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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