File spoon-archives/marxism-theory.archive/marxism-theory_1997/marxism-theory.9711, message 57


From: "Jukka Laari" <jlaari-AT-dodo.jyu.fi>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 21:15:26 EET+200
Subject: MT: Re:Re: "Ve haff vays of making you talk"


Hi 

In general, I don't have any problems with what Leo says here: 

"  I don't think this is G's argument; in any case, it is certainly
not my view. I believe that any explanation of the Holocaust must take
into account a number of factors, starting with factors as basic as
the structure of the modern nation-state, and the dynamic of
totalitarianism that lies within its core. It must look at the
specific forms totalitarianism took in Nazi Germany, and account for
the others who ended up in the concentration camps, from gays to
Jehovah Witnesses to reds. But part of that analysis must focus on the
ways in which German national culture was a fertile ground for these
developments. Could the Holocaust have happened elsewhere? Certainly,
and it still does happen, if not on the same scale, today, from Bosnia
to Rwanda. But it did happen in Germany, and some of the reasons why
it did are traceable to German national culture and the role of
anti-Semitism in it. "

I just want to make one thing clear. Leo's reference ("this is [not] 
G's argument") is to my earlier post - 

<< The point is that Goldhagenian argument Leo summarized above is at 
odds with the facts: holocaust wasn't 'natural' or 'lawlike' result 
of German cultural and social history. Instead it would have been 
more understandable if it had happened somewhere east of Germany. 
Holocaust had quite weird and specific genesis and history and it's 
not explainable by German culture or German psyche.  >>

- to which Leo says: "I don't think this is G's argument".  The 
'Goldhagenian argument' I was referring to, as summarized by Leo, I 
simply copied from your earlier post: 

" As I understand his argument, it was that anti-Semitism was such a
'normal' part of early twentieth century national German culture that
ordinary Germans were only too willing to be participants in the
'final solution'. " 

I understand this to mean that German culture is explanans. My point 
was that it cannot be so, because anti-semitism was part of (perhaps) 
every european culture at that time. Therefore holocaust cannot be 
explained by reference to culture only. 

Jukka
   

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