Paging Bernard Baruch
I just ran across this via aldaily.com.
First of all, for any parents-to-be out there, "Tiffany" is not a name you want to give your daughter if you want her to be taken seriously in most professions [especially if you spell it "Tiffani"].
Second of all, "Institute of Ideas"? Is this for real?
Irrelevant stuff aside, the article bears obliquely on the topic of racism and its manifestations similar to the ones that are presented in Crash (last post but one). Two paragraphs in particular caught my attention:
This is where Crash has relevance. Yes, the Holocaust is different from everyday rudeness; but that (in part) is where its origins lie. "Careless individual actions" are meaningful because they reveal attitudes that may ordinarily be suppressed. (I would be interested to know the strength of association between approval of restrictions on immigrants and belief in racial/ethnic stereotypes.) Everyday rudeness rarely works as a method for getting people to do what you want, but it's great for letting people know how much they annoy you. The critical question is, How permissible are those careless individual actions of everyday rudeness? When they are directed against a particular category of people often enough simply because of the category, they can create a hostile environment that permits otherwise unacceptable actions (how different were the post-Reconstruction American South and Nazi Germany?). Slippery slope. (N.B. I am not saying that rudeness is either a necessary or sufficient precursor to all crimes against humanity. I would be surprised if it had been terribly important in the Balkans or Rwanda.)
Maybe Iraq's Ba'ath party simply attracted people with tendencies toward thuggery. But isn't it strange how so many bullies ended up in the U.S. Army's 372nd Military Police Company (the Abu Ghraib photos unit)? What are the odds? Pretty low, actually. How many of the charged soldiers' friends and relatives would, prior to the Abu Ghraib revelations, have believed them capable of those acts? How many do now, even? Abu Ghraib didn't happen because it was staffed by soldiers who joined the Army to beat up on POWs; it happened because soldiers were placed in an environment that fostered such behavior. "The potential for violence" is within us all; it just needs the right circumstances to manifest (My Lai). Perhaps Ms Jenkins thinks most people are different from Lynndie England, but the infamous Stanford prison experiment says otherwise. So does the Milgram experiment. And remember, the Nazis did not initiate the Holocaust as soon as they were in power. They got there through a series of smaller policy steps over a more than a decade. It is a slippery slope, and in the right circumstances any of us could slip up. The task is to avoid it.
The Holocaust was extreme, and it was historically specific. But it was neither historically nor behaviorally unique. (Perhaps Ms Jenkins has forgotten about the historical frequency of pogroms.) Just as it did not emerge from a vacuum, neither did it disappear into one. For the vast majority of people, the Holocaust is less interesting as an historical catastrophe than as a moral one. From that perspective, the connection between the Holocaust and everyday rudeness is important.
(Granted, under the present U.S. administration, it does seem more important that people understand how "power relationships and state organization" and gradual policy development all contribute to such things as the Holocaust [remember, the Nazis sold themselves as the party of nationalism and law & order. Sound like anybody we know?], than how everday intolerance does. But this, of course, is an historically specific situation.)
First of all, for any parents-to-be out there, "Tiffany" is not a name you want to give your daughter if you want her to be taken seriously in most professions [especially if you spell it "Tiffani"].
Second of all, "Institute of Ideas"? Is this for real?
Irrelevant stuff aside, the article bears obliquely on the topic of racism and its manifestations similar to the ones that are presented in Crash (last post but one). Two paragraphs in particular caught my attention:
...The Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles transforms the history of the Holocaust into a discussion about everyday intolerance. It is suggested that there is a slippery slope between shouting and shoving, and world wars. Audiences are lectured that 'the potential of violence is within us all'.At the moment, I'm not primarily interested in the author's rhetorical tactics. I'm interested in how an "arts and society director" can divorce "everyday intolerance" from the Holocaust. Granted, "historical and social events" are not the same as "careless individual actions" — but where does she think such things as the Holocaust come from? Just the policy of a 'rogue nation''s evil government? Someone has to implement those policies. Notice how she refers to "power relationships and state organization that developed in 1930s and 40s Germany" [emphasis added] as though they just sort of happened. Not all dictatorships begin with a coup d'état — some had power handed to them by the electorate. Nazi Germany was one. Hitler tapped into a virulent anti-Semitism that was widespread throughout Europe in the early 20th century.
But the Holocaust was an extreme and specific event, and it is not helpful to compare it to everyday rudeness. Doing so distorts our understanding of the power relationships and state organisation that developed in 1930s and 40s Germany. In addition, likening Auschwitz to the impact of the far right today is an insult to those who died. To suggest, as the exhibitions at Beit Hashoah do, that any of us could slip up and find ourselves carrying out mass killings, equates historical and social events with careless individual actions.
This is where Crash has relevance. Yes, the Holocaust is different from everyday rudeness; but that (in part) is where its origins lie. "Careless individual actions" are meaningful because they reveal attitudes that may ordinarily be suppressed. (I would be interested to know the strength of association between approval of restrictions on immigrants and belief in racial/ethnic stereotypes.) Everyday rudeness rarely works as a method for getting people to do what you want, but it's great for letting people know how much they annoy you. The critical question is, How permissible are those careless individual actions of everyday rudeness? When they are directed against a particular category of people often enough simply because of the category, they can create a hostile environment that permits otherwise unacceptable actions (how different were the post-Reconstruction American South and Nazi Germany?). Slippery slope. (N.B. I am not saying that rudeness is either a necessary or sufficient precursor to all crimes against humanity. I would be surprised if it had been terribly important in the Balkans or Rwanda.)
Maybe Iraq's Ba'ath party simply attracted people with tendencies toward thuggery. But isn't it strange how so many bullies ended up in the U.S. Army's 372nd Military Police Company (the Abu Ghraib photos unit)? What are the odds? Pretty low, actually. How many of the charged soldiers' friends and relatives would, prior to the Abu Ghraib revelations, have believed them capable of those acts? How many do now, even? Abu Ghraib didn't happen because it was staffed by soldiers who joined the Army to beat up on POWs; it happened because soldiers were placed in an environment that fostered such behavior. "The potential for violence" is within us all; it just needs the right circumstances to manifest (My Lai). Perhaps Ms Jenkins thinks most people are different from Lynndie England, but the infamous Stanford prison experiment says otherwise. So does the Milgram experiment. And remember, the Nazis did not initiate the Holocaust as soon as they were in power. They got there through a series of smaller policy steps over a more than a decade. It is a slippery slope, and in the right circumstances any of us could slip up. The task is to avoid it.
The Holocaust was extreme, and it was historically specific. But it was neither historically nor behaviorally unique. (Perhaps Ms Jenkins has forgotten about the historical frequency of pogroms.) Just as it did not emerge from a vacuum, neither did it disappear into one. For the vast majority of people, the Holocaust is less interesting as an historical catastrophe than as a moral one. From that perspective, the connection between the Holocaust and everyday rudeness is important.
(Granted, under the present U.S. administration, it does seem more important that people understand how "power relationships and state organization" and gradual policy development all contribute to such things as the Holocaust [remember, the Nazis sold themselves as the party of nationalism and law & order. Sound like anybody we know?], than how everday intolerance does. But this, of course, is an historically specific situation.)
posted by Dr. Bubbles at 14:14
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