Abstract
Guth addresses a dilemma in scholars’ professional lives in particular, and our lived lives in general: “How do we best engage with legacies that wield irrevocable influence or make invaluable contributions and cause unjust harm?” (14). Tainted legacies are a distinct moral problem because we cannot undo, remove, or ignore the influence of scholars or institutions who harmed persons, insofar as “great thinkers and institutions have already formed those who inherit their legacies; how we continue to benefit from them” (14). Her goal is to find paths to “living well when our best moral resources are not only contaminated but also potentially corrupting” (13) and in doing so also “secure justice for survivors and secure human flourishing” (14).
The first chapter details the content of tainted legacies and why they are a moral problem. Tainted legacies consist of: incontrovertible goods that form frameworks we need and therefore cannot escape; the trauma of moral injury which taints those goods, be they the betrayals inflicted by an individual or an institution onto a person; and what G. identifies as “remainders” (18), anything directly related to the perpetrator of the original trauma which can serve as a reminder of that trauma and the deeper structural injustice it represents.
Tainted legacies are a moral problem because their texts, objects, and institutions still exert formative influence and make invaluable and good contributions to the intellectual, cultural, political, or educational traditions—this despite unjust past practices and betrayals of the very principles they purport to stand for. In the second chapter, G. outlines five ways people have sought to grapple with and respond to tainted legacies and their remainders. Deniers argue that it is a nonissue. Separationists attempt to place distance between the idea and its morally compromised individual or institution. Abolitionists work to reject the person or institution and either replace or erase its remainders in their entirety. Revisionists work to reassess and reinterpret those legacies which justify the continued use of its remainders. And redeemers attempt to salvage what is good. G. sees benefits and shortcomings to these approaches, but proposes a sixth, the reformer, which incorporates elements of the others.
The reformist approach acknowledges both the harm and the good produced by tainted legacies. It seeks to bring to the fore a larger context which fully identifies the harms done and what the remainders represent. Victims are empowered as moral authorities to be an integral and decisive part of the identification of harms and the remainders. What follows is the work to repair and reform the structures, policies, and practices that gave rise to this injustice. G. dedicates the rest of the book detailing how this approach would work.
In chapter 3, using feminist and womanist thought, G. calls for a shift from dealing with the remainders of tainted legacies not by focusing on the agents of the original abuse and trauma exclusively, but by empowering victims (in particular female victims) to be “artistic authorities in their own right” (113), and to make judgements on the legacies’ value and proper use. Concrete examples of this kind of reform are the subjects of chapters 4, 5, and 6. G. uses the example of womanist ethicists and their participation in the Confederate monuments debate. Drawing from the thought of Emily Townes, Angela Sims, and Dolores Williams, monuments once used to project white supremacy could be reevaluated and renamed for what they truly are: symbols of violence that do not belong in the center of our society. G. then turns to the question whether Georgetown and other universities that benefited from slave labor can make authentic reparations. G. brings to bear here womanist thought on truth-telling about this history, honoring the agency of victims, the possibility of learning opportunities within and outside those institutions, and reparations to the descendants of those whom the university enslaved. These same womanist criteria return in the last chapter, where G. tackles the question whether the thought of John Howard Yoder should be taught, despite his confirmed history of sexual violence against women. It sets up her conclusion that the reformist approach is best for grappling with these tainted legacies.
Grappling with the tainted legacies of once-revered persons and institutions is a phenomenon of our times. It is a challenge not limited to scholars of religion, graduate students, and clergy, but for all responsible adults looking to constructively address this challenge in their own lives, work, and institutions. This makes G.’s book a timely and universally important read. It would be an injustice if its reach was limited just to persons working in theology, religious studies, and ministry.