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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: "Imperialism", Hitler, Holocausts, and misleading argument style
Message-ID: <5605@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 21-May-85 18:19:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.5605
Posted: Tue May 21 18:19:28 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 08:41:31 EDT
References: <3706@alice.UUCP>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 61
Summary: 

In article <3706@alice.UUCP> jj@alice.UUCP writes:
>
>The writer goes on to say that "human history has NEVER witnessed
>this kind of barbarism in its entire past history." a statement
>that (given my own ancestry) makes me wonder if the writer's
>ever read Afghani, Irish, Scot, Australian, African, Indian (as in India),
>or Amerind history. (That's just what comes to mind off the top of
>my head.  I'm sure there's a lot more that I know about, but the
>point is depressingly well made.)  
>
...
>The second is the lack of perspective
>evident in the comments about barbarism.  The Nazi Germany
>treatment of the Jewish regretably has many equals in history,
>albiet most on a lesser scale because of the lesser populations
>involved.  

I agree with the major point made in the (deleted) text of this article.
Equating the social forces which caused the Holocaust with the "inevitable
results of imperialism" is nutnews.  I do want to say a little about the
parallel instances of genocide listed, though.

One aspect of the Germans' attempted genocide of the Jews which has always
struck me as near unique is that, unlike the other instances mentioned above
and almost all others I've seen, the Germans' actions were against their best
interests.  In these other cases, peoples are killed because you want their
land, mostly, and there is a positive material benefit in killing them.  
(Leaving aside the moral costs, which makes such actions more costly 
in the long run.)  One powerful group wanted to steal something from a less
powerful group, so they did it in the most straightforward way: the just took
what they wanted and killed anyone who objected or might object.

Now the Germans did expropriate the property of the Jews they killed, but that
wasn't the point of their actions.  Since many of the smartest and most 
valuable members of German society were Jews, and since this was known to all, 
killing these people, particularly when in the middle of a desperate war, was 
decidely not in the German self-interest.  (Just as one facet, German Jews
naturally tended to be rather touchy about people questioning their patriotism,
so they could probably have been counted on to enlist in the German army in
large numbers, if permitted.  By killing them, instead, the German's probably
lost several hundred thousand prospective soldiers, leaving aside the massive
resources necessary to run the concentration camps and the loss of scientists,
doctors, and intellectuals.)  Here was a case in which the primary motivation 
behind the genocide was racial hatred rather than greed.  In the other cases 
mentioned, racial hatred was used as more of an excuse for indulging in greed.

Of course, dead is dead.  The Irish killed by the English, the Armenians by
the Turks, are every bit as dead as the Jews killed by the Germans, regardless
of motives.  Still, I find it less difficult to comprehend, and thus less
frightening, when murder is spurred by avarice rather than pure, unmotivated 
hatred.

The only real parallel I see to the German genocide of the Jews is the
Cambodian self-genocide.  Again, the killings demonstrably and predictably
damaged the destroyers, rather than rewarding them.  Again, an ideology
was the motivation.  Ideologies can be dangerous things.
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
        			reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
				soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDA
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher