To Go Forward, We Must First Look Back: Colleen Murphy on Transitional Justice

Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good

Sometimes we can't "just move on." Sometimes we must first confront the truth about the past.

According to our guest this time, we can do that through transitional justice. It addresses situations where doing wrong is not the exception, but has been made normal, as has happened in places like South Africa under apartheid, Northern Ireland during the Troubles—and the United States during our long history of racism, and more recent history of democracy under attack.

Colleen Murphy is a professor of Law, Philosophy, and Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an expert on transitional justice. As she makes powerfully clear in this episode, transitional justice has helped other societies truly move forward—and is already under way in parts of the US. Sometimes, as with the murder of George Floyd or the attack on the US Capitol, it's because the truth confronts us, whether or not we're ready to confront it.