Definitions HQ

The Holocaust (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠a preview, and mass death may be our future, for even after the holocaust, we dwell in modernity.

The Holocaust (n.) was ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠for the most part carried out by ordinary people caught up in social forces that affected their behavior.

The Holocaust (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠a thing possible only because of the support of an increasingly anti-semitic yet otherwise disintegrating mass society of lonely, atomized individuals.

The Holocaust (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the mark of the failure of modernity. It negated modernity's universalism, absolutism, and ideology. Instead of bringing about a healthy human condition, it created a worldless or inhuman condition.

The Holocaust (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠all the more terrifying because history shows that once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.

The Holocaust (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠an event not perpetrated by those who were murderers or sadists or killers by nature. Far more frighteningly, they had to trick themselves into the act such that, instead of saying, "what horrible things I did to people!" they would be able to say: "What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!".