We must differentiate between guilt and duty. The soldier on the front, like the common man, who does his duty everywhere, should not be held responsible for the actions of a few who also called themselves Germans.
Interpretation
Guilt and duty are distinct; individuals should not be held accountable for the wrongdoings of others.
Oskar Schindler highlights the importance of recognizing the difference between personal guilt and a sense of duty. He suggests that a soldier or any individual fulfilling their responsibilities should not carry the burden of accountability for the actions of a small group that misuses their identity or nationality. This raises ethical considerations about collective responsibility versus individual accountability.
In practice
In a discussion about moral responsibility in wartime, this quote could illustrate the difference between individual and collective guilt.
The persecution of Jews in occupied Poland meant that we could see horror emerging gradually in many ways. In 1939, they were forced to wear Jewish stars, and people were herded and shut up into ghettos. Then, in the years '41 and '42 there was plenty of public evidence of pure sadism. With people behaving like pigs, I felt the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them. There was no choice.
Let Pascal say that man is a thinking reed. He is wrong; man is a thinking erratum. Each period in life is a new edition that corrects the preceding one and that in turn will be corrected by the next, until publication of the definitive edition, which the publisher donates to the worms.
When facing a dilemma, choose the more morally demanding alternative.
There's more to be learned here [St. Andrews] about course design than anywhere. Collection bunkers, false fronts, bump shots. The fundamentals of design became fundamental because of what's here. And it happened accidentally. Or maybe accidentally on purpose.
Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology.
History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.
Time present and time past / are both perhaps present in time future.
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