Genocide and Reification
Genocide
6 million exterminated. That number rolls off of our tongues as we sit and learn history in the 6th grade, or we write a paper on WW1. How about 800,000 murdered in 100 days, while Americans attempted to keep our troops of the conflict yet watched the bloody images daily on CNN. Genocide in our world is something that is impossible to justify or embrace, but we must attempt to understand it. It is only through this understanding will we be able to prevent or stop one of the most horrific acts man can do in the future. Genocide, in both the Holocaust and in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, is grounded in self-reification and the external reification of others. This then, when put into certain contexts, can manifest itself in a projection of hate through genocide. Although reification is the process which explains genocide, other social movements, such as extreme nativism in the Rwandan genocide and extreme modernism in the Holocaust, help perpetuate widespread genocide. Internal reification of the Germans was projected into external reification in the form of hate of the Jewish people. Reification is a thought process of "thingifying" identities of both yourself and others. It first begins inside and is projected outward onto others. The internal reification of the Germans began with their detachment of themselves from their identity. This identity was that of the victim,' which arose from their perceptions of how they were treated during and after WW1. The Treaty of Versailles included the war guilt' clause, which blamed WWI on the Germans and had caused them to pay large reparations to other counties, causing their economy to crumble. They also felt as if they were victims of the worthless and ineffective Weimar Republic, which was the government in power in Germany following WW1. Also, due to propaganda, many Germans believed that they were the victims of a Jewish conspiracy which had been against them for years. The Germans found a false concreteness
6 million exterminated. That number rolls off of our tongues as we sit and learn history in the 6th grade, or we write a paper on WW1. How about 800,000 murdered in 100 days, while Americans attempted to keep our troops of the conflict yet watched the bloody images daily on CNN. Genocide in our world is something that is impossible to justify or embrace, but we must attempt to understand it. It is only through this understanding will we be able to prevent or stop one of the most horrific acts man can do in the future. Genocide, in both the Holocaust and in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, is grounded in self-reification and the external reification of others. This then, when put into certain contexts, can manifest itself in a projection of hate through genocide. Although reification is the process which explains genocide, other social movements, such as extreme nativism in the Rwandan genocide and extreme modernism in the Holocaust, help perpetuate widespread genocide. Internal reification of the Germans was projected into external reification in the form of hate of the Jewish people. Reification is a thought process of "thingifying" identities of both yourself and others. It first begins inside and is projected outward onto others. The internal reification of the Germans began with their detachment of themselves from their identity. This identity was that of the victim,' which arose from their perceptions of how they were treated during and after WW1. The Treaty of Versailles included the war guilt' clause, which blamed WWI on the Germans and had caused them to pay large reparations to other counties, causing their economy to crumble. They also felt as if they were victims of the worthless and ineffective Weimar Republic, which was the government in power in Germany following WW1. Also, due to propaganda, many Germans believed that they were the victims of a Jewish conspiracy which had been against them for years. The Germans found a false concreteness