Some notes on atrocities
November 19th 2006 09:42
Mass grave at Belsen
The belief that genocide is not simply a large number of murders, nor death by torture simply a type of death.
* ...the presence of shock, and inability to process.
Incomprehensibility.
Which is also the advent of humour: the Holocaust is profoundly ridiculous.
O'Keefe J remarks: "The circumstances of and surrounding the killing... go far beyond the experience of any of the professional people, including experienced psychiatrists, that were involved in the case."
* One might doubt whether the atrocious exists at all. For, conveniently, if it does exist, then it cannot be spoken of. It is "something new", but you can't specify what.
And it's not dissimilar, therefore, to any "holy mystery", or to God, who surpasseth human understanding if He exist at all.
* If reasonable minds can differ over what is "atrocious", then that is potentially a reason to disbelieve in its usefulness or existence.
Alleged image of a pile of burning corpses at Auschwitz
There is no horrible in a world of horror -- people are unshocked.
* How do you work out, in law, how many counts on which to prosecute someone?
Well, you cast about. It's a subjective process. There's a law somewhere that says, "It is an offence to do x", and you see how many different such laws the accused's acts can be interpreted under. And it is perfectly open for the same act to be more than one crime -- for destruction of property also to be "terrorism", or to be both state and federal offences.
* But in the moral realm? If you are outside formalized system, and are floating among intuitions?
Well, the process is much more subjective. Moral crimes just aren't clear cut. It seems you must feel the number of offences.
Alleged image of naked women running to the gas chambers at Auschwitz
* Which perhaps appears to lack consistent principle (why should there be this many offences, and not more or less?). But the arbitrariness of characterization goes all the way down. All crimes are invented at whim.
One way of making this point: Peter Singer might argue that instead of separate offences of manslaughter, fraud, assault, we should operate with the single category of "violation of interest". Legal systems are imaginable that have differently-interacting fields of concepts than ours.
Another way: Not only is moral evaluation a culturally varying matter (so that "intention", for instance, is not always and everywhere morally relevant), but names are arbitrary, all the way down. Everything that happens is a specific, and it is apparently accidental that something gets identified, then identified as an action, then grouped with other actions.
* Is there also a concept of the incomprehensibly good? Does it have a name? Can one specify what constitutes it?
***
The image of Belsen is from this site.
The images of Auschwitz are from this site.
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Comment by Damo
You have been very busy today.
Good posts, all of them.
'atrocious' is a word that we put on certain events because other words would struggle to express our meaning.
Empathy is what makes us shocked over certain crimes. We empathize with the victims and try to imagine what it must be like for them. When I hear of a terrible crime I often hear of its justification and the logic behind it. The criminal often sound so reasonable and logical. They make a good argument as to why they had a special right to do what they did. I may be able to understand why someone does something terrible but that does not mean I accept their logic as being correct. The crime become incomprehesible when the criminal is totally lacking in empathy to the victim.
The law has one advantage over it long history and that is it can be changed.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Anyway, here's three types:
1. I grasp your reasons, but not your logic. I hear you saying, "I hit him because the sky was blue", but your words don't mean nothin'.
2. I understand the cause and effect of what you do, but I can't empathize. I recognize that you do what you do because you're racist/necrophiliac/crazy, but I can't entirely imagine what it would feel like. Just because I'm a psychologist and can predict your behaviour and describe your thoughts doesn't mean I really get it.
3. I get it; and I can relate it to my own experience.
I think you're probably right about the "atrocious" being some sort of failure of language or of understanding...
Comment by The Voices in my Head
The Voices in my Head
"racist/necrophiliac/crazy", that is a line of redundancy, isn't it? *smile*
I will behave this time, I promise.
I fully agree with you and Damo in that we label something atrocious due to an inability to understand but I will take it one step further. It is an inability to understand and an utter lack of desire to understand.
I would read a book on the story in your post regarding...*thinking of baseball or something else entirely, must get through this post without giggling*...the gentleman whose wife skinned him and all that. I want to know what her thought process was? Did the man cheat on her? Did he leave that wet towel on the floor AGAIN? Why was there a need to be so viscious? Why did she do it? I want to know every detail. I am shocked by the circumstances of the story, but I am not at a loss to discuss it.
However, I would not ever read a book on the confessions of a pedophile. I don't care why they did it, I just care that they die for it. That is the only interest I have in a story like that. This is an atrocity in my mind.
Voices~
Comment by Adrienne
Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Voices, please don't behave.
I rather wonder whether anything is an atrocity, whether people aren't basically understandable... For intance, though I mentioned this before, I think the idea that the woman was insane makes her actions less atrocious.
And I think I'm going to write a post on pedophilia, just for you.
Cibby -- I doubt there's any necessity to the reaction. For what it's worth, I think it's plausible to imagine a society that is completely desensitized.
Adrienne -- from all over the place. I don't know how much of it is original. Where do you get your ideas?
This particular post, maybe it came from the habit of looking to clarify. So, when someone uses a word like "atrocious", I want to ask, so what do you mean, what are you trying to convey, what made you choose that word, etc.
Comment by Adrienne
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Comment by Lilla
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I have always said that God has a great sense of humour, however, I think Hitler did not?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
But I do think there is something to all of this -- this connection between the horrible and the comic, or the horrible only being expressible through the comic, or people needing the comic to cope with the horrible.