Forgiveness, Not Revenge

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That any concept of humaneness can completely cure our capacity to be inhumane remains doubtful. As Minow notes, the ethnic massacres in Rwanda in 1994 were, by some accounts, driven by a similar sense of interconnectedness gone horribly awry. Stopping the masterminds of such slaughter from ever being born may lie beyond our control, but Minow does believe that the rest of us can be taught not to become their unwitting agents.

“Really terrible violence happens because people dehumanize other people,” she says. “And so how do you prevent that from happening? It has to work at a cognitive level, but also at a kind of moral level, some sense that you just can't do that to other people, that it could be you who gets dehumanized.”

Which harks back to Minow's conviction that law alone may not be enough to break the cycle of revenge. Like the machetes used to massacre so many in Rwanda, laws are merely tools. Whether they are used for good or ill ultimately hinges on the complicated creature who wields them.

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