Hyvän ja pahan tälle puolen: Primo Levi totuudenkertojana

Authors

• Tuija Parvikko

Abstract

This article claims that it is time to return from the other side of good and evil (Nietzsche) to this side of good and evil (Levi) to read interpretations and accounts of Nazi genocide politically. It suggests that the first step might be taken by understanding survivors rather Arendtian truth-tellers than witnesses in juridical terms. This step might open up a possibility to get beyond a black and white juxtaposition of innocent victims and evil perpetrators and understand both survivors and other participants of the debate over the Holocaust as ’politicians’ who aim at interfering to political fight over the present time and future by means of making interpretations over the past. Combining Agambenian and Arendtian diagnoses the article claims that telling the truth has become politics because the present day politics is based on organised lying and self-deception.