The Psychological Legacy

Beliefs, opinions, values, and practices are the components of a psychological legacy which is transmitted down through the generations in thought, word, and deed.

Do the sins of the fathers contaminate the children? And if so, for how long? It’s a question that quietly underlies German discourse, from sociological tomes to tabloids, since the late 1960s. The fear has overshadowed so many German lives that it’s hard to find anyone who’s entirely free of it. This is psychology, not piety. It’s not easy to feel touched by what your great-grandfather did; chances are, you never knew him. It’s another story if his sins continue down another generation or so, and that is indeed the problem. None of us can entirely escape the residues of attitude transmitted from mother to daughter, father to son, unless we are bitterly scrupulous. Even then, those who make an effort to reject those attitudes are likely to retain their traces.

Neiman, Susan. Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (p. 65). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.