innocence
Innocence means the condition of an impartial or ignorant person who cannot be considered morally guilty or who cannot be legally declared guilty .
In a religious sense, innocence can also mean a state of regained innocence, such as redemption from karma or sin .
Innocence in justice
The presumption of innocence means that every suspect in criminal proceedings is presumed innocent until a final conviction. If an innocent person is wrongly convicted, one speaks of a miscarriage of justice ; a deliberately false conviction is called perversion of justice .
Innocence from a religious point of view
The first book of the Bible , Genesis , tells of Adam and Eve , two original people who are not ashamed of their nakedness and who also have no concept of morality . With the consumption of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad , they lose their innocence from a theological point of view: their fall into sin is the basis for original sin . This loss of innocence should be countered with an appropriate religious practice; ritual purity is sometimes made a prerequisite.
Innocent characters in art
The mythical figure of Parceval is considered an archetype of an innocent person . Due to his lack of a sense of reality, he is known as a “pure gate ”, which is why he is recognized as the chosen one who is supposed to lead the Arthurian Knights to the Holy Grail .
The Nuremberg foundling Kaspar Hauser was and is considered by many people as an innocent, "original" being.
Innocence as sexual virginity
Colloquially, someone who is still unaffected or “ virginal ” in sexual terms is also referred to as innocent . The virtue called chastity , on the other hand, describes the ideal of regained innocence.
The color of innocence
In the West, innocence corresponds to the symbolic color white , attested by the phrase “white as innocence”. At a church wedding, this is what the white wedding dress stands for . The white vest is a metaphor for innocence and a clear conscience; According to Büchmann , it was first used by Bismarck , but goes back to the tradition of the Roman toga Candida .
See also
literature
- Naomi Wolf : The End of Innocence or The Sexual Drama of Becoming a Woman . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999; Paperback, ibid. 2000, ISBN 3-499-60937-1
- Innocence . Neue Rundschau , vol. 114 / issue 4, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-10-809055-0
- Doris Bühler-Niederberger (Ed.): Power of innocence. The child as a cipher . VS, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-8100-3982-9
- Charles de Roche : literary history of innocence. The motif of innocence and the limits of the fictional text . Fink, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-7705-4198-7
