Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust
Publication Year: 2010
Published by: Temple University Press
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
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pp. vii-viii
Preface
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pp. ix-xvii
Since my early teenage years, I have thought about the experiences of blacks and Jews. My thoughts developed over the years, but I generally kept my opinions to myself. I probably never would have written this book but for an invitation I received from Alan Rosenberg and Gerald E. Meyers to contribute to ...
PART I: On Becoming an Evil Self
1. Two Faces of Evil: An Introduction
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pp. 3-13
This is a study in evil. If wide-ranging diversity is the mark of humanity, then perhaps the price that is to be paid for such diversity is the capacity for evil itself. For in the name of difference, numerous atrocities have been committed. In this book, only two of these will be discussed: American Slavery and the ...
2. The Human Condition
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pp. 14-43
Many suppose that human beings are naturally evil. By this it is meant that human beings are, at best, indifferent to the suffering they cause other humans and, at worst, they delight in such suffering- they find the suffering they cause others naturally satisfying. For some this view of naturalness is grounded in human ...
3. The Moral Community
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pp. 44-72
A community is not simply a collection of individuals residing in a limited and well-defined geographical space. Like a large choir, the whole of a community is greater than, or certainly different from, the mere sum of its members. The choir analogy is most apt, for while in most instances each voice by itself is of little ...
4. Characterizing Evil
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pp. 73-91
It is striking that while theories of the good are legion, philosophers have said precious little about evil outside a theological context. J I suggest that an evil act is rather like an Aristotelean virtuous act-that is, an Aristotelean virtuous act turned inside out. I should prefer to talk about evil acts rather than evil events. ...
5. The Psychology of Doubling
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pp. 92-114
The notion of doubling in connection with the concentration camps was introduced by Robert J. Lifton in his book The Nazi Doaors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986). The core idea is that there are two selves in the life of a single individual: a self of good and a self of evil. ...
PART II: The Institutions
6. American Slavery and the Holocaust
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pp. 117-147
I shall focus upon two ways in which American Slavery and the Holocaust were fundamentally different from one another. I shall begin with an account of the conception that each institution had of its victims. Then I shall examine the way in which each institution treated its victims. As one would imagine, the ...
7. Murderous Extermination and Natal Alienation
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pp. 148-166
Death has no equal in foreclosing options. Whatever may follow this life on earth, human beings know not of it. Death is so dreaded that even in the depths of moral squalor around them, it is rare for people to take their own lives; and when they do, we are often inclined to think that they have performed an act of ...
PART III
8. After the Ashes
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pp. 169-189
If American Slavery and the Holocaust were equally wicked institutions, how does one explain the radical difference in the way blacks and Jews have survived their respective evils, certainly in the United States? Of course, the fact that two institutions were on a par in terms of evil hardly entails that the victims of each ...
9. The Fate of Blacks and Jews
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pp. 190-206
I believe that it is not possible for a people who have been profoundly oppressed to flourish as a group in a relentlessly hostile society-at least not in the absence of an independent narrative. While it should come as no surprise that I think this, in view of in the preceding chapters of this section, I have not fully supported ...
Name Index
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pp. 207-208
Subject Index
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pp. 209-211
E-ISBN-13: 9781439905852
Publication Year: 2010
