Sociology after the Holocaust

Author(s): Zygmunt Bauman

Source: The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 469-497
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The London School of Economics and Political Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/590497
Accessed: 22/09/2010 11:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Blackwell Publishing and The London School of Economics and Political Science are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The British Journal of Sociology.

http://www.jstor.org
ZygmuntBauman

Sociologyafterthe Holocaust*

ABSTRACT

Sociologistshave so far failedto explorein full the consequencesof

the Holocaustfor the extant model of moderncivilizationand the
logic of the civilizingprocess.While some attentionhas been paid
to illuminatingselectedaspectsof the Holocaustby the application
of availablesociologicalconcepts,the possibilitythat the Holocaust
experience demands a substantive re-thinkingof the concepts
themselveshas not been seriouslyconsidered.Such an omissionis
as regrettableas it is dangerous,in as far as the historicalstudy of
the Holocausthas provedbeyondreasonabledoubt that the Nazi-
perpetratedgenocidewas a legitimateoutcomeof rationalbureau-
craticculture.This fact suggeststhe need of importantcorrections
to our understandingof the historicaltendencyof modernsociety,
as it revealscertain potentialitiesof modernrationalitywhich are
not visible, or not salient enough, under normal conditions.The
one posthumousservicethe Holocaustcan renderis to serveas the
laboratory in which those potentialities can be observed and
investigated.Among the processeswhich the Holocaust brought
into reliefand allowed to explore,the rarelydiscussedfunctionof
the civilizing process as that of the social productionof moral
indifference, and the social production of moral invisibility,
deservesparticularlyclose attention.
amongits
Civilizationnow includesdeath campsand Muselmanner
materialand spiritualproducts.
(RichardRubensteinandJohn Roth,Approaches SCM
toAuschwitz,
Press 1987, p. 324.

Thereare two ways to belittle,misjudge,or shrugoff the significance

of the Holocaustfor the theoryof civilization,of modernity,of modern
. * . .

ClVl lZatlOIl.
One way is to presentthe Holocaustas somethingwhichhappened
to the Jews; as an event in the Jewish history. This makes the
Holocaust unique, comfortablyuncharacteristic,and sociologically

TheBriti.shJournalof Slociology Volumet5;5;1\ Nuznberv

 470 ZygmuntBauman

inconsequential.The most common example of such a way is the

presentationof the Holocaustas the culminationpoint of European-
Christianantisemitism- in itselfa uniquephenomenonwith nothingto
compareit with in the largeand dense inventoryof ethnicor religious
prejudices and aggressions. Among all other cases of collective
antagonisms,antisemitismstandsaloneforits unprecedented resilience,
forits ideologicalintensity,forits supra-nationaland supra-territorial
spread, for its unique mix of local and ecumenical sources and
tributaries.In as faras it is definedas, so to speak,the continuationof
antisemitismthroughothermeans,the Holocaustappearsto be a 'one
item set', a one-offepisode, which perhapssheds some light on the
pathology of the society in which it occurred, but hardly adds
anythingto our understandingof this society'snormalstate. Less still
does it call for any significantrevisionof the orthodoxunderstanding
of the historicaltendencyof modernity,of the civilizingprocess,the
constitutivetopics of sociologicalinquiry.
Anotherway - apparentlypointing in an opposite direction,yet
leading in practice to the same destination - is to present the
Holocaustas an extremecase of a wide and familiarcategoryof social
phenomena;a categorysurely loathsomeand repellent,yet one we
can (and must) live with - becauseof its resilienceand ubiquity,but
above all because modern society has been all along, is and will
remainan organizationdesignedto roll it back- if not to stamp out
altogether.Thus the Holocaust is classified as another (however
prominent)item in a wide class which embracesmany 'similar'cases
of conIlict,or prejudice,or aggression.At worst, the Holocaust is
referredto the primeval and culturally inextinguishable,'natural'
predispositionof the human species - as in Lorenz's instinctual
aggressionor ArthurKoestler'sfailureof the neo-cortexto controlthe
ancient,emotion-riddenpart of the brain;las pre-socialand immune
to cultural manipulation,factors responsiblefor the Holocaustare
effectivelyremovedfromthe area of sociologicalinterest.At best, the
Holocaust is cast inside the most awesome and sinister, yet still
theoreticallyassimilablecategoryof genocide;or, simply,dissolvedin
the broad,all-too-familiarclass of ethnic,culturalor racialhatredan
oppression('AngelaDavis is transformedinto a Jewish housewifeen
route to Dachau; a cut in the food stamp programmebecomes an
exercisein genocide;the Vietnameseboat peoplebecomethe hapless
Jewish refugeesof the 1930s'9).
Whicheverof the two ways is taken- the effectsare very much the
same. The Holocaustis shuntedinto the familiarstreamof history:
when viewed in this fashion, and accompaniedwith the proper
citation of other historical horrors (the religious crusades, the
slaughterof the Albigensianheretics,the Turkishdecimationof the
Armenians,and even the Britishinventionof concentrationcamps
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 471

during the Boer War), it becomes all too convenientto see the
Holocaustas 'unique'- but normal,afterall.3
Or the Holocaustis tracedbackto the only too familiarrecordof the
hundreds of years of ghettos, legal discrimination,pogroms and
persecutionsof Jews in Christian Europe - and so revealed as a
uniquely horrifying, yet fully logical consequence of ethnic and
religioushatred.One way or the other,the bombis defused;no major
revision of our social theory is really necessary, our vision of
modernitydoes not requireanotherhardlook, methodsand concepts
accumulatedby sociologyare fully adequateto handlethis challenge
- to 'explainit', to 'makesenseof it', to understand.The overallresult
is theoreticalcomplacency.Nothing, really, happened to justify a
thoroughcritiqueof that modelof modernsocietywhichhas servedso
well as the theoreticalframeworkand the pragmaticlegitimationof
sociologicalpractice.
Thus far, dissentwith this complacent,self-congratulating attitude
has beenvoiced by historiansand theologians. Little, if any, attention
has beenpaid to thesevoices by the sociologists.Whencomparedwith
the awesomeamountof workaccomplishedby the hzstoriansand the
volumeof soul-searching amongbothChristianandJewishtheologians,
the contributionof professionalsociologiststo the Holocauststudies
seemsmarginaland negligible.Such sociologicalstudiesas have been
completedso far show beyondreasonabledoubt that theHolocaust has
moretosayaboutthe stateof sociologythan in
sociology itspresentshape is able
to addto ourknowledge of theHolocaust; and that this alarmingfact has
not yet been faced (much less responded to) by the sociologists.
The way the sociological profession perceives its task regardingthe
event called 'the Holocaust', has been perhaps most pertinently
expressed by one of the profession's most eminent representatives,
EverettC. Hughes
The National Socialist Governmentof Germanycarriedout the
most colossal piece of 'dirty work' in history on the Jews. The
crucialproblemsconcerningsuch an occurrenceare ( 1) who are the
people who actually carry out such work and (2) what are the
circumstancesin which other 'good' people allow them to do it.
Whatwe need is betterknowledgeof the signsof theirrise to power
and betterways of keepingthem out of power.4
True to the well established principles of sociological practice,
Hughes defines the problems as one of disclosing the peculiar
combinationof psycho-socialfactorswhichcouldbe sensiblyconnected
(as the determinant)with peculiarbehaviouraltendenciesdisplayed
by the 'dirtywork'perpetrators;of listinganotherset of factorswhich
detract from the (expected, though not forthcoming)resistanceto
472 ZygmuntBauman

such tendencieson the partof otherindividuals;and of gainingin the

resulta certainamountof explanatory-predictive knowledgewhichin
the rationallyorganizedworldof ours,ruledas it is by causallawsand
statisticalprobabilities,will allow its holders to prevent the 'dirty'
tendenciesfromcominginto existence,fromexpressingthemselvesin
actual behaviourand achievingtheir deleterious,'dirty'effects.The
lattertaskwill be presumablyattainedthroughthe applicationof the
samemodelof actionwhichhas madeour worldrationallyorganized,
manipulableand 'controllable'.What we need is a bettertechnology
forthe old - and in no way discredited- activityof socialengineering.
In what has been so far the most notable among the distinctly
sociologicalcontributionsto the study of the Holocaust,Helen Fein5
has faithfullyfollowedHughes'advice.She definedher taskas that of
spelling out a number of psychological,ideologicaland structural
variableswhich most strongly correlatewith percentagesof Jewish
victims or survivorsinside various state-nationalentities of Nazi-
dominated Europe. By all orthodox standards, Fein producedan
impressivepiece of research. Propertiesof national communities,
intensity of local antisemitism,degrees of Jewish assimilationand
accommodation,the resultingcross-communalsolidarity- have all
beenduly and correctlyindexed,so that correlationsmay be properly
computed and checked for their relevance. Some hypothetical
connectionsare shown to be non-existentor at least statistically
invalid;some other regularitiesare statisticallyconfirmed(like the
correlationbetweenthe absenceof solidarityand the likelihoodthat
'people would become detached from moral constraints'). It is
preciselybecause of the impeccablesociologicalskill of the author,
and the competencewith which they are put in operation,that the
fatal weaknessesof the orthodoxsociology have been inadvertently
exposed in Fein's book. Without sapping the very foundationsof
sociologicaldiscourse, one cannot do anything else than Fein has
done: conceive of the Holocaust as a unique, yet fully determined
product of a particularconcatenationof social and psychological
factors,which led to a temporarysuspensionof the civilizationalgrip
in which human behaviour is normally held. One thing which
emergesfromthe experienceof the Holocaustintactand unscathedis
the humanizing and/or rationalizing (the two concepts are used
synonimically)impact of social organizationupon inhumandrives
which rule the conduct of pre- or anti-socialindividuals.Whatever
moralinstinctis to be foundin humanconductis sociallyproduced.It
dissolvesonce the societymalfunctions.'In an anomiccondition- free
from social regulation- people may respondwithout regardto the
possibility of injuring others'.6 By implication, the presence of
effectivesocial regulationmakesuch disregardunlikely.The thrustof
socialregulation- and thus of moderncivilization,prominentas it is
for pushingregulativeambitionsto the limits neverheardof before-
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 473

is the impositionof moralconstraintson theotherwiserampantselfish-

ness and inbornsavageryof the animalin man. Havingprocessedthe
facts of the Holocaust through the mill of that methodologywhich
definesit as a scholarlydiscipline, the orthodoxsociologycan only
deliver a message bound more by its presuppositionsthan by 'the
facts of the case': that the Holocaust was afailure, not a product,of
modernity.
In anotherremarkablesociologicalstudyof the Holocaust,Nechama
Tec attemptedto explorethe oppositeside of the social spectrum:the
rescuers- those people who did not allow the 'dirty work' to be
perpetrated,who dedicated their lives to the sufferingothers in the
world of universalselfishness,who remainedmoral under immoral
conditions.Loyal to the preceptsof sociologicalwisdom, Tec tried
hard to find the social determinantsof what by all standardsof the
time was aberrant behaviour.One by one, she put to the test all
hypotheses which any respectable and knowledgeablesociologist
would certainly include in the research project. She computed
correlationsbetween the readinessto help on one hand, and class,
educational,denominational,politicalallegiancefactorson the other
- only to discoverthat there was none. In defianceof her own - and
hersociologicallytrainedreaders- expectations,Tec had to drawthe
only permissibleconclusion:'These rescuersacted in ways that were
naturalto them - spontaneouslythey were able to strikeout against
the horrorsof theirtimes'.7In otherwords- the rescuerswerewilling
to rescuebecausethis was theirnature.They camefromall sectorsand
corners of 'social structure'- thereby calling the bluff of 'social
determinants'of moral behaviour.If anything, the contributionof
such determinantsexpresseditself in their failureto extinguishthe
rescuers'urge to help others in their distress.Tec came closer than
most sociologiststo the discoverythat the real point at issue is not
what we, the sociologists,can say about the Holocaustbut, rather,
what the Holocaust has to say about us, the sociologists,and our
practice.
While the necessityto ask this questionseems both a most urgent
and a most ignobly neglected part of the Holocaust legacy, its
consequencesmust be carefully considered.It is only too easy to
overreact to the apparent bankrupty of established sociological
visions. Once the hope to contain the Holocaust experience in
the theoreticalframeworkof malfunction(modernityincapable of
suppressingthe essentially alien factors of irrationality,civilizing
pressuresfailingto subdueemotionaland violentdrives,socialization
goingawryand hence unableto producethe neededvolumeof moral
motivations)has been dashed, one can be easily temptedto try the
'obvious'exit fromthe theoreticalimpasse:to proclaimthe Holocaust
a 'paradigm'of modern civilization, its 'natural', 'normal' (who
knows- perhapsalso common)product,its 'historicaltendency'.In
474 Bauman
Zygmunt

thisversion, the Holocaustwould be promotedto the status of the

truth of modernity (rather than recognized as a possibility the
modernitycontains) - the truth only superficiallyconcealedby the
ideologicalformulaimposedby thosewho benefitfromthe 'big lie'. In
a perversefashion,this view, having allegedlyelevatedthe historical
and theoreticalsignificanceof the Holocaust, can only belittle its
importance,as the horrorsof genocide will have become virtually
indistinguishablefromothersufferingswhichthe modernsocietydoes
undoubtedly generatedaily- and in abundance.

THE HOLOCAUST AS THE TEST OF MODERNITY

A few years ago a journalist of Le Mondeintervieweda sample of

former hijack victims. Much to his amazement, he found an
abnormallyhigh incidenceof divorce among the couples who went
jointlythroughthe agonyof hostageexperience.Intrigued,he probed
the divorceesfor the reasonsof theirdecision.Most intervieweestold
him that they had never contemplateda divorce beforethe hijack.
Duringthe horrifyingepisode,however,'theireyes opened',and 'they
saw theirpartnersin a new light'. Ordinarygood husbands'provedto
be' selfish creatures, caring only for their own stomachs; daring
businessmendisplayeddisgustingcowardice,while resourceful'men
of the world'fell to pieces and did little except bewailingin advance
their imminent perdition.The journalist asked himself a question:
which of the two incarnations,each of these Januses was clearly
capableof, was the trueface,and which was the mask?And concluded
that the questionwas wronglyput. None was 'truer'than the other.
Both were possibilitieswhich the characterof the victims contained
all along - only they surfaced at different times and different
circumstances.The 'good' face seemed normalonly because normal
conditionsfavoured it above the other. Yet the other was always
present,thoughnormally invisible.The most fascinatingaspectof this
findingwas, however,that were it not for the hijackers'venture,the
'otherface'would probablyremainhiddenforever.The partnerswill
continue to enjoy their marriage,unawareof the unprepossessing
qualities any extraordinarycircumstances may still uncover in
personsthey seemed to know so completely,likingwhat they knew.
The paragraphwe quoted beforefromNechamaTec's study ends
with the followingobservation
(W)ereit not for the Holocaust,most of these helpersmight have
continuedon their independentpaths, some pursuingcharitable
actions,some leadingsimple,unobtrusivelives.Theyweredormant
heroes,often indistinguishablefromthose aroundthem.
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 475

One of the most powerfully(and convincingly)arguedconclusionsof

the study was the impossibilityof'spotting in advance'the signs, or
symptoms,or indicators,of individual readinessfor sacrifice,or of
cowardicein face of adversity;that is, to decide- outsidethe context
whichcalls theminto beingorjust 'wakesthemup', the probabilityof
theirlater manifestation.
John R. Roth brings the issue of potentiality versus reality (the first
beinga yet-undisclosedmode of the second,and the secondbeing an
already-realized- and thus empiricallyaccessible- modeof the first)
in a direct contact with our problem

Had Nazi Powerprevailed,authorityto determinewhatoughtto be

would have foundthat no naturallaws were brokenand no crimes
against God and humanitywere committedin the Holocaust. It
would have been a question, though, whether the slave labour
operationsshould continue, expand, or go out of business.Those
decisionswould have been made on rationalgrounds.8
The unspoken terror permeating our collective memory of the
Holocaust(and more than contingentlyrelatedto the overwhelming
desirenot to lookthe memoryin its face) is the gnawingsuspicionthat
the Holocaust could be more than an aberration, more than a
deviation from otherwise straight path of progress, more than a
cancerousgrowth on the otherwise healthy body of the civilized
society;that, in short, the Holocaustwas not an antithesisof modern
civilizationand everything(or so we like to think) it stands for. We
suspect (even if we refuseto admit it) that the Holocaustcould have
merely uncoveredanother face of the same modern society whose
other, more familiar,face we so admire.And that the two faces are
perfectlycomfortablyattached to the same body. What we perhaps
fearmost, is that the two faces can exist withouteach other no more
than two sides of the coin.
Often we stop just at the thresholdof the awesometruth. And so
HenryFeingoldinsists that the episodeof the Holocaustwas indeeda
new developmentin a long and on the whole blamelesshistory of
modernsociety;a developmentwe had no way to expectand predict,
likean appearanceof a new malignstrainof an allegedlytamedvirus
The Final Solution marked the juncture where the European
industrialsystem went awry;insteadof enhancinglife, which was
the originalhope of the Enlightenment,it began to consumeitself.
It was by dint of that industrialsystemand the ethosattachedto it
that Europewas able to dominatethe world
as if the skills needed and deployed in the service of the world
dominationwere qualitativelydifferentfromthose which securedthe
476 ZygmuntBauman

effectivityof the Final Solution.And yet Feingoldis staringthe truth

in the face
[Auschwitz]was also a mundaneextensionof the modernfactory
system.Ratherthan producinggoods, the rawmaterialwas human
beings and the end-productwas death, so many units per day
markedcarefullyon the manager'sproductioncharts.The chimneys,
the very symbol of the modernfactorysystem, pouredforthacrid
smokeproducedby burninghumanflesh.The brilliantlyorganized
railroadgrid of modernEuropecarrieda new kindof raw material
to the factories.It did so in the same manneras withothercargo.In
the gas chambers,the victims inhaled noxious gas generatedby
prussic acid pellets, which were produced by the advanced
chemicalindustryof Germany.Engineersdesignedthe crematoria;
managersdesigned the system of bureaucracythat workedwith a
zest and efficiencymore backwardnations would envy. Even the
overall plan itself was a reflectionof the modernscientificspirit
gone awry. What we witnessed was nothing less than a massive
schemeof social engineering.'9
The truthis that everythingabout the Holocaust- all those many
thingswhich renderedit possible- was normal;'normal'not in the
sense of the familiar, of one more specimen in a large class of
phenomenalong ago describedin full, explainedand accommodated
to (on the contrary,the experienceof the Holocaustwas new and
unfamiliar),but in the sense of beingfullyin keepingwith everything
we know about our civilization,its guiding spirit, its priorities,its
immanentvision of the world - and of the properways to pursue
human happiness together with a perfect society. In the words of
Stillmanand Pfaff
(t)here is more than a wholly fortuituousconnectionbetweenthe
applied technologyof the mass productionline, with its vision of
universalmaterialabundance,and the applied technologyof the
concentrationcamp,with its visionof a profusionof death.We may
wish to deny the connection,but Buchenwaldwas of our West as
muchas Detroit'sRiverRouge- we cannotdeny Buchenwaldas a
casual aberrationof a Westernworld essentiallysane.l°
Let us also recallthe conclusionRaoulHilberghas reachedin the end
of his unsurpassed,magisterialstudyof the Holocaust'saccomplishment
The machineryof destruction,then, was structurallyno different
from organized German society as a whole. The machineryof
destructionwas the organized community in one of its special
roles.l i
Sociology
aftertheHolocaust 477

RichardL. Rubensteinhas drawnwhat seems to me the ultimate

lessonof the Holocaust.'It bears',he wrote, 'witnessto the advanceof
civilization'.
It was an advance, let us add, in a double sense. In the
Final Solution, the industrialpotentialand technologicalknow-how
boasted by our civilization has scaled new heights in coping
successfullywith a task of unprecedentedmagnitude.And in the
same Final Solution our society has disclosed to us its heretofore
unsuspected capacity. Taught to respect and admire technical
efficiencyand good design, we cannot but admit that in our praiseof
materialprogressour civilizationhas broughtwe have sorelyunder-
estimatedits true potential.
The worldof the death camps and the societyit engendersreveals
the progressivelyintensifyingnight side ofJudeo-Christianciviliz-
ation. Civilization means slavery, wars, exploitation,and death
camps. It also means medical hygiene, elevated religious ideas,
beautifulart, and exquisite music. It is an errorto imagine that
civilizationand savage crueltyare antitheses. . . In our times the
cruelties,like most other aspects of our world, have become far
moreeffectivelyadministeredthan ever before.They have not and
will not cease to exist. Both creationand destructionare inseparable
aspectsof what we call civilization.ip

Hilbergis a historian,Rubensteinis a theologian.I have searchedin

vain the works of sociologists for statements expressing similar
awarenessof the urgency of the task posited by the Holocaust;for
evidence that the Holocaust presents, among other things, also a
challengeto sociologyas a professionand a body of academicknow-
ledge. When measuredagainst the work done by the historiansor
theologians, the bulk of academic sociology looks more like a
collectiveexercisein forgettingand eye-closing.
I do not know of many occasions on which the sociologists,qua
sociologists,confrontedpublicly the evidenceof the Holocaust.One
suchoccasion(thoughon a smallscale) was offeredby the symposium
on Western Society after the Holocaust, convened in 1978 by the
Institutefor the Study of ContemporarySocial Problems.'3During
the symposium, Richard L. Rubenstein presented an imaginative
attemptto re-read,in the light of the Holocaustexperience,some of
the best known of Weber's diagnoses of the tendenciesof modern
society. Rubensteinwished to find out whetherthe things we know
about, but of which Weberwas naturallyunaware,could have been
anticipated (by Weber himself and his readers), at least as a
possibility,fromwhat Weberknew,perceivedor theorizedabout. He
founda positiveanswerto this question,or at least so he suggested:
thatin Weber'sexpositionof the modernbureaucracy,rationalspirit,
principleof efficiency,scientificmentality,relegationof values to the
478 ZygmuntBauman

realm of subjectivityetc. no mechanismwas recordedcapable of

excludingthe possibilityof Nazi excesses;that, moreover,therewas
nothingin Weber'sideal typeswhichwouldnecessitatedescribingthe
activitiesof the Nazi state as excesses. For example,
no horror perpetrated by the German medical profession or
Germantechnocratswas inconsistentwith the view that valuesare
inherentlysubjectiveand that science is intrinsicallyinstrumental
and value-free.
GuentherRoth, the eminent Weberianscholar and a sociologistof
high and deservedrepute, did not try to hide his displeasure:'My
disagreementwith ProfessorRubensteinis total. There is just no
sentence in his presentationthat I can accept'. And he went on,
reminding the gathering that Weber was a liberal, loved the
constitution,and approved of the working-class'voting rights. By
implication, as it were, a person with such integrity could not
anticipatea charismaticleaderlike Hitlerand a rationalitylikethatof
the gas chambers.Incensedby the possibleharmto Weber'smemory
(a harm lurking, as it were, in the very idea of 'anticipation' )
GuentherRoth flatly refused to consider the substanceof Ruben-
stein's argument.With that, he rejectedthe chance of facing point-
blank the 'other side' of perceptive visions bequeathed by the
sociologicaltradition, or admit the very suppositionthat our sad
knowledge,unavailableto the classics, may enable us to find out in
their insights things of which they themselvescould not be, except
dimly, aware.
In all probability,GuentherRoth is not the only sociologistwho
wouldrallyto the defenceof the hallowedtruthsof ourjoint tradition
at the expense of the adverse evidence; it is just that most other
sociologistshave not been forcedto do so in such an outspokenway.
By and large,we need not botherwith the challengeof the Holocaust
in our daily professionalpractice.As a profession,we have succeeded
in all but forgettingit, or shelvingit awayinto the 'specialistinterests'
area, fromwhere it stands no chance of reachingthe mainstreamof
the discipline.If at all discussedin sociologicaltexts,the Holocaustis
at best offeredas a sad exampleof what an untamedinnate human
aggressivenessmay do, and then used as pretextto exhortthe virtues
of tamingit throughan increasein the civilizingpressureand another
flurryof expert problem-solving.At worst, it is rememberedas a
privateexperienceoftheJews, as a matterbetweentheJews and their
haters (a 'privatization'to which many a spokesmanof the State of
Israel,guidedby other than eschatologicalconcerns,has contributed
morethan a minorsharel4).
This state of afEairsis worryingnot only, and not at all primarily,
for professionalreasons - however detrimentalit may be for the
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 479

cognitivepowersand societalrelevanceof sociology.What makesthis

situationmuch more disturbingis the awarenessthat if
it could happen on such a massive scale elsewhere, then it can
happen anywhere;it is all within the range of human possibility,
and like it or not, Auschwitzexpandsthe universeof consciousness
no less than landingon the moon.

The anxiety can hardly abate in view of the fact that none of the
societal conditions which made Auschwitz possible has truly dis-
appeared;that, on the contrary, 'existencenow is more and more
recognizabfyin accord with the principleswhich governedlife and
deathin Auschwitz;l5that no effectivemeasureshave been undertaken
to preventsuch possibilitiesand principlesfromgeneratingAuschwitz-
like catastrophes.As Leo Kuper has recentlyfound out,
the sovereign territorialstate claims, as an integral part of its
sovereignty,the right to commitgenocide,or engage in genocidal
massacres,against people under its rule, and . . . the UN, for all
practicalpurposes,defendsthis right.lX

The longerit is neglected,the more enormousis the task of the re-

readingthe sociologicaltradition.It will now requirea collective,and
protracted,effortto accomplish.This paper'sambitiondoes not reach
beyonda very preliminarystage in the implementationof the task. It
is confinedto the 'taking stock' of the few elements of sociological
orthodoxywhich, in view of the author,are in the most urgentneed of
searching and critical review. Among the elements selected, are:
historical meaning of the 'civilizing process', the function of the
bureaucraticcriteriaof rationality,and the culturalrole of the value-
free ideal of knowledge.
The claim that criticalscrutinyof the receivedwisdomis necessary
does not need the ridiculousassumptionthat the Holocaustrevealed
'the true essence' of moderncivilization,which has been heretofore
beliedby the dominantorthodoxy.Like in the cases brieflydiscussed
at the beginningof this section,it is moreappropriateto assumethat
one posthumousservice the Holocaust can renderis to provide an
insightinto otherwise unnoticed 'otller aspects' of the societal
principlesenshrinedby modernhistory.I proposethat, instead, the
experience of the Holocaust, now thoroughly researchedby the
historians,should be looked upon as, so to speak, a sociological
'laboratory'. The Holocausthas exposedand examinedsuch attributes
of our society as are not revealed, and hence are not empirically
accessible,in 'non-laboratory'conditions.In other words, I propose
to treatthe Holocaustas a rare,yet significantand reliable,test of the
hiddenpossibilitiesof modernsociety.
 480 ZygmuntBauman
THE MEANING OF THE CIVILIZING PROCESS

The etiologicalmyth we teach our studentsis the morally

story of humanityemergingfrom pre-socialbarbarity.Thiselevating
the 'civilizingprocess'.The myth is seldom challenged, we call
and hardly
everexposed,as it is backedby a broadcoalitionwhich
containssuch
powerfulauthoritiesas the 'Whig view' of history as the
strugglebetweenreasonand superstition,Weber'svision ofvictorious
ization as a movement toward achieving more for less rational-
effort,
psychoanalyticalpromise to prise off and tame the animal in man,
Marx'sgrandprophecyof life and historycomingunderfull
the human species once it is freed from the presently controlof
debilitating
parochialities,Elias'sportrayalof recenthistoryas thatof eliminating
violence from daily life - and, above all, the chorus of the
whichassureus that human problemsare mattersof wrong experts
and that right policies mean eliminationof problems. policies,
Behind the
alliance,standsfast the modern'gardening'state, viewingthe
it rules as an object of designing,cultivating,and weed society
poisoning.
In view of this myth, long ago ossifiedinto the commonsense
era,the Holocaustcan only be understoodas the failureof of our
(i.e. the human purposive, reason-guidedactivity) to civilization
contain the
morbidnaturalpredilectionsof whateverhas been left of
man.Obviously,the Hobbesianworldhas not beenfully nature in
chained,the
Hobbesianproblemhas not beenfullyresolved.In otherwords,we
nothave as yet enough do
civilization.
The unfinishedcivilizingprocessis
yetto be broughtto its conclusion.If the lessonof mass
murderdoes
teachus anything - it is that the preventionof similar
hiccups of
barbarism evidentlyrequiresstill moreof the civilizingefforts.There
isnothingin this lesson to cast doubt on the future
effectivityof such
efforts,and their ultimate results. We certainly move in the
direction; right
perhapswe do not move fast enough.
As its full picture emerges from historicalresearch,so
does an
alternative,and possibly more credible, interpretation of the
Holocaustas an event which disclosedthe weaknessand fragility
humannature (of the abhorrence of murder, disinclination of
violence,fear of guilty conscienceand of responsibilityfor to
behaviour) immoral
when confrontedwith the matter-of-fact
mostcherishedamong the productsof civilization:itsefficiencyof the
rational technology,its
criteriaof choice, its tendencyto subordinatethought and
action to the pragmaticsof economyand effectivity.The
worid of the Holocaust did not surfacefrom its too-shallow Hobbesian
resurrected grave,
by the tumult of irrationalemotions. It arrived(in the
formidable shape Hobbes would certainly disown) in a factory-
produced vehicle, wieldingweaponsonly the most advancedscience
could supply, and following an itinerarydesigned by scientifically
managed organization.Moderncivilizationwas not the Holocaust's
Sociology
aftertheHolocaust
481
sufficientcondition; it was, however, most certainly its necessary
condition.Withoutit, the Holocaustwould be unthinkable.It was the
rational world of modern civilization which made the Holocaust
thinkable.
The Nazi mass murderof the EuropeanJewry was not only the
technologicalachievementof an industrialsociety, but also the
organizationalachievementof a bureaucraticsociety.l7

Just considerwhat was needed to makethe Holocaustuniqueamong

the many mass murderswhich markedthe historicaladvanceof the
humanspecies.

The civil service infused the other hierarchieswith its sure-footed

planning and bureaucraticthoroughness. From the army the
machineryof destructionacquiredits militaryprecision,discipline,
and callousness.Industry'sinfluencewas felt in the greatemphasis
upon accounting,penny-saving,and salvage,as well as in factory-
likeefficiencyof the killingcentres.Finally,the partycontributedto
the entireapparatusan 'idealism',a senseof'mission',and a notion
of history-making. . .
It was indeed the organized society in one of special roles.
Though engaged in mass murder on a gigantic scale, this vast
bureaucraticapparatus showed concern for correct bureaucratic
procedure,for the nicetiesof precisedefinition,for the minutiaeof
bureaucraticregulation,and the compliancewith the law.l8
The department in the SS Headquarters in charge of the
destructionof EuropeanJews was officiallydesignatedas the Section
of AdministrationandEconomy. This was only partly a lie; only in part
can it be explainedby referenceto the notoriousNazi 'speechrules',
designed to mislead both chance observers and the less resolute
amongthe perpetrators.To a degree much too high for comfort,the
designationfaithfullyreflectedthe organizationalmeaningof activity.
Exceptfor the moral repulsivennessof its goal (or, to be precise,the
giganticscale of the moral odium), the activitydid not differin any
formalsense, (the only sense which can be expressedin the language
of bureaucracy), fromall otherorganizedactivitiesdesigned,monitored
and supervisedby 'ordinary'administrativeand economicsections.
Like all other activities amenableto bureaucraticrationalization,it
fits well the sober descriptionof modern administrationofferedby
Max Weber
Precision,speed, unambiguity knowledgeof the files, continuity,
discretion,unity, strict subordination,reductionof frictionand of
materialand personalcosts- these are raisedto the optimumpoint
 482 ZygmuntBauman
in the strictly
offersabove allbureaucratic
the optimumadministration. . .
Bureaucratization
possibilityfor carrying
principle of specializing
purely objective administrativefunctions throughthe
considerations
business primarily means . . . The 'objective'according to
a dischargeof
calculablerules and 'without discharge of business accordingto
regardfor persons'.l9

Thereis nothing in this

bureaucratic descriptionwhich warrants
definitionof the Holocaust questioningthe
truth or a manifestationof as eithera simple
And yet the Holocaust a particularlymonstrousformoftravestyof
modernbureaucratic is so crucial to our understanding cynicism.
of the
mode of rationalization
primarily, becauseit remindsus (as not only, and not
howformal and if we need such a
ethically blind is the reminder)just
efficiency.Its significanceis not bureaucratic pursuit of
to
what extentthe mass fullyexpressedeither,
murderon once we realize
the
availabilityof well developed unprecedentedscale dependedon
habitsof meticulousand and firmly entrenched
precise division skills and
smooth flow of command of labour,
and information,or maintaining a
synchronized coordination of impersonal, well
those skills and habits autonomousyet complementary
on
actions:
atmosphere of the office. Thewhich best grow and thrive in the
knowledge of bureaucratic light shed by the
realize
the extent to which rationality is at its mostHolocauston our
dazzlingonce we
outcomeof the bureaucraticthe very idea of the Endlosung was an
Weowe to Karl culture.
Schleuner20the
exterminationof European concept of the twisted road to
physical
conceived
in a single vision of a Jewry:a roadwhichwas
choice mad monster,nor was a neither
made at the start of considered
ideologically the
motivatedleaders.It 'problem-solving
did, rather,emerge process' by the
pointing
at each stage to a inch by inch,
ever
newcrises,and pressed differentdestination,
shiftingin responseto
once
wecome to it' forwardwith a 'we
the philosophy.Schleuner's will crossthat bridge
findings of the 'functionalist' conceptsummarizesbest
(whichin recentyears school in the historiographyof the
Holocaust
of the rapidlygainsstrengthat
'intentionalists',who the expense
the once dominant in turn find it increasinglydifEcult
defend
that is, which single-causeexplanationof the
a vision to
and a ascribes to the Holocaust -
consistency it never possessed).genocidea motivationallogic,
Accordingto the functionalists'
findings,

Hitler
set the objectiveof
all to the territory Nazism:'to get ridoftheJews, and
make
but of the Reichjudenfrei, above
without specifyinghow this was to i.e., clearof Jews' -
be achieved.2l
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 483

Once the objective had been set, everything went on exactly as

Weber,with his usual clarity, spelled out

The 'politicalmaster'findshimselfin the positionof the 'dilettante'

who stands opposite the 'expert', facing the trained oflicial who
standswithin the managementof administration'.22
The objective had to be implemented; how, depended on the
circumstances,alwaysjudged by the 'experts'fromthe point of view
of feasibilityand costs of alternativeopportunitiesof action. And so
emigrationof GermanJews was chosen first as the practicalsolution
to Hitler'sobjective;it would have resulted in a judenfreiGermany,
were the other countriesmore hospitableto Jewish refugees.When
Austria was annexed, Eichmann earned his first accolade for
expediting and streamliningthe mass emigrationof the Austrian
Jewry. But then the territoryunderNazi rule began to swell. At first
the lfazi bureaucracysaw the conquest and appropriationof the
quasi-colonial territories as the dreamt of opportunity to fulfil
Fuhrer'scommandin full: Generalgouvernment seemed to provide the
sought-afterdumpinggroundfor the Jewry still inhabitingthe lands
of GermanyprQper,destined for racial purity.A separatereservefor
the futureiJewishprincipality'was designatedaroundlKisko,in what
was, before the conquest, Central Poland. To this, however, the
sectionof Germanbureaucracysaddledwith the managementof the
former-Polishterritoriesobjected:it had alreadyenoughtroublewith
policing its own local Jewry. And so Eichmann spent a full year
workingon the Madagascarproject;with France defeated,her far-
awaycolonycould be transformedinto theJewish principalitywhich
failed to materializein Europe. The Madagascarproject)however,
proved to be similarly ill-fated- given the enormousdistance, the
volumeof the necessaryship space, and the Britishlfavy presencein
highseas. In the meantime)the size of the conqueredterritory,and so
the numberofJews underGermanjurisdiction)continuedto grow.A
lfazi-dominatedEurope (rather than simply the 'reunited Reich')
seemeda moreand moretangibleprospect.Graduallyyet relentlessly,
the thousand-yearReich took up, ever moredistinctly,the shapeof a
German-ruledEurope.Under the circumstances,the goal of ajudenfrei
Germanycouldnot but followthe process Almostimperceptibly)step
by step, it expandedinto the objectiveofjudenfreiEurope.Ambitions
on such a scale could not be satisfied by a Madagascar,however
accessible.With all previouslytried solutions unable to keep pace
with the fast growingproblem, Himmlerorderedto stop all further
Jewish emigration.Instead, the recruitmentand trainingof Einsataz-
gruppen was set in motion, and physicalexterminationwas chosen as
the most feasible and effective means to the original, and newly
expanded, end. The rest was the matter of cooperationbetween
484 ZygmuntBauman

various departments of state bureaucracy;of careful planning,

designing proper technology and technical equipment, budgeting,
calculatingand mobilizingnecessaryresources:indeed,the matterof
dull bureaucraticroutine.
The most shatteringof lessons deriving from the analysis of the
'twistedroad to Auschwitz'is that- in the last resort- the choiceof
physicalexterminationas the rightmeansto the taskof'gettingrid'of
the Jews was a productof routine bureaucraticprocedures:means-
ends calculus,budgetbalancing,universalrule application.To make
the pointsharperstill - the choicewas an effectof the earnesteffortto
find rationalsolutions to successive'problems',as they arose in the
changingcircumstances.It was also affectedby the widelydescribed
bureaucratictendencyto goal-displacement-an afflictionas normal
in all bureaucracies
as theirroutines.The verypresenceof functionaries
charged with their specific tasks led to further initiatives and a
continuousexpansion of original purposes. Once again, expertise
demonstratedits self-propellingcapacity,its proclivityto expandand
enrichthe targetwhich suppliedits raisond'etre.
The mere existenceof a corpusof Jewish expertscreateda certain
bureaucraticmomentum behind lfazi Jewish policy. Even when
deportationsand mass murderwere already under way, decrees
appeared in 1942 prohibiting GermanJews from having pets,
gettingtheirhaircut by Aryanbarbers,or receivingthe Reichsport
badge!It did not requireordersfromabove,merelythe existenceof
thejob itself, to ensurethat theJewish expertskept up the flow of
discriminatingmeasures.23
At no point of its long and tortuollsexecutiondid the Holocaust
comein conflictwith the principlesof rationality.The 'FinalSolution'
did not clashat any stagewith the rationalpursuitof efficient,optimal
goal-implementation.On the contrary,it arose out of a genuinely
rationalconcern,and it was generatedby bureaucracytrueto its form
and purpose.We know of many massacres,pogroms,mass murders,
indeed instances not far removedfrom genocide, which have been
perpetratedwithoutmodernbureaucracy,the skillsand technologies
it commands,the scientificprinciplesof its internalmanagement.The
Holocaust,however,was clearlyunthinkablewithoutsuchbureaucracy.
The Holocaust was not an irrationaloutflow of the not-yet-fully-
eradicatedresidues of pre-modernbarbarity.It was a legitimate
residentin the house of modernity;indeed, one who would not be at
home in any other house.
This is not to suggest that the incidence of the Holocaust was
determinedby modern bureaucracyor the culture of instrumental
rationalityit epitomizes;much less still, that modern bureaucracy
mustresultin the Holocaust-stylephenomena.I do suggest,however,
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 485

that the rules of instrumentalrationalityare singularlyincapableof

preventingsuch phenomena:that thereis nothingin thoseruleswhich
disqualifiesthe Holocaust-stylemethods of'social engineering'as
improperor, indeed, the actions they served,as irrational.I suggest,
further,that the bureaucraticculturewhich promptsto view society
as an objectof administration,as a collectionof so many'problems'to
be solved,as 'nature'to be 'controlled','mastered'and 'improved'or
'remade',as a legitimatetargetfor 'socialengineering',and in general
a gardento be designedand kept in the plannedshape by force (the
gardeningposturedivides the vegetationinto 'culturedplants' to be
takencareof, and the weeds to be exterminated),was the very atmos-
pherein whichtheideaofthe Holocaustcouldbe conceived,slowlyyet
consistentlydeveloped, and brought to its conclusion. And I also
suggest that it was the spirit of instrumentalrationality, and its
modern,bureaucraticform of institutionalization,which had made
the Holocaust-style solutions not only possible, but eminently
'reasonable'- and increased the probabilityof their choice. This
increasein probabilityis more than fortuitouslyrelatedto the ability
of modernbureaucracyto coordinatethe actionsof great numbersof
moralindividualsin the pursuitof any, also immoral,ends.

SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF MORAL INDIFFERENCE

Dr Servatius,Eichmann'scounselin Jerusalem,pointedlysummarized
his line of defense: Eichmann committed acts for which one is
decoratedif one wins, and goes to the gallowsif one loses. The obvious
messageof this statement- certainlyone of the most poignantof the
centurynot at all short of strikingideas - is trivial:might does make
right. Yet there is also another message, not so evident, no less
cynical,but much more alarming:Eichmanndid nothingessentially
differentfromthingsdone by thoseon the side of the winners.Actions
have no intrinsicmoralvalue. Neitherare they immanentlyimmoral.
Moralevaluationis somethingexternalto the actionitself,decidedby
criteriaother than those which guide and shape the action itself.
What is so alarmingin the messageof Dr Servatiusis that - once
detached from the circumstancesunder which it was uttered, and
consideredin depersonalized,universal terms - it does not differ
significantlyfrom what sociology has been saying all along; or,
indeed, from seldom questioned, and still less frequentlyassailed,
common sense of our modern, rational society. Dr Servatius's
statementis shocking precisely for this reason. It brings home the
truthwhichon the whole we preferto leave unspoken:that as long as
the commonsensicaltruth in questionis acceptedas evident,thereis
no sociologicallylegitimateway of excludingEichmann'scase fromits
app lcatlon.
. .
 Bauman
Zygmunt
486
to
It is common knowledge by now that the initial attempts
the Holocaustas an outragecommittedby born criminals,
interpret
madmen, social miscreantsor otherwise morally defective
sadists,
individuals,failed to find any confirmationin the facts of the case.
The
Their refutationby historical researchis today all but final.
driftof historicalthinkinghas beenaptlysummed up by Kren
present
and Rappoport.
the SS
By conventionalclinicalcriteriano morethan 10 per cent ofgeneral
could be considered'abnormal'.This observation fits the
of the
trend of testimony by survivors indicating that in most known
camps,therewas usuallyonly one, or at mosta few, SS men
were not
for their intense outburstsof sadistic cruelty.The others
alwaysdecentpersons,but theirbehaviourwas at least considered
comprehensibleby the prisoners. . . men,
Our judgment is that the overwhelmingmajorityof SSall the
leadersas well as rank and file, would have easily passed
or
psychiatrictests ordinarilygiven to Americanarmy recruits
KansasCity policemen.24
people,
That most of the perpetratorsof the genocidewere normal
whowill freelyflow throughany known,however dense, psychiatric
puzzling,
sieve- is morally disturbing. It is also theoretically of those
particularlywhen seen conjointly with the 'normality'
organizationalstructureswhichcoordinatedtheactionsof suchnormal
that
individualsinto an enterpriseof the genocide.We knowalready legitimate
theinstitutionsresponsiblefor the Holocaust were in no
that the
sociologicalsense pathologicalor abnormal.Now we see either from
peoplewhoseactionsthey institutionalizeddid not deviate
is little choice left,
establishedstandards of normality. There our new
therefore,but to look again, with the eyes sharpened by
of
knowledge,at the allegedly fully understood,normal patterns hope to
modernrationalaction. It is in these patterns that we can
in the times of the
uncoverthe possibilityso dramaticallyrevealed
Holocaust. problem
In the famousphraseof HannahArendt,the mostdifEcult with
which the initiatorsof the Endlosung encountered (and solved
the animal
astoundingsuccess,as it were), was 'how to overcome. . . of physical
pity by which all normalmen are affected in the presence
We knowthat people enlistedinto the organizations most
suffering'.25 neither
directly involved in the business of mass murder were
that
abnormallysadistic nor abnormallyfanatical.We can assume to the
they shared in the well-nigh instinctual human aversion
inhibition
afflictionof physical suffering,and even more universal members of
againsttakinglife. We know even that when, for instance,
and other units similarly close to the scene of
the Einsatzgruppen
 Sociology
aftertheHolocaust 487

actualkillingswere enlisted,specialcare was takento weed out- bar

or discharge- all particularlykeen, emotionallycharged,ideologically
over-zealousindividuals.We know that individualinitiativeswere
discouraged,and much effortwas made to keep the whole task in a
businesslikeand strictly impersonalframework.Personalgains, and
personalmotives in general, were censoredand penalized.Killings
induced by desire or pleasure, unlike those following orders and
perpetratedin an organizedfashion,could lead (at least in principle)
to trial and conviction, like ordinarymurderor manslaughter.On
morethanone occasionHimmlerexpresseddeep, and in all likelihood
genuine, concern with maintaining mental sanity and upholding
moralstandardsof his many subordinatesengageddaily in inhuman
activity;he also expressedpride that, in his belief, both sanity and
moralityemergedunscathedfrom the test. To quote Arendtagain,
by its 'objectivity'(Sachlichkeit),the SS dissociateditselffromsuch
'emotional'types as Streicher,that 'unrealisticfool', and also from
certain'Teutonic-GermanicPartybigwigs'who behavedas though
they were clad in horns and pelts'.26

The SS leaderscounted (rightly,it would appear)on organizational

routine,not on individualzeal;on discipline,not ideologicaldedication.
Loyaltyto the gory task was to be - and was indeed- a derivativeof
the loyalty to the organization.
The 'overcomingof animal pity' could not be soughtand attained
throughreleaseof other, base animalinstincts;the latterwouldbe in
all probabilitydysfunctionalregardingthe organizationalcapacityto
act; a multitude of vengeful and murderousindividualswould not
matchthe effectivityof a small,yet disciplinedand strictlycoordinated
bureaucracy.And then it was not at all clear whether the killing
instincts can be relied upon to surface in all those thousands of
ordinaryclerks and professionalswho, becauseof the sheer scale of
the enterprise,must have been involved at various stages of the
operation.In Hilberg'swords,
The Germanperpetratorwas not a specialkindof German. . . We
know that the very nature of administrativeplanning, of the
jurisdictionalstructureand of the budgetarysystem precludedthe
specialselectionand special trainingof personnel.Any memberof
the OrderPolice could be a guard at a ghetto or on a train. Every
lawyer in the Reich Security Main Office was presumed to be
suitable for leadershipin the mobile killing units; every finance
expertto the Economic-Administrative Main Officewas considered
a naturalchoice for service in a death camp. In other words, all
necessaryoperationswere accomplishedwith whateverpersonnel
were at hand.
488 ZygmuntBauman

And so - how these ordinaryGermanswere transformedinto the

Germanperpetratorsof mass crime?In the opinion of HerbertC.
Kelman,28moral inhibitions against violent atrocities tend to be
erodedonce threeconditionsare met, singlyor together:the violence
is authorized (by official orders coming from the legally entitled
quarters),actionsare routinized (by rule-governedpracticesand exact
specificationof roles), and the victimsof the violenceare dehumanized
(by ideological definitions and indoctrinations).With the third
condition we will deal separately. The first two, however, sound
remarkablyfamiliar.They have been spelledout repeatedlyin those
principles of rational action which have been given universal
applicationby the most representativeinstitutionsof modernsociety.
The first principlemost obviouslyrelevantto our queryis that of
organizationaldiscipline; more precisely - the demand to obey
commandsof the superiorsto the exclusionof all other stimuli for
action, to put the devotion to the welfare to the organization,as
definedin the commandsof the superiors,above all other devotions
and commitments.Among these other, 'external'influences,infering
with the spirit of dedicationand hence markedfor suppressionand
extinction,personalviews and preferencesare the most prominent.
The ideal of discipline points towards total identificationwith the
organization- which, in its turn, cannot but mean readiness to
obliterateone'sown separateidentityand sacrificeone'sown interests
(by definition,such interestsas do not overlapwith the task of the
organization). In organizationalideology, readiness for such an
extremekind of self-sacrificeis articulatedas a moralvirtue;indeed,
as the moralvirtue destinedto put paid to all other moraldemands.
The selfless observanceof that moral virtue is then represented,in
Weber'sfamouswords,as the honourof the civil sevant:'The honour
of the civil servantis vestedin his abilityto executeconscientiously
the
orderof superiorauthorities,exactly as if the orderagreedwith his
own conviction.This holds even if the orderseemswrongto him and
if, despite the civil servant'sremonstrances,the authorityinsists on
the order.'This kind of behaviourmeans, for a civil servant,'moral
disciplineand self-denialin the highest sense'.29Through honour,
disciplineis substitutedfor moral responsibility.The delegitimation
of all but inner-organizationalrules as the source and guaranteeof
propriety,and thus denial of the authority of private conscience,
become now the highest moral virtue. The discomfortwhich the
practisingof such virtuesmay cause on occasion,is counterbalanced
by the superior's insistence that he and he alone bears the
responsibilityfor his subordinates'actions (as long, of course,as they
conformto his command). Weber completedhis descriptionof the
civil servant's honour with emphasizing strongly the 'exclusive
personalresponsibility'of the leader, 'a responsibilityhe cannotand
must not reject or transfer'.When pressed to explain, during the
 aftertheHolocaust
SociologW 489

Nurembergtrial, why he did not resign from the commandof the

Einsatzsgruppe of whose actions he, as a person, disapproved -
Ohlendorfinvoked precisely this sense of responsibility:were he to
exposethe deeds of his unit in orderto obtain releasefromthe duties
he said he resented - he would have let his men to be 'wrongly
accused'.Obviously,Ohlendorfexpectedthat the same paternalistic
responsibilityhe observedtowards'his men', will be practisedby his
own superiorstowards himself; this absolved him from the worry
about the moral evaluationof his actions- a worryhe could safely
leave to those who commandedhim to act.

I do not think I am in position to judge the responsibilityof a

statesman. . . or to judge whetherhis measures. . . were moralor
immoral. . . I surrenderedmy moralconscienceto the fact I was a
soldier,and thereforea cog in a relativelylow positionof a great
machine.30

If Midas'stouch transformedeverythinginto gold, SS administra-

tion transformedeverythingwhichhad come into its orbit- including
its victims- into an integralpart of the chain of command,an area
subject to the strictly disciplinary rules and freed from moral
judgement. The genocide was a composite process: as Hilberg
observed,it includedthings done by the Germans,and thingsdone-
on German orders, yet often with dedication verging on self-
abandonment- by their Jewish victims. This is the technical
superiorityof a purposefullydesigned, rationally organized mass
murderover riotous outbursts of killing orgy. Cooperationof the
victimswith perpetratorsof a pogromis inconceivable.The victims'
cooperationwith the bureaucratsof the SS was part of the design;
indeed,a crucialconditionof its success.
A large component of the entire process depended on Jewish
participation- the simple acts of individualsas well as organized
activity in councils . . . German supervisorsturned to Jewish
councilsfor information,money,labour,or police,and the councils
providedthem with these means every day of the week.
This astonishingeffectof successfullyextendingthe rules of bureau-
cratic conduct, complete with the delegitimation of alternative
loyaltiesand moral motivesin general,upon the intendedvictims of
bureaucracy,and thereby deploying their skills and labour in the
implementationof the task of their destruction,was achieved(much
as in mundaneactivityof everyother,sinisteror benign,bureaucracy)
in a twofoldway. First, the externalsetting of the ghetto life was so
designedthat all actions of its leadersand inhabitantscould not but
remainobjectively'functional)to Germanpurposes.
 490 ZygmuntBauman

Everythingthat was designedto maintainits [Ghetto]viabilitywas

simultaneouslypromotinga Germangoal . . . Jewish efficiencyin
allocating space or in distributingrations was an extension of
Germaneffectiveness.Jewish rigorin taxationor labourutilization
was a reinforcementof Germanstringency,evenJewish incorrupti-
bility could be a tool of Germanadministration.
Second,particularcare was takenthat at everystage of the road the
victims should be put in a situation of choice, to which criteriaof
rationalaction apply, and in which the rationaldecisioninvariably
agreeswith the 'managerialdesign'.
The Germanswere notablysuccessfulin deportingJewsby stages,
because those who remained behind would reason that it was
necessaryto sacrificethe few in orderto save the many.3'
As a matterof fact, even those alreadydeportedwere left with the
opportunityto deploy their rationality to the very end. The gas
chambers, temptingly dubbed 'bathrooms',presented a welcome
sight after days spent in overcrowded,filthy cattle carriages.Those
who alreadyknew the truth and entertainedno illusions,still had a
choice between a 'quick and painless' death, and one precededby
extra sufferingsreservedfor the insubordinate.Hence not only the
externalarticulationsof the ghetto setting, on which the victimshad
no control,were manipulatedso as to transformthe ghettoas a whole
into an extensionof the murderingmachine;also the rationalfaculties
of the 'functionaries'of that extensionweredeployedforthe elicitation
of behaviourmotivatedby loyalty and cooperationwith the bureau-
craticallydefinedends.

SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF MORAL INVISIBILITY

So far we have tried to reconstruct the social mechanism of

'overcomingthe animalpity';a social productionof conductcontrary
to the innate moral inhibitions,capable of transformingindividuals
who are not 'moraldegenerates'in none of the 'normal'senses, into
murderersor consciouscollaboratorsin the murderingprocess.The
experienceof the Holocausthoweverbringsinto reliefanothersocial
mechanism;one with a much more sinisterpotentialof involvinga
much wider numberof people into the perpetrationof the genocide
who neverin the processfaceconsciouslyeitherdifficultmoralchoices
or the need to stifle inner resistanceof conscience.The struggleover
moralissuesnevertakesplace, as the moralaspectsof actionsare not
immediatelyobviousor are deliberatelyprevbntedfromdiscoveryand
discussion. In other words, the moral characterof action is either
invisibleor purposefullyconcealed.
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 491

To quote Hilbergagain,

(i)t mustbe keptin mindthat mostofthe participants[ofgenocide]

did not fireriflesatJewishchildrenor pourgas intogas chambers. . .
Most bureaucrats composed memoranda, drew up blueprints,
talked on the telephone, and participatedin conferences.They
could destroya whole people by sitting at their desk.32
Werethey awareof the ultimateproductof theirostensiblyinnocuous
bustle- such knowledgewouldstay, at best, in the remoterecessessof
their minds. Causal connectionsbetweentheir actions and the mass
murderwere diflicultto spot. Little moralopprobriumwas attached
to the naturalhumanproclivityto avoidworryingmorethannecessity
required- and thus to abstainfromexaminingthe wholelengthof the
causal chain up to its furthest links. To understand how that
astoundingmoral blindnesswas possible,it is helpfulto thinkof the
workersof an armamentplant who rejoicein the 'stayof execution'of
theirfactorythanksto new big orders,whileat the same time honestly
bewailingthe massacresvisited upon each other by Ethiopiansand
Eritreans;or to think how is it possible that the 'fall in commodity
prices'may be universallywelcomedas good newswhile 'starvationof
Africanchildren'is equally universally,and sincerely,lamented.
A fewyearsagoJohn Lachssingledout the mediationof action (the
phenomenonof one's action being performedforone by someoneelse,
by an intermediateman, who 'stands between me and my action,
makingit impossiblefor me to experienceit directly')as one of the
most salient and seminal featuresof modernsociety. There is a long
distancebetweenintentionsand practicalaccomplishments,with the
space between the two packed with a multitudeof minute acts and
inconsequentialactors.The 'middleman' shieldsoffthe outcomesof
actionfrom the actors' sight.

The result is that there are many acts no one consciously

appropriates.For the person on whose behalf they are done, they
exist only verballyor in the imagination:he will not claim them as
his own since he never lived though them. The man who has
actuallydone them, on the other hand, will always view them as
someoneelse's and himself as but the blamelessinstrumentof an
alien will . . .
Withoutfirsthand acquaintancewith his actions,even the bestof
humansmoves in a moralvacuum:the abstractrecognitionof evil
is neithera reliableguide nor an adequatemotive . . . (W)e shall
not be surprisedat the immenseand largelyunintentionalcrueltyof
men of good will . . .
The remarkablething is that we are not unable to recognize
wrongacts or grossinjusticeswhenwe see them.Whatamazesus is
492 ZygmuntBauman
how they could have come about when each of us did none but
harmlessacts . . . It is difficultto acceptthatoftenthereis no person
and no groupthat plannedor causedit all. It is even moredifficult
to see how our own actions, through their remote effects,
contributedto causing midery.33
The increasein the physicaland/or psychicdistancebetweenthe
act and its consequencesachievesmore than the suspensionof moral
inhibition;it quashes the moral significanceof the act and thereby
preemptsall conflict between personalstandardsof moral decency
and immoralityof the socialconsequencesof the act. With mostof the
sociallysignificantactionsmediatedby a long chainof complexcausal
and functional dependencies, moral dilemmas recede from sight,
while the occasions for moral scrutiny and consciousmoral choice
becomeincreasinglyrare.
A similareffect(and on a still moreimpressivescale) is achievedby
renderingthe victimsthemselvespsychologically invisible.
This has been
certainly most decisive among the factors responsible for the
escalation of human costs in modern warfare. As Philip Caputo
observed,war ethos 'seemsto be a matterof distanceand technology.
You could never go wrong if you killed people at long range with
sophisticated weapons'.34With killing 'at a distance', the link
betweenthe carnageand totally innocentacts, like pullinga trigger,
or switching on the electric current, or pressing a button on the
computerkeyboard- is likely to remaina purely theoreticalnotion
(the tendency enormouslyhelped by the mere discrepancyof scale
betweenthe result and its immeditecause- an incommensurability
which easily defies comprehensiongrounded in commonsensical
experience).It is thereforepossibleto be a pilot deliveringthe bomb
to Hiroshimaor to Dresden, to excel in the duties assigned at the
guided missiles base, to design ever more devastatingspecimensof
nuclearwarheads- and all this withoutdetractingfromone's moral
integrityand coming anywherenear moral collapse (invisibilityof
victimswas, arguably,an importantfactoralso in infamousMilgram's
experiments).With this effectof the invisibilityof victimsin mind, it
is perhapseasier to understandthe successiveimprovementsin the
technologyof the Holocaust.At the Einsatzgruppen stage, the rounded
up victims were brought in front of machine guns and killed at a
point-blankrange.Though effortswere made to keep the weaponsat
a longestpossibledistancefromthe ditchesinto which the murdered
were to fall - it was exceedinglydifficultfor the shootersto overlook
the connection between shooting and killing. This is why the
administrators of genocidefoundthe methodprimitiveand inefficient,
as well as dangerousto the moraleof the perpetrators.Other murder
techniqueswere thereforesought - such as would opticallyseparate
the killersfromtheirvictims.The searchwas successful,and led to the
inventionof firstthe mobile,then stationarygas chambers;the latter-
* * * . * . . . * .

aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 493

the most perfectthe Nazis had time to invent- reducedthe roleof the
killer to that of the 'sanitationofficer'asked to empty a sackfulof
'disinfectingchemicals'throughan apperturein the roofof a building
the interiorof which he was not promptedto visit.
The technical-administrative success of the Holocaustwas due in
part to the skilfulutilizationof'moral sleepingpills' made available
by modern bureaucracy and modern technology. The natural
lnvlslbllty ot causa connectlonsln a comp ex system ot lnteractlon,
and the distancingof the unsightlyor morallyrepellingoutcomesof
actionto the point of renderingthem invisibleto the actor,weremost
prominentamongthem. Yet the Nazis particularlyexcelledin a third
method, which they did not invent either, but perfected to an
unprecedentedlength. This was the method of making the very
humanityof the victimsinvisible.Helen Fein'sconceptof the universe
of obligation ('the circle of people with reciprocalobligations to
protecteach other whose bonds arise fromtheir relationto a deity of
sacredsource of authority'35)goes a long way towardsilluminating
the socio-psychologicalfactors which stand behind the awesome
effectivityof this method.The 'universeof obligation'designatesthe
outer limits of the social territoryinside which moralquestionsmay
be asked at all with any sense. On the other side of the boundary,
moralpreceptsdo not bind, and moralevaluationsare meaningless.
To renderthe humanityof victimsinvisible,one needsmerelyto evict
them fromthe universeof obligation.
Within the Nazi vision of the world, as measuredby one superior
and uncontestedvalue of the rights of Germanhood,to exclude the
Jews fromthe universeof obligationit was only necessaryto deprive
themof the membershipin the Germannationand state community.
In anotherof Hilberg'spoignantphrases,
(w)henin the earlydays of 1933the firstcivil servantwrotethe first
definitionof'non-Aryan' into a civil serviceordinance,the fate of
EuropeanJewry was sealed.36
To induce the cooperation(or just inaction or indifference)of non-
GermanEuropeans,more was needed. Strippingthe Jews of their
Germanhood,sufficientfor the GermanSS, was evidentlynot enough
forthe nationswhich,even if they likedthe ideaspromotedby the new
rulersof Europe, had reasons to fear and resent their claims to the
monopolyof human virtue. Once the objectiveofjudenfreiGermany
turnedinto the goal ofjudenfreiEurope,the evictionof theJews from
the Germannation had to be supplantedby theirtotal dehumanization.
Hence Frank'sfavouriteconjunctionof'Jews and lice', the changein
rhetoricexpressedin the transplantingof the 'Jewishquestion'from
the context of racial self-defenceinto the linguisticuniverseof 'self-
cleansing'and 'politicalhygiene',the typhus-warningposterson the
494 Bauman
Zygmunt

wallsof the ghettos,and finallythe commissioningof the chemicalsfor

thelast act fromthe DeutscheGesellschaftfWurSchadlingsbekampung
- a GermanFumigation Company.

MORALCONSEQUENCES OF THE CIVILIZING PROCESS

Thesharedsociologicalimageryof the civilizingprocessentails,as its

twocentrepoints, the suppressionof irrationaland essentiallyanti-
socialdrives, and the gradual yet relentlesseliminationof violence
from social life (more precisely: concentrationof violence under
controlof the state, whereit is used solely to guardthe perimetersof
nationalcommunityand conditionsof socialorder).What blendsthe
twocentrepointsinto one is the vision of the civilizedsocietyas, first
and foremost, a moral force; as a system of institutions which
cooperate and complement each other in the imposition of a
normativeorder and the rule of law, which in turn safeguard
conditionsof socialpeaceand individualsecuritypoorlydefendedin a
. * * .

pre-clvl lzec . settlng.

This vision is not necessarily misleading. In the light of the
Holocaust,however,it certainlylooks one-sided.While it opens for
scrutinyimportanttrendsof recenthistory,it foreclosesthe discussion
of no less crucial tendencies. Focusing on one facet or historical
process, it draws an arbitrary dividing line between norm and
abnormality.By delegitimizing some of the resilient aspects of
civilization,it falsely suggeststheir fortuitousand transitorynature,
simultaneouslyconcealing the striking resonance between most
prominentof their attributes and the normative assumptionsof
modernity.In other words, it divertsattentionfromthe permanence
of the alternative,destructivepotentialof the civilizingprocess.
I proposethat the majorlessonof the Holocaust,one that sociology
can ignoreonly at its peril, is the necessityto expandthe theoretical
model of the civilizing process,so as to include latter'stendencyto
demote, exprobate, and delegitimize ethical motivationsof social
action. We need to take stock of the evidence that the civilizing
processis, among other things, a process of divesting the use and
deploymentof violencefrommoralcalculus,and of emancipatingthe
desiderataof rationalityfrom interferenceof ethical normsor moral
inhibitions. As the promotion of rationality to the exclusion of
alternative criteria of action, and in particular the tendency to
subordinateuse of violence to rationalcalculus, had been long ago
acknowledgedas a constitutivefeatureof moderncivilization- the
Holocaust-style phenomenamust be recognizedas legitimateoutcomes
of the civilizingtendency,and its constantpotential.
Readagainwith the benefitof hindsight,Weber'selucidationof the
conditions and the mechanism of rationalization reveals these
Sociology
aftertheHolocaust 495

important,yet thus far underratedconnections.We see more clearly

that the conditions of the rational conduct of business - like the
notoriousseparationbetween the household and the enterprise,or
betweenprivateincomeand public purse- functionat the same time
as powerfulfactors in isolating the end-orientated,rational action,
from interchange with processes ruled by other (by definition
irrational)norms, and thus renderingit immuneto the constraining
impact of the postulates of mutual assistance,solidarity,reciprocal
respect etc, which are sustained in the practices of non-business
formations.This general accomplishmentof rationalizingtendency
has been codifiedand institutionalized,not unexpectedly,in modern
bureaucracy.Subjected to the same retrospectivere-reading, it
revealsthe silencingof moralityas its majorconcern;as, indeed, the
fundamentalcondition of its success as an instrumentof rational
coordinationof action. And it also revealsits capacityof generating
the Holocaust-likesolutionwhile pursuing,in an impeccablyrational
fashion,its daily problem-solvingactivity.
Any revisionof the theoryof civilizingprocessalong the suggested
lines would involve by necessitya change in sociologyitself. Nature
and styleof sociologyhas been attunedto the selEsamemodernsociety
it theorisedand investigated;sociology has been engaged since its
birth in a mimetic relationshipwith its object- or, rather,with the
imageryof that objectwhich it constructedand acceptedas the frame
for its own discourse. And so the sociology promoted,as its own
criteria of propriety, the same principles of rational action it
visualizedas constitutiveof its object. It also promoted,as binding
rulesof own discourse,inadmissibilityof ethical problematicsin any
other form but that of communally-sustainedideology and thus
heterogenous to the sociological (scientific, rational) discourse.
Phraseslike 'the sanctity of human life' or 'moralduty' sounded as
alien in a sociology seminar as they do in the smoke-free,sanitized
roomsof bureaucraticoffice.
In observingsuch principlesin its professionalpractice,sociology
did not morethan partakein the scientificculture.As partand parcel
of the rationalizingprocess,that culturecannotescapea secondlook.
Self-imposedmoral silence of science has, after all, revealedsome of
its less advertizedaspectswhen the issueof productionand disposalof
corpsesin Auschwitzhad been articulatedas a 'medicalproblem'.It
is not easy to dismiss FranklinM. Littell'swarningsof the credibility
crisisof the modernuniversity:
What kind of a medical school trained a Mengele and his
associates?What departmentsof anthropologypreparedthe staffof
StrasbourgUniversity's'Instituteof AncestralHeredity'?37

Not to wonder for whom this particular bell tolls, to avoid the
496 Zygmunt
Bauman
temptation to shrug off these questions as of merely historical
significance,one needssearchno furtherthanColinGray'sanalysisof
the momentumbehind the contemporarynucleararms race:
Necessarily, the scientists and technologists on each side are
'racing'to diminish their own ignorance(the enemy is not Soviet
technology; it is the physical unknowns that attract scientific
attention) . . . Highly motivated, technologicallycompetentand
adequately funded team of research scientists will inevitably
producean endlessseriesof brandnew (or refined)weaponideas.38
ZygmuntBauman
Universityof Leeds

NOTES

* This is an early version of the thatsocietyinsists'(as it does with other

Introductionto Modernity andtheHolocaust, kinds of selfishness) that it must be
PolityPress, 1989. rigorously monitored and restrained'
1. Comp. Konrad Lorenz, On Ag- (p.249).
gression,New York,Harcourt,Braceand 2. HenryL. Feingold,'How Unique
World 1977; Arthur Koestler,Janus:A is the Holocaust?',in Genocide, Critical
Summing Up, London,Hutchinson1978. Issuesof theHolocaust, ky Alex Grobman
Amongmanywritingswhich attemptto and Daniel Landes (eds), Los Angeles,
deploytheoriesof immanentfaultinessof The Simon Wiesenthal Center 1983,
humannaturefor the explanationof the p. 398.
Holocaust,How Canwe Committhe Un- 3. GeorgeM. Krenand LeonRappo-
thinkable? by IsraelW. Charny(Boulder, port, TheHolocaust andtheCrisisof Human
Westview Press 1982) occupies a pro- Behaviour, New York, Holmes & Meier
minentplace.The bookcontainsa com- 1980,p. 2.
prehensivesurvey of theoriesof human 4. EverettC. Hughes, 'Good people
nature,and considerssuch hypothesesas andDirtywork',SocialProblems, Summer
'man is naturallyevil', 'tendencyto get 1962,pp. 3-10-
drunkwith power', 'projectingthat we 5. Comp. Helen Fein, Accounting for
can bearleast in ourselvesinto a scape- Genocide, NationalResponse andJewishVic-
goat',or 'killingthe humanityof another timization duringtheHolocaust, New York,
to spareone'sown'. WendyStellarFlory FreePress 1979.
('The Psychologyof Antisemitism',in 6. Ibid.,p. 34.
MichealCurtis (ed.), Antisemitism in the 7. NechamaTec, WhenLightPierced
Contemporary World,Boulder, Westview the Darkness,Oxford University Press
Press1986)explainsthe incidenceof the 1986,p. 193.
Holocaustby tenacity of antisemitism, 8. John K. Roth, 'Holocaust
antisemitismby ubiquitous prejudice, Business',in Annalsof AAPSS,450, July
prejudiceby 'the most fundamentaland 1980,p. 70.
intuitiveof all humandrives- selfishness', 9. Feingold,op.cit., p. 399-400.
whichin its turnis explainedas 'theresult 10. Edmund Stillman and William
of anotherhuman characteristics. . . - Pfaff,ThePoliticsof Hysteria,New York,
the pride that makes us ready to go to Harper& Row 1964,p. 30- 1.
almostany length to avoid admittingto 11. Raoul Hilberg, TheDestrstionof
ourselvesthat we were in the wrong' theEuropean Jews, New York,Holmes &
(p. 240). Floryclaimsthatthe prevention Meier 1983,vol. 3, p. 994.
of destructiveeffectsof prejudicerequires 12. RichardL. Rubenstein,TheCunning
 aftertheHolocaust
Sociology 497

of History,New York, Harper 1978, meansto implementthe set goal;it was,

pp.91, 195. indeed, a productof rationalproblem-
13. Comp. Lyman H. Legters (ed.), solvingmentality.
Western aftertheHolocaust,
Society Boulder, 20. Comp. Karl A. Schleuner, The
WestviewPress 1983. TwistedRoadto Suschwitz,Universityof
14. In the wordsof the formerforeign Illinois Press 1970.
ministerof Israel,AbbaEban,'WithMr. 21. MichaelR. Marrus,TheHolocaust
Beginand his cohorts,everyfoe becomes in History,London, University of New
a "Nazi", every blow becomes an England1987,p. 41.
"Auschwitz" '. Eban continues: 'It is 22. Gerthand Mills, op.cit., p. 232.
abouttimethatwe standon ourown feet 23. Browning,op.cit., p. 147.
and not of those of the six million' 24. Kren and Rappoport,op.cit.
(quoted after Michael R. Marrus, 'Is 25. Hannah Arendt, Eichmannin
therea New Antisemitism?',in Michael Jerusalem, A Reporton theBanalityof Evil,
Curtis, op. cit., p. 177-8). Begin-style New York,VikingPress 1964,p. 106.
statementsinvite responsein kind: and 26. Ibid.,p. 69.
thus the Los AngelesTimesascribes to 27. Hilberg,op.cit.,p.1011.
Begin 'the language of Hitler', while 28. Comp.HerbertC. Kelman,'Viol-
anotherAmericanjournalistwritesabout ence withoutMoralRestraint',Journal of
the eyes of PalestinianArabslookingout SocialIssues29, 1973,pp. 29-61.
at him fromunder the photosof Jewish 29. Gerth and Mills, op. cit., p. 95.
children marched into gas chambers Duringhis trial, Eichmanninsistedthat
(comp.EdwardAlexanderin ibid.). he obeyed not just orders,but the law.
15. Kren and Rappoport, op. cit., Arendt comments that he (and not
pp. 126, 143. necessarilyhe alone) travestiedKant's
16. Leo Kuper, Genocide, Its Political categoricalimperative,so that insteadof
Usein theTwentieth Century,New Haven, individualautonomy,it should support
Yale UniversityPress 1981,p. 161. bureaucratic subordination:'act as if the
17. ChristopherR. Browning, 'The principleof youractionwerethe sameas
GermanBureaucracy and the Holocaust', that of the legislatoror of the law of the
in Grobman& Landes,op.cit., p. 148. land' (op.cit., p. 136).
18. Leo Kuper,op.cit., p. 121. 30. QuotedafterRobertWolfe,'Puta-
19. H. H. Gerthand C. WrightMills tive Threat to National Security as a
(eds), FromMax Weber,London, Rout- NurembergDefencefor Genocide',Annals
ledge & Kegan Paul 1970,pp. 214, 215. of AAPSS,450,July 1980,p. 64.
In hercomprehensive surveyand partisan 31. Hilberg,op.cit.,pp. 1036-8, 1042.
evaluationof the treatmentof the Holo- 32. Ibid.,p. 1024.
caust by the historians(TheHolocaust and 33. John Lachs, Responsibility of the
theHistorians,HarvardUP, 1981), Lucy Individualin ModernSociety,Brighton,
S. Dawidowiczobjectsagainstequating Harvester1981,pp. 12-13, 58.
the Holocaustwith other cases of mass 34. Philip Caputo, A Rumour of War,
murder,likethe wipingout of Hiroshima New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston
and Nagasaki: 'The purpose of the 1977,p. 229.
bombingwas to demonstrateAmerica's 35. Fein, op.cit., p. 4.
superiormilitarypower'- the bombing 36. Hilberg,op.cit., p. 1044.
'wasnot motivatedby a wish to wipeout 37. FranklinM. Littell,'Fundamentals
theJapanesepeople'(p. 17-18). Having in HolocaustStudies',Annalsof AAPSS,
made this evidently true observation, 450,July 1980,p. 213.
Dawidowiczneverthelessmisses an im- 38. Colin Gray, The Soviet-American
portantpoint:the killingof two-hundred- ArmsRace,Lexington,SaxonHouse 1976,
thousandJapanese was conceived(and pp. 39, 40.
executed) as a searched-foreffective