Rhetorics of judge-penitence: Claiming moral superiority through admissions of past wrongdoing

Abstract

Over recent decades, public admissions of our past wrongdoing have become increasingly widespread. Usually, these practices are viewed as facilitating more inclusive modes of assimilating collective memories into collective identities. However, this article argues that such admissions can enable claims for having learnt the lessons which ultimately justify discrediting an external other as morally inferior vis-a-vis us. I do so by drawing on Albert Camus’ novel The Fall and its leitmotif ‘[t]he more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you’. I demarcate such rhetorics of judge-penitence from claims for having learnt the lessons which are not based on narrating past wrongdoing as our wrongdoing (rhetorics of judging) and self-critical admissions (rhetorics of penitence). By differentiating and conceptualising these three utilisations of the claim for having learnt the lessons, and by drawing on a wide range of examples, I illustrate that even penitent sinners might turn into complacent judges.