>>> Item number 898, dated 95/06/29 11:12:20 -- ALL Subject: Civilizations and Holocausts
From: William R. Sutton
What happens when "civilizations" create holocausts? The answer of course, is obvious. People die. One by one. At the hands of or by the direction of other people. Who make the decision to kill for themselves. One by one. Just the same as "primitive" societies. I assume the questioner is making Schell's point. "Civilization" does not mean the absence of violence or the absence of evil. Some of us have grown used to the discovery of imperfections in almost all of the individuals we have known and most of the human societies we have encountered. When you find paradise, don't tell me, for I would likely mar its pristine perfection.
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 13:25:52 PCT Subject: Civilizations and Holocausts
From: Marcus Smith
I am not a holocaust scholar, but I understand that those who are experts argue there is a fundamental difference between "routine" evil and what happened in the holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s. I recall a letter Henry James wrote during WWI in which characterizes that calamity as the "Niagara of disasters" and suggests that all the cathedrals and symphonies and civilizational monuments leading up to WWI are retroactively invalidated. For the time being we seem to be freed from the sense that our mastery of natural forces was leading us to universal destruction, but aren't the questions raised about "civilization" subject to what the academic bureaucrats call "outcomes assessment"? On a very large scale?
Marcus Smith
Loyola--New Orleans
marcus@beta.loyno.edu
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 13:26:40 PCT Subject: Civilizations and Holocausts
From: Sidney Bolkosky
As someone in Holocaust studies, it seems to me that at issue in this question is whether the values, institutions, ideals, mind-set or ethos of a particular civilization *produce* a genocide or mass murder. In my field, scholars like Richard Rubenstein argue that the Holocaust was a logical extension of a variety of psycho-social and intellectual developments which one can trace back to the 16th century. It is a condemnation of western tradition, if not of western civilization.
FROM: Steve Muhlberger
Nipissing University
North Bay, Ontario, CANADA
STEVEM@EINSTEIN.UNIPISSING.CA
I am not convinced that, evil as it was, that the Holocaust of the European Jews was as unique as it is often presented to be. Having read Robert Conquest on the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, Robert Payne on the massacres perpetrated in Bangladesh by the Pakistani government in the 1970s, a variety of material on the Pol Pot regime, and recent reports on Rwanda, I see large scale massacre in the name of purity as a human possibility that is not restricted to any one civilization or tradition. Those who wish to single out the European tradition as a unique source of a unique evil have to prove their case.
I am not arguing that ideology or "civilized" tradition has nothing to do with Holocausts and large-scale massacres. It certainly does. But it is not beyond the wit of human beings to whip up a theory of purity through massacre in fairly short order if they want to. If prestigious religious and philosophical leaders have given them a lot of material to work with, it is certainly easier to implement such a scheme. And the materials are there in the European past. But are they not present elsewhere? Again, prove the case.
FROM: Bruce A. Moon
Sidney Bolkosky wrote:
> As someone in Holocaust studies, it seems to me that at > issue in this question is whether the values, institutions, > ideals, mind-set or ethos of a particular civilization > *produce* a genocide or mass murder. In my field, scholars > like Richard Rubenstein argue that the Holocaust was a > logical extension of a variety of psycho-social and > intellectual developments which one can trace back to the > 16th century. It is a condemnation of western tradition, > if not of western civilization.
I'd like a clarification of the last sentence since I am not familiar with Rubenstein. Does "It is a condemnation of western tradition, if not of western civilization" refer to the Holocaust or the "logical extension of psycho-social and intellectual developments." In other words, was the Holocaust part of an aberration of western tradition or part of a natural development in the evolution of western tradition/civilization?
From: Sidney Bolkosky
Among the numerous reasons for dealing with the Holocaust as an unprecedented epoch--not better or worse than other genocides, but different, surely--is the massive continental complicity of non-SS, non-military personnel. Raul Hilberg's now legendary work with the German railroads, for example, outlines that sort of complicyt in 1.5 million railroad employees, one-third of whom were bureaucrats and the rest line employees. Hilberg's scholarship has pointed to the techno-bureaucratic cast of the Holocaust, the massive indifference and profit of corporate businessmen, lawyers, doctors, as well as virtually every level of society. While I think that Steven Katz, who has set out to prove this "uniqueness" in a far too long three volume work, has redefined the word genocide to fit the Holocaust, he delineates significant ideological as well as concrete differences between the murder of the Jews and other, pre and post Holocaust genocides. There are no simple answers to such questions, but at least we can try to keep the questions as complex as the subject.
From: Sidney Bolkosky
Sorry to be so unclear [in my earlier message]. Rubenstein's best work, I think, is the little volume *The Cunning of History* and he argues very strongly that the Holocaust was not an aberration but a logical extension-outcome of western traditions, beginning, in fact, with objectifying the world in the 16th century if not earlier (he suggests the Bible as a starting point).
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 08:46:58 PCT Subject: Civilization
From: Pier M. Larson
I apologize to Bill Schell if my comments about civilization as an organizing paradigm of historical pedagogy were interpreted as a personal attack. They were not meant so. I composed my note after reading several postings about civilization, of which Bill's was the last, and I took the liberty of using his definition of civilization as an example. I do believe that while my position is shared by some members of this list, it is not by the majority. My comments are therefore a collective critique.
In the spirit of debate, I would encourage list members to respond to the points which Tim Burke makes about the problems of employing civilization as a way to organize our teaching of world history. I do support his comments. I also am an Africanist. At the beginning of each of my African history survey courses I discuss the various ways in which me might organize our study of ancient Africa. One of the paradigms we explore is that of civilization, which focuses our attention on ancient Egypt, Nubia, then large West African kingdoms and the like. But where does that leave the people of the equatorial forest?
The problem with civilization as a pedagogical tool is not that "civilization s conduct holocausts." As one contributor to this debate noted, many so-called world civilizations have murdered with impunity. We recently saw tremendous slaughter in Rwanda and Burundi, for example. Ok, perhaps we can rate these human evils by intensity, importance of external or historical influences and such so we can identify the evilist guys. But I don't believe in such an exercise. The point is that civilization has both a power-laden (negative) intellectual history and is simply a very bad historical tool, even if we are to forget the connotations and uses of the term in the past and apply it in a so-called neutral fashion to the present. I suspect we have a predilection for focusing our attention on urbanized (civilized) societies because most of us who are in the historical profession live in them and we really consider them to be superior. Did the San go to the moon? And our boys didn't see any Iraqis there either, did they? These are very crude points, but when you go off to shop at Wal-Mart or in the grocery store and look around you (or if you watch even a small bit of television) these are the fundamental ideas of our times and our place.
I believe our task as historians is to challenge false presuppositions and received knowledge as well as to argue against pedagogical paradigms which not only make poor scholarship but perpetuate the idea of self superiority. The academic here is intensely political.
I am sure that we will not resolve our differences about the intellectual history of civilization just now. Let us debate civilization as an organizin g paradigm in the here and now, as if it were totally neutral with no history.
Tim's concerns about where we focus or historical attention by employing civilization as an organizing paradigm is a good place to start.
Another is simply questioning why we use the paradigm at all. Pick up ten world history books (or Western civ books) and find the part where civilizati on is defined. You are extremely unlikely to find anywhere an explanation for WHY civilization should be the organizing principle of study. No. It is taken for granted and not justified. Recently, textbooks which are partially critical of "civilization" have begun to raise some points about the use of the term historically (its intellectual history) but then remark that sinc e it has been a primary organizing principle in the past, it will "not be entirely ignored in the present work."
I think it is time for those who consider civilization a useful paradigm for the profession today to step forward and explain WHY we ought to focus our attention on certain societies and not others, and WHY civilization makes mor e sense as an organizing principle than anything else (eg. identity, love, or the organization of everyday life).
Subject: Civilization
From: A28443F@MSUMUSIK.MURSUKY.EDU
Bill Schell
The recent posts on the concepts of civilization and holocausts show that questions of good and evil will never cease to be a part of what we do as historians. In my work, I try to keep in mind that the boundary between good and evil runs through the heart of every person. I organized a series, "The Individual and the Holocaust" to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII. At that time I wrote that genocide was tearing at the post-cold war world "as ordinary people, seeking to establish new identities, commit unspeakable acts to "cleanse" themselves of contamination by their neighbors, from whom they are virtually indistinquishable. The purpose of this program is to expose what within us, ordinary people, allow us to carry out the most monstrous acts when relieved of responsibility by the social collective." Its not enough to understand the victim: "we must come to grips with the mentality of the opressors." As part of this program, Prof. Chris Browning o Pacific Lutheran U. gave a lecture, __Ordinary Men__ based on his book based on the confessions of German policemen rec uited by the S.S. to be executioners for the Final Solution in Eastern Europe. It was a chilling tale, a classic study of the banality of evil. Like individuals, civilizations are capable of beauty, refinement, intellectual and scientific accomplishment, justice and law, and yet are capable of monstrous crimes against humanity (however justified). There is no utopia; we are imperfect, and our institutions reflect that imperfection. I have often disagreed with folks on this list, but that is not good cause to impeach their character and scholarship, or to assume that they act in bad faith. I can accept a good deal of what Pier says re: civilization. What I objected to was the ad hominem + self-righteousness. I was quick to respond with an ad hominem of my own, but the editor intervened and so spared this list a urinating match. I'm glad he did (now), so that Pier and I can discuss the issues and not our relative morality.
Subject: Holocausts
From: Dennis Williams
The comment about the universiality of genocide by Steve Muhlberger resonate with me. I am toying with the implications of sociobiology having just read E.O. Wilson's _Journey to the Ants_, but the implications regarding free will have been pestering me. I am willing to as far as he did in a recent AARP interview though and say that the range of human choices seems to be rather limited. If that's true, then it seems that in the fight for survival, genocide is a possible response to percieved threats to group survival, no matter how complex the group may be--whether defined as "tribal societies" or "civilizations." It seems that the difference is that groups of people welded together by highly complex social institutions seem to kill others in more complex and seemingly more cold-blooded and systematic ways.
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 09:22:02 -0500 Subject: Holocausts
From: Bill Shell, A28443F@MSUMUSIK.MURSUKY.edu
Murray State University
Dennis Williams wrote:
>in the fight for survival,
>genocide is a possible response to percieved threats to
>group survival, no matter how complex the group may
>be--whether defined as "tribal societies" or
>"civilizations." It seems that the difference is that
>groups of people welded together by highly complex social
>institutions seem to kill others in more complex and
>seemingly more cold-blooded and systematic ways.
Sociobiology presumes that human options are limited by millions of years of evolution and that somehow a tendency toward genocide is encoded in our genetic material. I disagree. Genocide, the systematic attempt to eliminate an entire group (defined by race, religion or whatever) seems to me to be a relatively recent product. In centuries past, enemies were enslaved or exploited in such a way as to gain the benefit of whatever surplus they might produce. Although the populations of entire cities might be eliminated as a political object lesson, or severe restrictions put upon minorities, the goal of complete and utter elimination of a people emerged as a philosophical/religious goal about the time of the middle ages. The slaying of the Cathars ("Kill them all; God will recognize his own") comes to mind. Although the Jews were subjected to ghettos and pogroms, a systematic attempt to eliminate them entirely had to await our own time. Yahweh, of course, ordered Saul to kill all of the Amalekites including their livestock -- but Saul didn't do it because he saw it as a terrible waste. Better to keep the animals and marry the women. Saul disobeyed because common sense prevailed over an emerging trend toward ideological purity. Rather than biology, I would look to the unholy marriage of ideology, nationalism and science as the source of genocide.
Bill Schell
History Dept phone: (502) 762-6572 Murray State University fax: (502) 762-3424 Murray, KY 42071 email: a28443f@msumusic.mursuky.edu
Date: Fri, 7 Jul 1995 08:25:31 -0500 Subject: Holocausts
From: Dennis Williams
DWILLIAM@nov.snu.edu
Southern Nazarene University
Again, I'm not wedded to sociobiology, but the notion of genocide for ideological and racial purity surely goes back further than the Middle Ages. As Bill Schell pointed out the tradition goes back at least to the historical record found in Judeo-Christian scripture. However, it is from an earlier period than Saul--it goes all the way back to Joshua's time--when the Israelites were still very much tribal. Therefore they were very uncivilized according to the 18th and 19th century definitions of civilization that we seem to be reacting against.
Schell is correct in noting that the Israelites didn't entirely accomplish their mission--either during the time of Saul or in the earlier period--no matter how much the post-exile editors would like to have believed in a golden age of unsullied Israelite occupation of Canaan. But then neither did the Nazis or Pol Pot. However, I think the key point is that there was, as far back as c. 1200-1000 (when the events described in Joshua occured) or at least c.500s BCE (when the codification of the Jewish historical books occured) a notion that genocide could be a good thing for a group of people interested in keeping their culture intact. It may go back even earlier since cross-cultural flood epics (certainly in Mesopotamian cultural matrix, the Mayan and I think Hopi, too) seem to suggest that gods wipe out whole groups of people to insure religious purity.
I wonder too, how the mix of "ideology, nationalism, and science" worked to generate the recent tribal warfare in Rwanda. It has been described as genocidal--as has the ongoing Balkan War.
Perhaps though we are quibbling since, as I reflect on this general thread we seem to have infused the more general term genocide with the more specific values of the term Holocaust, which seems to mean, to the average person anyway, the attempted extermination of Jews by Nazis.
> From: Bill Shell, A28443F@MSUMUSIK.MURSUKY.edu > Murray State University
> Although the Jews were subjected to ghettos and pogroms, > a systematic attempt to eliminate them entirely had to await our own > time. Yahweh, of course, ordered Saul to kill all of the Amalekites > including their livestock -- but Saul didn't do it because he saw it as > a terrible waste... Rather than biology, I would look to the unholy > marriage of ideology, nationalism and science as the source of genocide.
Dennis Williams
Department of History
Southern Nazarene University
Bethany, OK 73008
Subject: Holocausts
From: Bill Schell
A28443F@MSUMUSIK.MURSUKY.edu
Murray State University
Dennis Williams writes, Re genocide in Judeo-Christian scripture:
>It is from an earlier period than Saul--it goes all the way back to >Joshua's time--when the Israelites were still very much tribal. >Therefore they were very uncivilized according to the 18th and 19th >century definitions of civilization that we seem to be reacting >against.
I'm not sure I would consider Saul's Hebrews uncivilized -- at least by the standard I advanced. They had made the transition to an urban life which, although not complete, is the key indicator of civilization. Earlier on this list there was a good discussion of tribalism. At that time I argued that tribal organization did not preclude a polity from being civilized.
> ... genocide could be a good thing for a group of people interested >in keeping their culture intact... may go back even earlier since >cross-cultural flood epics (certainly in Mesopotamian cultural >matrix, the Mayan and I think Hopi, too) seem to suggest that >gods wipe out whole groups of people to insure religious purity. >
It is one thing for the gods to wipe out human beings; it is another for gods to make human beings the agents of genocide. With regard to the Hebrews, it seems to me the point is that Saul did not carry out Yahweh's instructions. The kingdom of David and Solomon described in Samuel and Kings is multicultural, with close political ties through marriage alliances to the Phonecian cities (esp Tyre) and with Egypt (and other East African city states). Although aspects of religious ideology do justify (no, demand) genocide, it was not made zis. operational.
As to Rwanda, I think you have a good point. But you also beg the quest ion: should we make a distinction between massacre/ethnic cleansing and the systematic effort to eliminate an entire group from the face of the earth? It sure doesn't matter to those who are killed, but maybe it might make a difference in writing history. Also, I don't think genocide has to be successful to deserve the label. What do you think?
>> a systematic attempt to eliminate them entirely had to await our own >> time. Yahweh, of course, ordered Saul to kill all of the Amalekites >> including their livestock -- but Saul didn't do it because he saw it as >> a terrible waste... Rather than biology, I would look to the unholy >> marriage of ideology, nationalism and science as the source of genocide.
Bill Schell
History Dept phone: (502) 762-6572 Murray State University fax: (502) 762-3424 Murray, KY 42071 email: a28443f@msumusic.mursuky.edu
Subject: Holocausts
From: Dennis Williams
DWILLIAM@nov.snu.edu
Southern Nazarene University
In response to Bill Schell, I think we are talking across one another and I see that I put some potentially confusing punctuation in my message.
I'm not saying that Saul's time was uncivilized, but rather that the immediately post-exodus period would not have been labeled as civilized according to the "enlightened" scholars and their intellectual offspring in the 18th and 19th centuries who depicted a progressive scale running from primitive to civilized. I do not accept that scale as morally appropriate, so I shouldn't have probably interjected into the dialogue. I'm sorry.
The general point though, with some examples tied to it, was that idea of genocide is not a modern notion, but rather one that dates back to the beginnings of human history (though due to lack of evidence I don't think we can say to the beginnings of human existence).
Should it be successful to earn the label? Certainly not! It's the idea that counts. To move away from that would have me refute my position on the issue, at least as I understand my position.
With re: to the Rwanda tribal warfare, I'm not sure what the motive was for the massacres. Would, let's see, was it the Tutsis, would they have been satisfied to have their enemies live outside of Rwanda, or did they want them anihilated? I don't know enough to say. It seems though that if they wanted to be rid of their enemies, and their claims on land and power forever, it certainly could qualify for genocide.
Your point is good and well taken that carefully defining terms like genocide, which have moral implications, is important.
It seems to me that the next level of analysis in this discussion, if it continues to be pursued, is self-critical. The question/assumption that informs one of the initial questions is: Is there a human nature common enough over time and place to say that humans have certain inherent characteristics regarding thought processes and behavior? If so, then is that nature good, bad, or mixed? The answer to those questions, for better or worse, do inform the writing and teaching of history and an overt examination of the questions and their implications to the interpretation of the historical record is useful, at least at a personal level, for everyone in the profession.
Dennis Williams
Department of History
Southern Nazarene University
Bethany, OK 73008
>>> Item number 935, dated 95/07/11 12:50:19 -- ALL Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 12:50:19 -0500
Subject: Holocausts: scripture as historical source
From: Dennis Williams
DWILLIAM@nov.snu.edu
Southern Nazarene University
In re: Gerald C. Mattran query:
> In re: Dennis Williams posting: When did judeo-christian scripture > become an historical source?
When did it cease to be?
Dennis Williams
Department of History
Southern Nazarene University
Bethany, OK 73008
From: Bill Schell
A28443F@MSUMUSIK.MURSUKY.edu
Murray State University
Gerald Mattran writes:
>
>In re: Dennis Williams posting: When did judeo-christian scripture
>become an historical source?
>--Jerry
When doing ancient history, any written source (and non) is welcomed. Certain Jewish scripture is as useful as Herodotus (aka "the Father of History). If, in fact, the revisionist views presented in Peter James et al **Centuries of Darkness: A challenge to conventional chronology ...** hold up to scrutiny (as I believe they will, despite the unsympathetic AHA review), Samuel and Kings will prove to have been very accurate indeed. All sources, of course, must be used with care. While much of what is related in these sources actually occured, supernatural explanations and interpretations of those events must be suspect (at least).
Bill
Bill Schell
History Dept phone: (502) 762-6572 Murray State University fax: (502) 762-3424 Murray, KY 42071 email: a28443f@msumusic.mursuky.edu
>>> Item number 940, dated 95/07/11 14:02:31 -- ALL Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 14:02:31 -0500
Subject: Holocausts
From: Bill Schell
A28443F@MSUMUSIK.MURSUKY.edu
Murray State University
Dennis Williams writes:
>The general point though, with some examples tied to it, was that >idea of genocide is not a modern notion, but rather one that dates >back to the beginnings of human history (though due to lack of >evidence I don't think we can say to the beginnings of human >existence).
Although I have absolutely no evidence (but when has that ever stopped me), I would bet that the idea of genocide emerges with monotheism. Before that, a multiplicity of gods (and so ideologies) was universal. The idea that there is one true god presupposes (or leads to the idea) that there is one true ideology, the defense of which might justify the wholesale elimination of non-believers. The other factors that I suggested were necessary for genocide (nationalism and science/technology) are not present until (relatively) modern times.
>With re: to the Rwanda tribal warfare, I'm not sure what the motive >was for the massacres. Would, let's see, was it the Tutsis, would >they have been satisfied to have their enemies live outside of Rwanda, >or did they want them anihilated? I don't know enough to say.
I'm no expert on Africa (or anything, really), but it seems to me that events there were in large part a by-product of the process of national state formation in which the European colonizers favored one tribe over another in creating the proto-nation state. I would be surprised if inter-tribal conflict ever got beyond war and enslavement before the arrival of Europeans. Also, there would have been technological limitation on mass-killing.
> The question/assumption that >informs one of the initial questions is: Is there a human nature >common enough over time and place to say that humans have certain >inherent characteristics regarding thought processes and behavior? >If so, then is that nature good, bad, or mixed?
This is a good question addressed, in part, by an article in the latest **Chronicle of Higher Ed.** by Kim McDonald, "Peacemaking Among Primates: Emory ethologist discovers that reconciling is as natural to social animals as making war." It examines the work of Frans B.M. de Waal whose **Kinder Kingdom: the Evolution of Morality** argues that "reciprocity, justice and morality evolved to enhance the survival of those individuals who learn to cooperate."
Bill Schell
History Dept phone: (502) 762-6572 Murray State University fax: (502) 762-3424 Murray, KY 42071 email: a28443f@msumusic.mursuky.edu
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