Guests of Barbara Stöckl and Konrad Paul Liessmann: Michael Köhlmeier, Maria Katharina Moser, Fabian Bernhardt, Şeyda Kurt and Adelheid Kastner
Vienna (OTS) – According to many people, hatred has become louder again today, and “haters” are not only in the comments on social media. And with hatred there are sometimes tones of retaliation and revenge, both politically and privately. So are revenge and hatred even closer to us than the willingness to forgive? Is retaliation necessary to achieve justice?
Barbara Stöckl and Konrad Paul Liessmann will discuss the meaning of forgiveness in the personal and social spheres and the role of feelings of revenge in the “Philosophical Forum” on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, at 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2 with the following guests:
Michael Köhlmeier, writer
Maria Katharina Moser, theologian and head of the diakonia
Fabian Bernhardt, philosopher and literary scholar
Şeyda Kurt, author and journalist
Adelheid Kastner, psychiatrist and specialist in psychiatry and neurology
“Philosophical forum” on the topic “Love, revenge, hate – Do we have to forgive everything?”
How deeply rooted are desires for revenge in people? And is forgiveness a viable way to break the cycle of retaliation and violence? Today, being able to forgive is often seen as an ability that can only mature through an exhausting process of coming to terms with it. Is this effort worth it? Does forgiveness have its limits? What does the issue of reconciliation mean for the relationships between people and for the relationship between hostile or warring groups and peoples? And what contribution can religion make – especially Christianity, at the center of which is the liberation of people through redemption and the forgiveness of guilt?
“We will only be able to forgive when we forget,” says Konrad Paul Liessmann, who, referring to the late philosopher Rudolf Burger, describes “forgetting” as the greatest moral achievement. According to Burger, the fact that we cannot forget is linked to the culture of remembrance that continually reminds us of past social transgressions. With this “remembrance” of Burger’s provocative forgetting essay (2001), it is not yet clear whether visualizing remembering as a warning for the future must always be “counter-balancing” and therefore unreconciled.