Derrida, Heidegger and Industrial Agriculture: The Holocaust, Suffering and Compassion

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-271
Author(s):  
Mihail Evans

Abstract Martin Heidegger notoriously linked industrial agriculture and the Holocaust in a lecture given at Bremen while he was still banned from teaching under denazification measures. What has largely been overlooked is that Derrida also compared the two: in 1997, in an address given at the third Cerisy conference devoted his work. This apparent repetition will be understood within the broader framework of his reading of Heidegger and, in particular, with what the latter says concerning technology. It will be argued that while Derrida views industrial agriculture as a series of technical issues, each demanding of particular attention, Heidegger sees its only as an instance of Technik. Most significantly, while the latter’s philosophy offers no resources for treating it as demanding an ethical response, for Derrida our relation to animals should be guided by compassion.

Author(s):  
Nitzan Shoshan

Abstract This article examines whether and how the figure of Adolf Hitler in particular, and National Socialism more generally, operate as moral exemplars in today’s Germany. In conversation with similar studies about Mosely in England, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy, it seeks to advance our comparative understanding of neofascism in Europe and beyond. In Germany, legal and discursive constraints limit what can be said about the Third Reich period, while even far-right nationalists often condemn Hitler, for either the Holocaust or his military failure. Here I revise the concept of moral exemplarity as elaborated by Caroline Humphry to argue that Hitler and National Socialism do nevertheless work as contemporary exemplars, in at least three fashions: negativity, substitution, and extension. First, they stand as the most extreme markers of negative exemplarity for broad publics that understand them as illustrations of absolute moral depravity. Second, while Hitler himself is widely unpopular, Führer-substitutes such as Rudolf Hess provide alternative figures that German nationalists admire and seek to emulate. Finally, by extension to the realm of the ordinary, National Socialism introduces a cast of exemplars in the figures of loving grandfathers or anonymous fallen soldiers. The moral values for which they stand, I show, appear to be particularly significant for young nationalists. An extended, more open-ended notion of exemplarity, I conclude, can offer important insights about the lingering afterlife of fascist figures in the moral life of European nationalists today.


2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-134
Author(s):  
David Bathrick

AbstractThe period prior to the 1970s has frequently been portrayed internationally as one of public disavowal of the Jewish catastrophe politically and cinematically and as one in which there was a dearth of filmic representations of the Holocaust. In addition to the Hollywood productionsThe Diary of Anne Frank(1960), Stanley Kramer’sJudgment at Nuremberg(1961) and Sidney Lumet’sThe Pawnbroker(1965), one often spoke of just a few East and West European films emerging within a political and cultural landscape that was viewed by many as unable or unwilling to address the subject. This article takes issue with these assumptions by focusing on feature films made by DEFA between 1946 and 1963 in East Berlin’s Soviet Zone and in East Germany which had as their subject matter the persecution of Jews during the Third Reich.


Author(s):  
George R. Mastroianni

Chapter 9 examines social-psychological approaches to understanding the Holocaust. Since Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments were published in the early 1960s, social-psychological formulations based on obedience and social influence have dominated the psychology of the Holocaust. There is also a significant critical literature that challenges some of the findings and interpretation of Milgram and Phillip Zimbardo as they apply to the Holocaust. Social cognition is the study of thinking as situated in a social milieu and offers a fruitful framework for considering the ways Germans thought about one another during the Third Reich. Modern approaches to prejudice and racism, especially the study of unconscious or implicit biases, may provide insight into anti-Semitic attitudes prevalent in Germany (and elsewhere) during the Nazi years.


Author(s):  
Christopher R. Browning

This articles addresses genocide in the Nazi Empire. Genocide in the Nazi Empire issued from a confluence of traditions: anti-Semitism, racism, imperialism, and eugenics. None of these was unique to Germany, but they came together in a lethal combination in Germany under Nazi rule to provide the ideological underpinnings for three clusters of genocidal projects. The first was the ‘purification’ of the German race through the mass murder of the mentally and physically handicapped within the Third Reich and the expulsion and mass murder of ‘Gypsies’ from the Third Reich. The second was a demographic revolution or ethnic restructuring within the lands deemed to be Germany's future Lebensraum through the decimation, denationalization, and expulsion of the predominately Slavic populations living there. The third was the systematic and total mass murder of every Jew — the Holocaust.


Images ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-78
Author(s):  
Amos Morris-Reich

Abstract From the perspective of Central European developments in scientific photography, this article studies the photographs taken by Solomon Yudovin as part of S. An-sky’s ethnographic expedition to the Pale of Settlement between 1912 and 1914. The first part of the article argues that the scientific goals of the expedition demanded the introduction of photography less out of an inherent interest in the medium than out of the desire to employ advanced scientific techniques. The second part identifies various strains of scientific photography in Yudovin’s photographic practice. It shows that his photographs encompass both of what later came to be contrasted as racial photography and social documentation. Employing a comparative approach, and touching particularly on questions of Jewish visibility at the time and after the Holocaust, the third part of the article points to the specificity of photography as an indexical medium in this history.


2014 ◽  
pp. 541-665
Author(s):  
Magdalena Łukasiuk ◽  

How is the memory of the Holocaust and Auschwitz seen today among young Poles and Germans, is it different from that of the past? What are the differences in the memory space and education about the Holocaust between the two countries, and what do they have in common? The article is based on three pillars, and what served as foundations for them was a survey conducted with Polish and German youth in late April and May 2013, immediately after their visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first part concerns the individual and family memory of young people from Poland and Germany, who came to the Memorial and Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau (MMA-B); there are also issues related to the intergenerational transmission of war fate of the relatives. The second pillar takes on teaching about the Holocaust at school and the evaluation of historical education from the student’s point of view. There are presented the opinions of many historians, teachers and educators struggling with the effects of the reform of history teaching. The third and most extensive part of the article presents the issues related to historical education in the memorial site and young people confronting their past experience, knowledge, notions with the authenticity of MMA-B. Fundamental questions has been raised about the sense of maintaining authenticity of the memorial site and the reason that makes the memory of the Holocaust such an important task for future generations.


Author(s):  
Ana Susnjar

The origins of the Holocaust have been debated and evaluated by historians for decades. Since, historians have evaluated the Holocaust to not have a single origin, but rather view the Holocaust as an evolving narrative of suffrage of European Jewry and other groups. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the influences that racial science had on the Holocaust. Extensive research, and evaluation of historical context of antisemitic influences reveal that racial science was laden in policies implemented by the Nazi regime. The impact that racial science had on Europe during the Third Reich’s reign, effected social, political, and cultural aspects that ultimately led to the murder of millions of Jews and other groups.


2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hechler ◽  
Elizabeth C. Hamilton ◽  
Leo R. Kalkbrenner

This is an English translation of an article originally published in German on the T4 "euthanasia" program targeting disabled people during the Third Reich. The essay examines the contours of ableism in Germany that have allowed these killings to remain unreported and uncommemorated. The author focuses on the murder of his great-grandmother and its effects on four generations of his family. This essay provides a vital historical record as well as a model for reflecting upon and understanding the legacy of the Holocaust and the persistence of ableism.The original German essay was previously published in a series called Gegendiagnose. Beiträge zur radikalen Kritik an Psychologie und Psychiatrie. Psycho_Gesundheitspolitik im Kapitalismus. Vol. 1. Münster: edition-assemblage. August 2015. 


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