Modernity and the Holocaust

Modernity and the Holocaust
- Used Book in Good Condition
A new afterword to this edition, "The Duty to Rememberâ€•But What?" tackles difficult issues of guilt and innocence on the individual and societal levels. Zygmunt Bauman explores the silences found in debates about the Holocaust, and asks what the historical facts of the Holocaust tell us about the hidden capacities of present-day life. He finds great danger in such phenomena as the seductiveness of martyrdom; going to extremes in the name of safety; the insidious effects of tragic memory; and efficient, "scientific" implementation of the death penalty. Bauman writes, "Once the problem of the guilt of the Holocaust perpetrators has been by and large settled . . . the one big remaining question is the innocence of all the restâ€•not the least the innocence of ourselves."Among the conditions that made the mass extermination of the Holocaust possible, according to Bauman, the most decisive factor was modernity itself. Bauman's provocative interpretation counters the tendency to reduce the Holocaust to an episode in Jewish history, or to one that cannot be repeated in the West precisely because of the progressive triumph of modern civilization. He demonstrates, rather, that we must understand the events of the Holocaust as deeply rooted in the very nature of modern society and in the central categories of modern social thought.
Country USA
Brand Cornell University Press
Manufacturer Cornell University Press
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780801487194
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Cornell University Press
Manufacturer	Cornell University Press
Binding	Paperback
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780801487194
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Modernity and the Holocaust

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