile lessens; if we must live with those who have wronged us, we are pushed to reconcile.
If no one remembers a misdeed or names it publically, it remains invisible. To the observer, its victim is not a victim and its perpetrator is not a perpetrator; both are misperceived because the suffering of the one and the violence of the other go unseen. A double injustice occurs-the first when the original deed is done and the second when it disappears.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the importance of visibility and acknowledgment in addressing injustices.
Miroslav Volf's quote emphasizes that when a misdeed is forgotten or unacknowledged publicly, it renders both the victim and perpetrator misrepresented in the eyes of society. This lack of visibility leads to a double injustice: first, the harm caused by the misdeed, and second, the erasure of that harm, which prevents true recognition and accountability. Thus, the quote calls attention to the necessity of recognizing and naming injustices to ensure awareness and foster healing.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social justice, this quote can be used to illustrate the need for public discourse on issues of harm.
More from Miroslav Volf
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Love properly understood is God—the font of all creation and the ultimate goal of all desires; God properly understood is love.
There is no space in which worship should not take place, no time when it should not occur, and no activity through which it should not happen.
To affirm that God is God is to want to live in a particular way.
Some of the worst violence in the world today between estranged religious and ethnic groups happens not on the battlefields. It happens smack in the middle of living rooms and between people who share a lot, who have a lot in common.
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When I was very young, I took no interest in party politics. My line of interest was how can you be part of an influence to the society that you live in.
Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.