ABSTRACT
Nietzsche distinguished between three human situations: acting, respecting others and suffering. On that basis he identified three different attitudes to history: Monumental; Critical; and Archivist. Modern political philosophy, especially liberalism, as a starting point accepted some timeless and abstract assumptions about human nature. The process of guilt-silencing undermined any possibility of an open perception of and confrontation with the 'real world' and a common understanding of social and political life, thus spoiling any chance of a new democratic common sense. Schwan claimes that without facing a difficult past it is impossible to develop personalities suitable to expand and sustain democratic order. A type of repentance could create a proper structure for the development of new values and rebuilding a moral community that will be able actively to defend democracy and social and political freedoms. Law as a system of norms and institutions is a mechanism for systematic remembrance and forgetting.
