No doubt many Germans agreed with the lie that the Jews, as a collective, were a real problem: ethnocentric, tribal, a nation unto themselves with divided or questionable loyalties, and with aspirations to world domination. And so they agreed to a solution, closing their eyes to what was left unsaid: that the solution was unspeakably horrific. As some Fox News commentators would put it, people do nasty things in the dark after a terrorist attack, and the security services are one institution where we dont need sunlight. In other words, solve the problem, just dont tell us how you do it. And even if there was any truth in what the Nazis were saying about Jews, that still would not justify the solution. The point should be totally obvious to any human being with an iota of common sense: the Nazis collectively blamed, demonized, punished and murdered an entire group of people (among other groups of people). They carried out a program that can only be called mass extermination. They rounded people up, deprived them of their human rights, starved them, beat them, tortured them, experimented on them, and killed them. It doesnt matter which group they did it to. The point is that it can happen in any context, to any group. As Mark Twain reportedly quipped (probably apocryphally), History doesnt repeat, but it does rhyme. Holocausts are a type, the Jewish Holocaust was just one specific instance of that type. And given that humans are still humans, we will tend to do the things humans have always done, like killing each other in large quantities. Never again. A nice sentiment, but not very realistic. And yet, who wouldnt agree with the idea? Ask any person on the street if theyd like to see another Holocaust, and chances are theyll say Hell no! The problem isnt really that people actively want or accept such a scenario. Its that they dont seem to understand how things progress to that point of no return. They dont see the dynamics that lead to a Holocaust, and what part they play in that process.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 19:22:37 +0000
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