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Failures of Thought in
Holocaust Interpretation
GEORGE KREN AND LEON RAPPOPORT
(^11) ••• and now the only visions of the world that can be taken
seriously are those that come through the irrevocably ash-darkened prisms of post-Holocaustsense and sensibility. 11 Mistakenly seen as mere rhetoric by some readers, this closing statement of our bookl was in fact meant to be understood quite literally as the thematic conclusion following from analyses of the failures of law, religion, and science--the three pillars of Western civilization--to prevent the Holocaust. This chapter is an elaboratio!l and extension of the theme in question, with the primary focus of inquiry being the impact of the Holocaust on meaning as such, especially in connection with the general failure of Holocaust schalarship to recognize this problern as the source of a painfully clearcut inability to offer meaningful interpreta- tion. Despite its importance, and perhaps .because of it, we use the phrase 11 meaningful interpretation 11 here, in a very general fashion,as being composed of two elements: explanation and exegesis; the former involving the familiar what-leads-to-what type of causal analysis, and the latter involving less familiar questions of 11 what has changed, 11 and 11 how come? 11 It is especially on this point that Holocaust schalarship has been most inadequate.
This is not to say that all scholars are totally blind to the problem. Friedlamler, for example, reviewing efforts to make teaching of the Holocaust an academic subject, suggested that any serious consideration of the Hazi mass murder, as well as other aspects of warfare and genocide in the twentieth century, forces re-examination of the J!:nlightment idea of progress, and he argues further that historians and social scientists have only 11 made adjustments 11 while maintaining the ideal. 2 In another context, Feingold, after examining the question of responsibility of guilt for the Holocaust in admirable detail, concluded that the ultimate mistake of the Jews was their naive belief in the reality of 11 a spirit of civilization, a sense of humanitarian concern in the
378 Towards the Holocaust
world, which could have been rnobilized to save Jewish lives. "^3
These rernarl~s, like our own quoted above, point to a problern that has generally been ignored, avoided, or not perceived at all, narnely that the Holocaust contradicts or calls into question all forrns of knowledge suggesting that it could not occur. This we call "the problern of rneaning"; its unacknowledged presence so distorts and contarninates prevailing interpretations of the Holocaust as to warrant the critical indictrnent "failure of thought."
THE !1EANING PROBLml
If t:1e analysis to follow is approxirnately correct, then future scholars will probably say of the tlventieth-century intellect that its continuing failure in the face of the Holocaust was the first unrnistakable sign of its collapse. And they rnight further observe of that intellect or "rnentali ty" (wi th appropriate footnoting of i ts early cri tics: 3ietzche, !Zafka, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Burckhardt, IJittgenstein, and others), that having ernerged during t:1e preceding two-hundred-year rise of the rnass industrial era, only to see that era ending in unprecedented rnass destruction, the cornplex of rnoral and material values and logic systerns defining the modern universe of rational thought, whereby intellect could interpret the human condition, was now either speechless or reduced to ernp ty .arp,umen ts over its own irnpotence.
The problern of meaning to be exarnined here constitues an irnportant basis for the foregoing judgment and rnay be perceived in t:1e Holocaust literature in various forrns, ranging frorn concrete symptoms of scholarly frustration and distress, to confusions rooted in uncritical acceptance of established epistemology. The concrete symptoms are quite blatant, but they have for the most part been carefully ignored, perhaps because they lead too quickly to a threatening recognition of what rnight be terrned the paradox of Holocaust knowledge; narnely, that the more one comes to know ab out "the fac ts," the less one seerns able to conclude about their rneaning. Virtually no irnportant question that has been studied in factual detail had yielded answers on which there is a satisfactory consensus. Instead, just the opposite appears to be the case: After detailed study has been accomplished, the disagreernents over interpretation becorne rnore, rather than less severe. This condition is ubiquitous in the literature, as a few salient exarnples should dernonstrate.
Increasing knowledge about. the Judenrat authorities and the Jewish police organizations associated with them has reduced rather than enhanced the possibility of reachin~ any general conclusion as to whether those involved should be condemned as collaborators or respected for their intention öf trying to "save what could be saved." The recently published lla:rsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, for example, nal~es a strong case supporting many of his actions
380 Towards the Holocaust
Armenians, the Japanese at Hiroshirna and Hagasaki, the Arnerican Indians, the Carnbodians, and so on. The advantages of doing this always seern quite obvious in the context of positivist social science, since it opens the way for cornparative studies which rnay then yield a general rnodel of genocide that can be applied to all cases. Indeed, there is already at least one such study that has received high praise for introducing an ahistorical descriptive theory of genocide developed for the case of the Armenians.
The disadvantage >Df portraying the Ilolocaust as genocide is that this conception robs the event of its uniqueness. As ßauer and others have argued, the policies leading to the destruction of the European Jews and the circurnstances under which it was carried out are profoundly different frorn all other cases of genocide, and even in terrns of nurnbers killed, the Holocaust is unique. 9
The ques tion, therefore, rerna.ins: \las the Holocaust unique, or rather (rnerely?), a genocide like all bhe others? It is a very significant question because depending upon how it is answered, the general orientation of interpretative analysis will obviously vary a great deal.
In a comprehensive review of relevant scholarly perspectives on this "enigrna of uniqueness," the Eckardts can reach no irnportan t conclusions.lO Leaving no apparent intellectual stone unturned, however, they proceed to discuss the philosophical, theological, and political ramifications of the enigrna in accord with eight different conceptual irnplications for its rneaning, and they end by rnoving alvay frorn the original question, suggesting that what it really signifies is a problernatic relationship between social ethics and sociology of knowledge. llhatever else is accornplished here, it seems clear that the rneaning of the original, difficult question under consideration eventually gets lost in the abstract discourse it has provoked. Moreover, it is exernplary for our present purposes to emphasize that the Eckard 'ts never consider that if the Holocaust is in fact a uniquely new developrnent in the history of llestern-civilization, then its occurrence rnay (1) disconfirrn the idea of social ethics as a useful category of thought, and (2) demonstrate t:1e obsolescence of sociology of knowledge as a useful rnode of social inquiry.
Up to now we have been concerned to point out sorne relatively conc .rete symptorns of the problern of rneaning and have noted a few salient exarnples. These ~xarnples and others like thern eventually create the necessity to look deeper. Given the manifest difficulties of interpretation cited, the focus of attention shifts quite naturally away frorn substantive questions and toward underlying conceptual structures by which they are formulated. The problern of rneaning then irnposes itself in terrns of abstract theory and/or episternology. Ilence there ernerges a
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more basic, global question of meaning: Can it be that satis- factory interpretation of the lloloaaust has been prevented not by confusion over subject matter (uncertain evidence, biased or ambivalent forms for its articulation) but by confusion about the conceptual tools applied to the subject matter? It is our contention that this is, in fact, the case, and that it ultimately arises from the inevitable failures of a post-Holocaust schalarship that has largely been conducted on the basis of a pre-Holocaust epistemology.
The limitations of this epistemology generate problems of meaning at all levels of Holocaust scholarship. For the moment, however, it is sufficient to identify the rudimentary source of the problern as lying in the prevalent tendency to treat normative assumptions of historical explanation as if they were absolute. The specific aspects of epistemology in question here are commonly accepted psychosocial-historical logic systems that are based upon es .tablished definitions of, and distinctions between, facts, theories, and value Statements. Like all abstractions, these conceptual structures are essentially reifications, but as successful reifications supported by wide consensus, they remain above suspicion when phenomenal contradictions occur. Thus, to consider a simple illustration, it is possible to analyze the Holocaust by placing the facts of repression and then destruction of the Jews in a plausible historical sequence or chronology based on a theory of anti-Semitism. (That is, cause: Jews are conceived by their persecutors as evil deniers of Christ; effect: they deserve punishment.) normative explanation of the Holocaust as the consequence of anti-Semitism is thereby attained, and interpretation--the meaning of the Hoiocaust-- follows directly in terms of the issues associated with anti- Sernitism; most generally, how to prevent it. Ilence the explanation appears to be virtually equivalent to the meaning. llhat is rnissed here, and alrnost entirely ignored in the literature as well, is the question of how the world, including anti-Semitism, rnust be seen differently after the Holocaust.
In cases where this question of meaning is acknowledged, it is frequently by-passed via appeals to the lirnits of historiographic competency; as if by referring to imponderable issues of episternology posed by encounters with mind boggling horrors, one might properly be excused for terminating the work of analysis where it ought to begin. This position has the apparent virtue of maintaining the appearances of scholarly rnodesty, yet insofar as it denies the imperative to seek expansion of existing boundaries of scholarly effort cornmensurate with the magnitude of the problematic subject matter, it rnust be rejected as a retrograde, defensive orientation. In our view, it is precisely when the existing historical and psychosocial imagination becomes most profoundly stymied that the demand for creative analysis and interpretation should be most keenly felt and acted upon.
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- The Establis!1ed Libe:.:al-Eclectic Apnroach
It is difficult to specify the established orientation to Holocaust schalarship and interpretation wit:10ut falling into tautological semantics. That 'mich is the established, dominant way of doing things is, mand.festly, "establishment" or "mainstream." And the character of such scholarly work in Western European and American society is typically liberal and eclectic. Ainong historians and philosophers of science, T. S. :zuhn' s description of "normal science" has become the accepted technical labe! for the liberal-eclectic and usually positivist-empiricist theories and methods of contemporary science. In Holocaust scholarship, the equivalent of the normal science paradigm is made up of narrative histories and empirical analyses grounded on the same underlying liberal eclectic and positivist rationality under- pinning the hard sciences.
These works generally interpret the Holocaust as an aberration, a terribly dark, bizarre event growing out of the irrational Nazi racial ideology. In order to establish meaning, therefore, the task of analysis then becomes one of reconstruction: deterraining the sociohistorical sequence of what led to what and explaining the peculiar circumstances of Hitler's rise to power as well as the more specific details of the persecution of the Jews, beginning with conventional anti-Semitism and ending in their physical destruction.
This general approach presents the Holocaust as a kind of historical morality play justifying the ideals of \Jestern liberal democracy by showing what can happen when madmen gain power and racism is allowed to prevail. Finer grain historical work is devoted to explaining specific aspects of how the madmen came to power and how they were able to impose their will (via the SS, for example) once they had it. This explanatory effort has been supported and enhanced by the qualitative case-history and theoretical studies of psychiatrists and psychologists concerned wi th the special psychodynamics of the Nazi leaders, their appeal to the masses, and the ~:~akeup of their more devoted followers. At a more general group level, quantitative empirical research by sociologists and social psychologists has provided abstract principles for the explanation of aberrant, destructive behavior. Some of the better known examples here include studies of authoritarianisra that have been applied to German national character; studies of conformity and obedience to authority indicating mechanisms whereby ordinary people might behave atrociously; and more recently, Helen Fein's multiple regression model of the l!olocaust, wherein the numbers of Jews killed in various parts of Europe serve as the statistical criterion for evaluating the weights assigned to such predictor variables as levels of prewar anti-Semi tism and degrees of ~-lazi control.l
All of the foregoing historical and psychological categories of
384 Towards the Holocaust
workdemonstrate the established, conventionalorientationtowards theproblernof interpretation,namely, that themeaningof the Holocaustmustbesoughtviaexplanations of hmv itcame topass. And this tendency toequatemeaningwithexplanationis frequently confirmedbystatements to theeffect thatby developingdetailed explanations,wewillhave themeans of avoiding such terrible horrors inthe future. Implied, ifnotstated, is the idea of the !Iolocaust asanaberration^ that can^ beprevented fromever happeningagainifenough knowledge can be gained to explainhow it happened in the first place. Themajor thrust ofthis interpretation is tominimize thesignificance of theHolocaust. Incontemporary textbooks, forexample, it doesnot receive closeattentionbut is subsumedunder therubricofGerman mistreatmentof conqueredpopulations. Thereis littleroom here, ~uite obviously, forconsideringwhat itmay mean to us nowasa factualevent inthehistory ofourcivilization. Aboveall, there isno hintofanyreasonwhy we shouldnowfeel secure with explanatory interpretationsof the Holocaust^ provided inaccordwith^ the^ same intellectualparauigms^ which, earlier on, failed toperceive its onset.
- TheFreudian andneo-FreuuianAnuroach
The essential basis^ for Freudianandother^ psychiatricinter- pretations of theHolocaust is itsblatant irrationalityand unspeakable cruelty. It is virtually^ c^ truismthat wherever gratuitously intense, "irrational" human· destructiveness has appearedin themodern 1vorld since Freud, his theory has invariable served as themainpoint ofdeparture, if not the entire structure, for rationalpsychosocialinterpretation. Freudhirnself setthe patternforthis in his famous essays "Why \lar?" and"Reflectionson^ \lar^ and Death."
The Freudian formula, which^ .maybeapplied^ to irrationalviolence across the boardfrom individuals to groups, masses andnations, holds thatthemore senseless^ the^ violence,^ themoreobviousl y itmust berooted insome form of instinct repression ofwhich the person,mass, orstate^ is not^ consciouslyaware. Such repression creates aburdenof tension (anxiety, hostility), whicheventually Jaust be released (catharsis) eitherby turning it inward (self-destruction, psychosesand neuroses)^ oroutward via^ creative^ redirection^ (sublimiation),^ or^ uestructive^ attack upon a convenienttarget (scapegoat).
At both the individual andsociocultural levels, the specific dynamicsof experience^ (personal, historical) leading^ to^ the conditions for violencewillvary agreat dealand be concealed by allsortG ofsocially approvedand/orinstitutionalizeddefense mechanisms. Interpretation of violence, therefore, requires^ the informed, discerningeye ofa theoristwho canpenetrate^ to its hidden sources.
Wheresociocultural andhistorical trends unuerlying^ the^ Hc:!>.locaust
386 Towards the Holocaust
and many Third /orld na tions, but also because it is difficul t to find explanations for extraordinary irrational violence in a very rational, economically-based social philosophy. Consequently, although the following discussion is relatively brief, it includes most if not all of the main themes of !1arxian Holocaust interpretation.
In Harx's own theory of anti-Semitism, tile Jews were seen as being both the historical progenitors of capitalism and also among the chief victims of the industrial class society it produced. Hore specifically and apart from its origins in the early history of Christianity, Marx saw anti-Semitism nurtured and encouraged by the ruling class, especially during times of crises, because it served as a means of divertinp, the attention of the masses away from recognition of tileir true condition, and/or, away from awareness of the fact that the policies of the ruling class were responsible for the crisis. In this sense, anti-Semitism is a preeminent form of false consciousness. In the modern era, moreover, anti-Semitism has a clear economic function: ßy providing the Jews as a ready-made target for popular discontent, it enhances the ability of the ruling class (monopoly capitalism) to exploit its workers. The theory of anti-Semitism, therefore, is directly linl;ed to the general economic tbeory of capitalism.
Applied to the Holocaust, such Marxian t:1eory offers useful guidelines for analysis of how the Hazis were able to exploit anti-Semitism during their drive for power in the IJeimar Republic. Once their control was established, however, and the Jews were reduced to second class legal status via the Nurernburg laws (1935) and the confiscatory forced emigration program, it would appear that llarx's theory of anti-Semitism was more or less fulfilled, although it is arguable that subsequent utilization of Jews for slave labor is also relevant.
Uhy then kill Jews in wholesale lots when they could otherwise have been exploited economically, if only by working them to deat:1? llarxian theory has no real answer to t:üs question because it does not conceptualize situations in which a genetically based ideology of human destruction can take prolonged, systematic priority over the achievement of economic benefits.
Some lfarxian theorists maintain that economic motives may be found for the mass killings insofar as they involved not only slave labor but also the collection from dead victims of their hair, clot11ing, gold tooth fillings, and other valuables. Yet such views do not stand up to close scrutiny; even the SS econonics bureau objected to the mass killings as being inefficient and uisruntive of important "'ar :>roduction activities.
Other llarxian writers have argued t:1at tl1e socioeconomic benefits of Nazi anti-Semitism initially set the star.e for the Holocaust,
Failures of Thought in Holocaust Interpretation 387
but then become secondary to the !JOlitical significance of I!itler's obsessive desire to eliminate the Jews. Thus, apart from his personal hatreds, another reason for the Holocaust was his realization that by killing so many people "for nothing," the remairring subject peoples including the Germans, would be so intimidated as to become willing servants to his policies. This ignores the fact that the subject peoples were already intimidated by methods other than the "final solution." Horeover, like so many other 11arxian arguments--that the German capitalist ruling class wanted the Jews got out of the way, or that this s!llme class had to allow Hitler to kill the Jews as a reward for his anti- communist services in their behalf--this is quite strained and lacks even surface plausibility as well as any Substantive Support.
It is noteworthy, finally, that an ir.1portant critique of Marxian efforts to apply the economic theory of anti-Semitism to the Holocaust has been developed by Konrad Kwiet.l4 After reviewing the work of East German (DDR) scholars, he observed that of all the Nazi leadership, it was Hjalmar Schacht who best represented the interests of German capitalism, yet it was Schacht who resigned as finance minister in 1937 in protest agairrst the excesses of ~-Holocaust Nazi anti-Semitism.
- The Hetaphysical-Religious Approach
The ranee of perspectives here is represented in exemplary fashion by t:1e salient works of Emil Fackenheim, Elie iliesel, and Richard Rubenstein. These authors have all engaged the problems of explanation and meaning in explicit metaphysical terms, inclusive of, but extending well beyond the relatively commonplace issues of politico-religious theology. The latter have received attention from ecumenical Christian philosophers such as Franklin Littel but since their discussions have generally involved Christian responsibility for anti-Semitism, and whether or not Jews should still be held responsible for the death of Jesus and so forth, we will not be concerned with them here.
The basic premise of Facl;:enheim' s extensive work is his assertion that the Holocaust is a form of Jewish "sacred history"; an epoch-making event comparable with the destruction of the Temple by the Romans or the emancipation of Europe's Jews in the eighteenth century. He explains the Holocaust as a culmination of centuries of anti-Semitism, a more or less inevitable catastrophe of Christian, not Jewish, civilization. In this connection, he differs sharply from some traditional Jewish theologians who see the mass destruction plainly as a punishment from God visited on the Jews for their disobedience; their assimilationist tendencies under the Enlightenment, and/or their subsequent ~ionist politics. Fackenheim argues that the destruction was too indiscriminate and cataclysmic to fit the theology of punitive judgment.
Failures of Thought in Holocaust Interpretation 389
neing neither a philosopher nor a theologian per se, the authority of Elie lliesel 1 s writings on the rnetaphysical significance of the Holocaust derives frorn the dedic.ation of his art to his life experience, first as prisoner and later as survivor of Auschwitz. Unlike rnost survivors who have understandably rnade strenuous efforts to distance thernselves frorn the Holocaust, lliesel had devoted hirnself to staying in close tauch with it and has made it the central focus of a rernarkable body of literature.
Apart frorn its literary value, however, this work demands consideration in the present context because it epitornizes the endless dialogue over rneaning between the living and dead victirns, as well as their living or dead ideas of God. In many respects that can hardly be enurnerated, 1Jiesel 1 s work has been to drarnatize the experiential irnplications of the conflict between those who, in one way or another, either take the position of Fackenheirn or of Ruhenstein or else waver between thern. The extraördinary tension of his work, therefore, follows frorn lliesel 1 s struggle with the unresolvable paradox: One cannot, after Auschwitz, accept that there is any immanent basis for rnorality either in God or humanity; yet there is no way to bear life without the presence of sornethinß in which to believe.
Caught in this paradox, the protagonists of \liesel 1 s fiction rnay be seen as enacting a pilgrirn 1 s progress through all the farniliar seenarios of desperat~on--withdrawn apathy, warfare, rnurder, suicide, madness--only to find tllern ultirnately false and usele$S.
In the end, the prototypical survivor rnakes a conditional peace with hirnself through realization that the paradox of rnorality is not a problern to be solved but to be lived with as a condition of human life. Confronted with this condition, it is the task of each individual to work out a pathway frorn despair to affirrnation. IJiesel thus rnoves toward an existential posture wherein doubts and dialogues concerning the Holocaust rernain painfully vivid, yet becorne livable when both the severe lirnits and redeerning possibilities of human thought and action are finally grasped.
The similarities and conflicts between the three positions outlined above should be readily apparent. In all of thern, of course, arguments with and about God outweigh every other consideration. This hermeneutical orientation is very significant frorn our point of view, because unlike the other approaches described, here one may see an immediate, alrnost axiomatic rejection of pre-Holocaust civilization so far as irnportant values and beliefs are concerned. Consequently, distinctions between explanation and rneaning are all but wiped out, and the salient issue becornes salvation; either for Jews-in- general or for their archetype in the person of the survivor.
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The four general approaches to Holocaust interpretation provide in many ways a brief tour of the salient forms of culture analysis presently practiced in Hestern civilization. That is, regardless of whether the subject matter were somet(dng other than the Holocaust, such as art, science, or male-female relationships, one would still find that the gencral routes toward interpretation, the approaches or forms of social thought we have called liberal-eclectic, Freudian, Marxian, and metaphysical, remain quite the same because they are really all there is. l1oreover, although the dif ficul ties and limi ta tions noted within each of these approac:1es when they are applied to the :Iolocaust might easily show up in connection with other subject matter, the unequivocal intensity of what is at stake here cuts to the bone of every form of intcrpretation.
llhen the majority of established scholars, for example, speak of the Holocaust as an extraordinary aberration, anu provide detaileu accounts of how this aberration occurred, to the astonishment of all concerned except for the handful of its central planners, does this not mean, in effect, that even "advanced" human societies can be so wildly unreliable that none of their pretentions to "civilized" values can be taken for granted? And since the very forms of throught and analysis employed to construct the aberration interpretation are themselves intimately rooted in and reflective of the civilized values and beliefs of the Enlightenment now revealed to be untrustworthy (actually falsified by evidence that they fail to prevent unspeakable destruction), does this not discredit the basis for the interpretation? In other worus, if one takes the aberration theme seriously enoup,h to pursue its implications, it ultimately turns back upon itself, calling into question the rationality it is based upon.
At the metaphysical-religious end of the interpretation spectrum, a similar type of paradox also exists and causes very serious problems, but of a different sort from those we have identified for conventional scholars. Those who believe in a divine power called "god" face a dilemma. If an event of such terrible magnitude as the Holocaust could oecur by chance, as an aberration, then can there be any divine power worthy of the name? And if it was not a ra~dom event but actually ordained by a divine will or power, then how can one accept such a power to be an object of belief or worship?
Unresolvable, this dilemma imposes itself as a huge, intimidating burden upon all Jewish theology and rnetaphysics. Like Sisy.phus with his heavy stone, Jewish moral philosophers seem condemned to be forever pushing this intolerable weight up the infinite mountainside of existential meaning. l~or:se yet, those few who honorably and knowingly acknowledge this burden (there are many who do not) anu struggle to grapple it forward, are further condemned to struggle with each other as well. Does the Holocaust
392 Towards the Holocaust
conventional historical-economic forces behind anti-Semitism could have gone amok to produce the Holocaust; and it remains similarly a Freudian mystery how ~ersons so dominated by pathological symptoms as Hitler and the other leading Nazis could have come to control and preside over the reorganization of a complex nation state. But there are problems with both systems of thought that must be addressed in depth because they suggest that the 11arxian and Freudian failures vis-a-vis the Holocaust are rooted in their conceptualizations of morality.
UARXIAll AHD FREUDIAl< 110RALITY
In both 11arxian and Freudian thought, morality as such is generally treated as an epiphenomenon; an artifact of the sociocultural framewerk rather than a defining quality of the human condition. There is no golden rule nor any other absolute standard prohibiting any of the various forms of human destructiveness to be found in either the Marxian or Freudian canons. Instead, both relegate traJitional ideas of right and wrong to the status of either primitive, religious Superstition,. and/or evolving social norms serving to maintain existing power structures: of the ruling class (for l:1arx), or t:1e patriarchal father (for Freud). The general thrust of both systems, therefore, is to eliminate or trivialize all conventional notions of ~oral responsibility by revealing their sources in the oppressive economic and psychosocial structures of society.
This is not to say that the Marxian and Freudian systems have no moral dimension. llut their moral dimension is indirect; derivative from their fundamental commitments to human liberation from economic and psychosocial forms of oppression. The basic analysis of morality presented in both systems emphasized that unless special circumstances intervene, the ideas of rip,ht and wrong prevailing in society and within individuals will remain beyond the reach of deliberate, self-conscious control. Groups and individuals will rcmain dominated by the morality associated with their economic and psychosocial situation, unless they can reach a new level of self-awareness via revolutionary activity or psychoanalysis. Yet even in these exceptional Situations, the liberty that may be experienced contains no special ethic except group- and self-realization. To be liberated in these (Marxian or Freudian) terms, therefore, is to be freed from any absolute Standards of rigltt and wrong.
Such freedom can also carry with it an imperative to violate the prior socially inculcated moral restraints against destructive aggression, especially insofar as t:10se restraints may now be perceived as instrumental to the prior state of oppression. According to the liarxian system, destructive violence may in fact be required in aid of the revolution; and according to some branchcs of Freudian tlteory, personal violence (acting out) may be construeJ as therapeutic catharsis in aid of ego development. In both systems, it appears that normative morality is a
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disguised instrument of oppression that may be transcended; but once a liberating transcendence is attained, morality becomes quite problematic, something to be decided upon depending on circumstances. It is precisely at this point, however, that the locus of moral t : wught becomes external to the group or the individual, since determinations of right or wrong can only be made according to objective interpretations of circumstances.
These interpretations, of course, are attained by following the guidelines of theory; either Harxian or Freudian as the case may be. This is a major epistemological move away from the traditions of religious metaphysics and liberal pragmatics. The end result, manifestly, is that right and wrong are no langer matters of internal conviction or reflexivity, but are, instead, remote constructions of circumstaaces mediated by theory. Once this epistemological quality of Marxian and Freudian thought is understood, it becomes painfully apparent that, at the level of daily moral praxis, they cannot provide any formal stipulations defining right aad wrong behavior.
The many forr.~al similarities between Marxian a::1d Freudian conceptions of morality may seem to contradict the prior critique of eclectic schalarship by ignoring the antithesis between them. Yet this antithesis can only be fully appreciated once the points of formal similarity have been acknowledged, for it is in their mechanisms and procedures of moral interpretation--their "rules of the game"--that Marxian and Freudian thought stand in total opposition to one another. In abrief, necessarily oversimplified way, it may be said that the moral touchstone of Marxism is economics; other things being equal, any activity enhancing the extent to which workers can own and control their own productive labor, thereby avoiding alienation, will be liberating and thus morally goo•l. T;le touchstarre of Freudian morality is · effective psychosexual development; other things being equal, activities enhancing the individual's achievement of the psychosexual stage of genitality will be liberating and thus morally good.
The antithesis here hardly requires elaboration, except to specify that when they are applied at the level of common praxis, the chief point of conflict between the two systems lies in their radically different assumptions about the sources of human motivation. Is it reducible to a matter of economics or psychosexual needs and instincts? Should external material circumstances be seen as the generative source of inner psycho- sexual development or vice versa? There is no adequate answer to such questions, although compromise solutions have been attempted by stepping outside of both systems. This was ti:ied by critical theorists Adorno, Harcu3e, and others, but it leads inevitably to another dilemma: If liberal thoup,ht is rejected as being false in accord with llarxian and Freudian analyses, and if the global exclusivity claimed by the Marxian and Freudian systeras are both rejected in order to argue that both may be
Failures of Thought in Holocaust Interpretation 395
Freudian theory would have a stronger claim to fit the ev.ents.
In general, it may be acknowledged that such concepts as Marx's notion of alienation and Freud's notion of compartmenta~ization, projection, and other defense mechanisms can be usefully employed to help explain how ordinary men ~ay adapt themselves to extraordinary atrocities, but even in the hands of ti1e most adept scholars, these concepts merely offer tentative grounds for speculative discussions beyond the scope of their parent theories.
It is noteworthy, in this context, that Freudian theorists, some of whom were themselves prisoners in death camps and concentration camps, have done much more work on Holocaust problems than lfarxian theorists. Almost without exception, these writers (for example, Bettelheim, Cohen, Fromm, Frankel, Lifton, E. A. Rappaport) try to show how the Holocaust experience requires basic modifications of important Freudian assumptions, as well as different forms of process interpretation. So far as SS behavior is concerned, one of the major points of contention has been the question or moral values: \lere the SS men with criminal superegos as some theorists claimed? lvere they banal, self-seeking mediocrities? Or were they instead, so very high in the qualities called authoritarianism that their morality was superceded and subordinated to their need for obedience to a charismatic leader? Other questions concerning the behavior of both victims and survivors of the camps have generated still more controversy, particularly when they involve matters of apparent victim passivity and reasons why some prisoners seemed better able to survive than others. The fact that vast uncertainty and conflict remains about such matters, even among the most credible and articulate of Freudians who have bad nearly forty years to sort out the evidence, is in itself very clear evidence that the theory is inadequate to interpret the events.
This conclusion is also supported by A. E. Rappaport's little knowa but very significant professional analysis of how Freudian theory fails before the traumatic experiences of Holocaust survivors.l5 As both a survivor and a psychoanalyst consulted by other survivors, Rappapart brought unique credentials to bis scrutiny of theory. His conclusions that (a) it was wrong to apply the concept "traumatic neurosis" to the behavior problems of survivors, and (b) that a traumatized ego--contrary to the teaching of Freudian theory--could result from atrocious experiences in the absence of any predisposing childhood conflict or trauma, are developed in a way that gives a very practical and moving sense of the difficulties created by the fact that Freudian theory does not fit liolocaust trauma and, consequently, cannot offer much help to its survivor clients.
SUMMARY A!ID PROSPECTUS
Our main arguments have been that: (1) The various modes of
396 Towards the Holocaust
thought applied to the task of Holocaust interpretation have all been inadequate because they do not acknowledge the extent to which their epistemological assumptions, theoretical structures, and methodologies have been conpromised or falsified by the fact that the Holocaust happened. (2) The internal contradictions and confusion between explanation and meaning characterizing the eclectic empirieist and metaphysical approaches are evident. (3) The Harxian and Freudian approaches to the Holocaust fail for two reasons that have not been appreciated. As moral world views, the two systems share with liberal empiricism the idea that morality ~ay be conceptualized objectively and thus enable rational evaluations to be nade of right and wrong. ßy shifting the locus of morality to material and psychosexual circumstances, however, the end result is only a new form of complex subjectivity affering no assurances agairrst tendencies toward mass destruction. Furthermore, insofar as the two s~rstems provide theories of motivation, they both turn out to be largely irrelevant to the problematic behaviors of Holocaust victims, perpetrators, and survivors. In none of these groups, does one find significant evidence suggesting that either material gain/loss or psyc:1osexual gratification/frustration was anything more than a fringe motive for the majority.
Based on the foregoing considerations, our general thesis is that all or uost of the important failures of thought before the Holocaust follow from a more basic and pervasive failure to recognize that the Holocaust has altered the boundaries of human possibilities: 3ecause of the Holocaust, we must recognize that reality has been changed. It now includes as actual happenings and plausible likelihoods, events that were heretofore simply not thought of, or else thought of but dismissed as bizarre fantasy. 3y relying upon philosophical assumptions, values, theories, and methods rooted in pre-llolocaust visions of reality and possibility, scholars have consistently and systematically either missed or misconstrued important problematic aspects of the Holocaust.
Hhat occurs at the level of psychosocial theory seems directly expressive of Feyerabend's formal critique of science in general, namely, that insofar as new evidence is obtained, it will be assimilated into the preexisting expert consensus even if this requires a radical deformation of the evidence in order to maintain the credibility of the consensus. Feyerabend argues further that whatever evidence cannot be fit into the preexisting consensus will be ignored or devalued as subjectively biased, mystical, or otherwise flawed.l
It is noteworthy, moreover, that within their own specific histories both !1arxian and Freudian thought contain very dramatic instances of alternative viewpoints and critiques that were directed at the same general points of theoretical significance that we have identified in connection with the Holocaust. lhthin
