Why should the record of historical events and the moral or other conclusions drawn from it be considered one and the same?
I agree; they should not be.
Why do you think the "systematic" of the systematic murder was "forgotten"?
The systematic extermination of humans is rightfully considered abhorrent because, as people, we empathize with the suffering of others but we must do more than this. I worry that empathy concentrates exclusively on "how I would feel" in such a circumstance and loses sight of the systematising method provoking such feeling.
Though, thankfully, the Nazi ideology was defeated, I do believe that, fundamentally, modern thinking is still infected with a disposive thrust that commodifies people so abhorrently and that, presently, detection of this thrust eludes the scope of morality. We need a wider morality that gently resists complete systematization, lest these systematising discourses shift their locus of operation to provoke another violent and appalling crescendo.
The violence of modern thinking is that it disposes all beings as standing reserve, pure commodity, nothing but resource. Of course, as others have pointedo out,
all thinking entails a
degree of classification, with material production likewise requiring a
process, but modernity embraces TOTAL systematisation and nothing else. All the while this way thinking holds sway, I am fearful that the potential for another holocaust exists.
edit: I'll answer your next post here rather than make a new post of my own:
Just to be clear, too, I'm obviously not suggesting that 'non-systematic' killing or execution, if such a thing is even possible, is somehow 'ok', or trying to suggest that we ignore the atrocious suffering of individual victims, as if we would confuse means and end. Clearly there is no
moral equivalent between modern systematic processes and the holocaust but, as Julian Young argues, Heidegger's unsettling point about agriculture and the holocaust is that there might be an 'essential' similarity in terms of ontological structure, even though they are completely non-comparable in terms of morality; it might even be that the comparison is unsettling because we want to deny it. As Caputo points out: even though he recognises the grain of truth in the comparison Lacoue-Labarthe calls Heidegger's condemnation scandalously inadequate. I think our task should be to recognise the unsettling comparison between modern systematising processes but also maintain an absolute moral awareness of what Caputo calls the ontic suffering of victims. This moral dimension is, sadly, not directly articulated by Heidegger, and I wanted to clarify that, by stating Heidegger's comparison, by no means do I seek to negate this facet. Here and elsewhere where I have spoken about such equivalence or parity (as pertains to other things too, such as ideologies of 'activist causes') I mean only 'essentially' (in the technical and ontological semse of
wessen, not in the vernacular sense of 'being the same') not morally. Zizek notes that it is said that it is modern technology, not Heidegger, that draws the equivalence (and this is the argument I hold to - although its weakness is that it can mean an evasion of individual responsibility). I do think that that the comparison is a fierce condemnation from within a thinking of Being that, because it is ontological rather than moral in scope is wrongly considered
immoral. That does raise the important question of whether ontology and morality should ever be separated but I like Young's idea that gestel is an underlying pathology of thinking that manifests various degrees of atrocity (with the holocaust, and the people that perpetrated it, being highest and worst). I just wanted to be clear that by talking about this 'essential/ontological' similarity, in no way am I trying to ignore the overwhelming moral aspect of what happened.
Zizek rejects the idea that technological thinking itself performs the reduction because he claims that the holocaust had an aspect of shaming about it; that it was the intent of nazis to shame and degrade their victims, not just dehumanize and systematise them. I think this is true to an extent but I would also point to the fact that, sickeningly, some SS members were regarded has having 'horrible jobs' working in death camps, performing work that 'had to be done', so I do think that comparison has some unsettling merit. It's intended to suggest that the holocaust was an extreme manifestation of a much wider type of thinking that, as a whole, does violence to Being and existence itself, and 'essentially/ontologically' not only to man (as it if were a kind of 'blasphemy' that touched all things, not just man; remember too, though, that for Heidegger Being includes the fourfold, which itself includes 'mortals' as distinct from metaphysical man; If we do violence to Being, we do violence to mortals) BUT
morally of course, and again, on a moral level it is wholly improper to compare the systematic destruction of people to the processes of agriculture, and if we read the comparison morally and not essentially, it is indeed immoral and tasteless. I thought it would be worthwhile to clear that up, seeing as I now note you've (Kmik) asked about it.
Denett has a most interesting view on consciousness I'd love to discuss
Please do start a thread. I can't promise a quick response though. If he is still around, Deniz would probably discuss such things with you more rewardingly than I.
Another question: is the *only* problem, in your view, the systematization (although it's hard to separate between the two)
As I've said above: of course not. The extermination of a people is monstrous beyond compare. I am simply concerned that we have not taken sufficient stock of the "systematising" aspect of the crime. For example, I am concerned by current discourses that cast all muslims as terrorists representing a threat to Western society. I think this way of thinking is very dangerous.
[later edit] years later, after the publication of his notebooks, it seems to me impossible to continue to see H's thinking on technology as a criticism of The Holocaust.
