In class Friday we discussed the four types of truth (forensic, narrative, social, and restorative), and I had never really thought about the different categories of information that went into the idea of “truth.” For myself, when the idea of “truth” comes to mind, I most readily think of forensic and social truth. Forensic, because we put so much into the hard facts, and what can be implicitly known about a case. Social, because I think the way in which the community responds to a case or such is what is most widely known, I suppose. But I was highly intrigued in the ideas of narrative and restorative truth.
Restorative truth seems to be a simple and reasonable part, and is something that I think gets overlooked in so many cases. It seems that society cares about what needs to be done in order to re-humanize victims and the rest of the affected, but I feel like this is so easily thrown to the wayside. It seems that people are more interested in the perpetrator “getting what they deserve” more so than fixing the issues that have arisen for those who were directly affected by the act and violator. This in itself weighed heavily on me. While I think it is important for those who committed a crime to be rightly convicted, I think the majority of society’s concerns should be with those who were harmed. We should care more about helping them recover, and how they feel than what punishment the criminal obtains. I admit that it is important for the criminal to face the consequences of his or her actions, so that they may not repeat their actions on others, I do not understand why the well being of the victim(s) can get pushed aside so readily.
Looking at narrative truth, I was a little bit confused about the concept of having two sides of a story that are unable to coincide, but are both completely true. How is this able to be used for justice? If there are conflicting sides, where does the resolution come about, and how? When you have the truth as two different people see it, and they don’t line up, isn’t it the reaction of most people that one side be true and the other false? How do prosecutors determine what can be trusted and what cannot?
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I'm with you insofar as I think the usefulness of narrative truth for the purposes of rectifying an injustice seems a little questionable. I suppose perhaps the important ingredient one draws from it is the reasonings behind the actions people carry out and the conception of events they were operating under. Or maybe I should ask Desmond Tutu, I dunno.
ReplyDeleteThe last question you proposed made me think of a question that came to me when I was writing me precis. I think trusting anyone whether you're an everyday person or a member of the TRC, is about taking a leap of faith. Granted the member of the TRC probably has a lot more to lose if the person that are trusting is not trushworthy, but it's hard to say how to determine a trustworthy person beforehand or to decide if their "truth" is valuable.
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