Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 10:21:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: Putting People Outside of History (was Re: M-I: Whose Willing Exe


James Blaut

On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, james m blaut wrote:

> Two points on this Goldhagen business.
> 
> 1. Lets not capitalize the "H" of "holocaust," and lets call it "a"
> holocaust, not "the" holocaust." This was one of many such horrible events
> in history. 

There were many horrible events in history. But to treat them the same is
to subsume them under some general law of genocide, which is pretentious.
And treating them differently does mean genocidal events are being
hierarchically arranged in terms of human worth. And to use the term
"Holocaust" as a metaphor for other genocides diminishes the historical
specificity of the term. The Holocaust was one attempt at genocide. To be
accurate, you should restructure your argument to say that there have been
many genocides and attempted genocides, of which the Holocaust was one of
them. While your following polemic suggests other motives for wanting to
ring out the historical specificity of the Holocaust, I will assume for
now you have simply mistakenly confused "Holocaust" with "genocide" and
made a false argument based on a false conflation of the specific and the
general. Different genocides and attempted genocides should have different
names so that we can in a moment both recognize precisely which horrible
event we are talking about and so that we can remember those who were
tragically murdered. Both are superior reasons for retaining the
distinction.

Respectfully,
Andrew Austin



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