From: Kevin (kevin@xap.com)
Date: Wed Jan 08 2003 - 18:00:26 GMT
Platt said:
I guess our difference revolves around the terms "strong" and
"absolute." IMO, the Holocaust was not merely a strong evil but an
absolute evil,
not broadly true that it happened, but absolutely true. In my
imagination
I can think of no extenuating context that would render using absolute
in
that case "incorrect." Can you?
Kevin:
While I'll admit that bringing the Holocaust in to bolster your argument
is shrewd (what could be more sacred than the memory of those murdered
most foul?), I'll accept your loaded challenge and offer you a
recontextualization.
In fact, It's not even necessary for me to all that imaginative or
creative in coming up with such a recontextualization because it was
done for me by the Nazis themselves.
Did the Nazi's gather around the conference table and decide, "what is
the most absolute evil thing we could do this year?" On the contrary,
they deemed their project to be the highest good for the German people
and the world to be. Such is the staggering implications of this
horrific chapter, that rational, scientific, reasonable men decided that
the world would rise up and cheer them forever if they simply wiped out
a race of "undesirables" that were the cause of all their problems.
The Holocaust happened because it was deemed an Absolute Good by the
perpetrators. And the horrible fact that this rationalization sufficed
for thousands of military personnel and civil servants who carried out
this atrocity and for a nation what let it happen stands as further
testament to the destructive might of the human mind when it is
convinced it has discovered Absolute Truth.
Nothing is more dangerous than a mind without doubts. Everything is
justified in such a mind. Everything is moral. Everything is Right and
True.
So there you are, Platt. Now you can call me irrational or anti-Semitic
or whatever nonsense you want for having the intestinal fortitude (and
not the common sense to ignore your loaded question) to suggest that
what you consider to be the prime example of something that could never
be recontextualization as something other than Absolute Evil was, in
fact, perpetrated because it was recontextualization at the time of it's
occurrence as Absolute Good (in the warped minds of the perpetrators).
If such a recontextualization was impossible, it would never have
happened. The number of people who are willing to commit Absolute Evil
has always been quite small historically. Unfortunately, something about
the human condition makes it possible for anything to be rationalized
once it appeals to selfish interests.
Now you'll be pontificating about how I'm simply demonstrating the evil
that is "moral relativism". I beg to differ. In my mind, the purest form
of "moral relativism" is performed by those individuals who convince
themselves that their short-sighted selfish interest is, in fact, the
Absolute Good for all people, at all times, and in all circumstances.
If the people of Germany had been skeptics, ironists, doubters and
"moral relativists", then would have asked themselves, "Can killing all
Jews really be a boon for all civilization when it's obviously such a
bad thing for Jews themselves?" They would have been frozen in their own
"moral ambiguity" and "moral vacuum" or any of the other phrases with
which you like to paint persons who aren't comfortable with the idea of
standing up and declaring their self-interest as the Absolute Good for
All Time & Eternity.
So there, we've played philosophy with the hideous act of genocide. Yet
another argument for the keeping metaphysics out of the public policy
making and keeping it in the realm of private self-actualization. The
more I think about it, I agree with Matt's plea for a public/private
split.
Waiting for the backlash of posting something so anathema as a
recontextualization of the holocaust,
Kevin
P.S. I even left out the odious recontextualization of the Holocaust by
some Christians who answer the question of "how could a Benevolent,
Omnipotent Creator allow the Holocaust to happen?" with "It was
necessary to fulfill God's pronouncements of punishment on the House of
Israel and to facilitate the establishment of Zion in the Holy Land. If
the world hadn't felt so guilty, they would have never agreed to a
Jewish Homeland in Palestine."
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 08 2003 - 18:01:06 GMT