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52 pages 1 hour read

Philip Paul Hallie

Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1994

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Part 5-PostscriptChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 5: “The Ethics of Life and Death”

Part 5, Chapter 12 Summary: “How Goodness Happened Here”

The story of Le Chambon transitions to an examination of the philosophy of ethics, specifically life-and-death ethics. This discussion begins by drawing a distinction between criminal and moral law. In criminal law, each side makes an argument, and a judge determines justice. This law is inherently public and helps create and preserve societal order. Moral law, or ethical law, however, is deeply personal and has no elaborate system by which to determine right and wrong. The book notes that if Trocmé and Hitler were placed in direct conversation, neither would ever convince the other of their personal sense of right and wrong. The only “court” of ethical law is individual conscience. In Le Chambon, the people individually evaluated the ethics of the official law and chose to disobey the criminal law to preserve their sense of the moral law.

The ethics at play in Le Chambon and in the Holocaust concern the preciousness and pricelessness of human life. The text notes that priceless can mean “costly” or “expensive”; conversely, it can mean “beyond any possible price.” For the Nazis, human life was potentially expensive; for the Chambonnais, human life was worth any price. Hallie relates his experience of having a heart attack while writing the book: Despite his initial sense of distance from healthy people, he began to find joy and beauty in the health of people around him and see the value in life itself. He quotes Holocaust survivor Micheline Maurel’s command to others to be happy to be alive regardless of circumstances.

Hallie raises the question of how one can tell the difference between right and wrong in life-and-death ethics. He turns initially to major philosophers who generally agree that examining one’s control of inner passions reveals the capacity to follow moral law or not: To overcome the passionate anarchy of the inner world and live within an emotional “mean” leads to identifying and following ethical law. Hallie argues that Trocmé succeeded in overcoming his personal inner violence and, by that definition, was a man of good character. However, Trocmé was more than just a master of his own passions. Hallie concludes that Trocmé and the Chambonnais went beyond their inner passions to intervene and act to prevent the dangerous and violent expression of passions from others. They did not merely refrain from doing harm themselves but also put themselves in harm’s way to protect others and prevent harm. Hallie concludes the chapter with a hope that he would, if tested, have the same fortitude as the Chambonnais—to welcome in those who need help without a second thought.

Postscript Summary

Hallie shares an anecdote about a visit that he and his family had with Magda Trocmé at their Connecticut home. Magda made fast friends with Hallie’s teen son, Louie, who told her all about what he knew of the book’s progress. Louie told Magda and Hallie about the foolishness of college students who, upon hearing the story, searched for added complexity instead of simply seeing the truth and necessity of admiring in the story. Magda and Hallie agreed with Louie and shared pride and hope in remembrance of the actions of Trocmé and Le Chambon.

Hallie offers a follow-up to his son’s disdain for the intellectual’s reaction to the perplexing nature of Le Chambon. He argues that the relative peace and time for reflection can encourage people to over-complicate ethical truths, and he urges readers to join him in determining clearly and fully their own life-and-death ethic “or our lives are dark, though we may be patiently awaiting the light” (292).

Hallie ends the book by connecting back to the Prelude and his experience of discovering Le Chambon in solitude: In learning its story, he found a community. His final thoughts are that in delighting in the lives of others, people grant themselves delight in their own state of being alive.

Part 5-Postscript Analysis

The last part of the book turns from Le Chambon and the narrative of that struggle to Hallie’s philosophy and personal thoughts on researching and writing about Le Chambon. The turn to philosophy focuses the entire narrative on the major themes he explores in the book. Rather than simply relating a story of hope, Hallie is using this story as a vehicle to understand human ethics. The primary focus of the last chapter is life-and-death ethics: what people choose to do when someone else’s life is imminently at risk due to violence. Thematically, that situation tests The Morality of Nonviolence. The book as a whole argues that Le Chambon and Trocmé are a testament to the possibility of choosing nonviolence as the primary good.

In both the final chapter and the Postscript, Hallie reintegrates himself into the narrative. He doesn’t only focus on philosophy but also shares his own experience with coming close to death. He closes by relating his experience of having Magda talk with his son, Louie, and hearing the young man discuss the value of empathy over intellect. Although the entire book is based on Hallie’s careful interviews and research, he is absent from most of the narrative. Ending the book by describing his own experience mirrors the start of the book and creates a sense of connection between Hallie and readers. Like readers, Hallie experienced the story of Le Chambon from a distance. In using his own lived experience within the philosophy, he models an approach to understanding the philosophy, subtly encouraging readers to apply their own lived experience of life-and-death situations to the principles he presents. In addition, the end of the book is the only place where Hallie provides his own perspective on religion. Fundamentally, he believes that life itself is the most sacred force and that from that perspective, Trocmé’s version of nonviolence is the most sacred calling.

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