{"id":3741,"date":"2014-09-04T22:53:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T02:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/?p=3741"},"modified":"2014-09-04T22:53:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T02:53:06","slug":"the-holocaust-a-product-of-modern-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/2014\/09\/04\/the-holocaust-a-product-of-modern-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holocaust: A product of modern society?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the Holocaust a failure or product of modern society? \u00a0Bauman in the first chapter of his book Modernity and the Holocaust <\/em>argued\u00a0the Holocaust represented the darker possibilities of modern civilized life. \u00a0Using the bureaucracy and social engineering utilized by the Nazis to create a judenfrei<\/i> Europe as evidence to support his claims, Bauman stipulated that the Holocaust existed as an extension of modern civilization. This thesis contradicts a mainstream theory of sociology, i.e. the prevailing notion that the Holocaust was a failure, not a product, of modern society. \u00a0However, the bureaucracy, industrial complex pattern, and, rational efficiency all utilized by the Nazi\u2019s to exterminate the Jewish people relate to Weber\u2019s characteristics of modern society. \u00a0All of these characteristics differentiate the Holocaust and put it in a unique place as the first example of modern genocide. \u00a0In essence, Bauman argued that Nazi\u2019s followed the precursor\u2019s of all the traits encouraged in modern society to their rational, if not moral, conclusion.<\/p>\n

In support of his overall thesis that the Holocaust was a product of modernity , Bauman pointed out the path of the Nazi plans to remove Jews from their territory. \u00a0By presenting the gas chambers and concentration camps as the logical conclusion to what might have been a costly relocation project, the extermination of millions of people became a rational, cost cutting plan to realize Hitler\u2019sThird Reich. \u00a0By dehumanizing the Jewish people and making them another quirk in the system to be solved as efficiently as possible, the involvement of normal German citizens becomes comprehensible. \u00a0The people outlining the plans for the gas chambers could remain distant and claim to be merely following orders, similar to the SS officers responsible for mobile killing. \u00a0Everyone was just listening to their superior, and therefore not responsible for the greater outcome, similar to the necessity of a well-oiled cog in a factory machine.<\/p>\n

The common notion that civilization has somehow advanced beyond the barbarism and savagery of the past becomes a falsity if Bauman remains correct. \u00a0Moreover, the factors of the Holocaust remain a normal part of the makeup of modern society. \u00a0 Reason and logic failed to eliminate violence, instead they merely amplified and \u00a0facilitated the ability of humanity to exterminate an undesirable, regardless of any moral quandary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the Holocaust a failure or product of modern society? \u00a0Bauman in the first chapter of his book Modernity and the Holocaust argued\u00a0the Holocaust represented the darker possibilities of modern civilized life. \u00a0Using the bureaucracy and social engineering utilized by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1373,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51180],"tags":[104483,80455,1864,47593,17735],"class_list":["post-3741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-bauman","tag-hitler","tag-holocaust","tag-modernity","tag-sociology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/quallsk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}