I write this letter - addressed to you, dear World - after a somewhat recent Haligonian event caused a stir down at St. Mary's University, wherein a very religious man compared abortion to the Holocaust.
I couldn't help but be reminded of PETA's toss-around of the ol' slaughter. An apt metaphor for the killing of chickens, indeed.
In light of such comparisons, I make a public plea: Seriously, you guys, nothing is really comparable to the systemic murdering of six million Jews. Really. Maybe Rwandans or peeps from Darfur could pull it off. I would be okay with that. But please stop comparing things that are not the systemic murdering of six million Jews to things that are the systemic murdering of six million Jews. It's getting a bit trite, and people are starting to mock you behind your back.
With fury like the Holocaust,
MMTIF
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Can we compare things with the Big H favourably, as in the sense of "Yeah, dude, this post of yours is not as bad as the Holocaust?"
When I typed that, it was as a not-very-funny glib, pedantic response to copy editing objection I had with what you wrote. But having done so it occurs to me that that kind of comparison is also not okay. It's like the post was so much better than the Holocaust it actually brings the Holocaust up just to mention it in the same breath. And in fact it's the same with the chickens. It doesn't actually matter, to me, whether or not PETA thinks the Holocaust was worse than, better than, or exactly the same as, Chicken McNuggets: the comparison itself trivializes the tragedy to such an extent that it's offensive. The response isn't, "Wow, it's really offensive that that dude thought the Holocaust was only as bad as something stupid": in fact it's "Wow, he went there; you're not supposed to compare stuff to the Holocaust, dude!"
I kind of have a problem with this. Ethical trauma--that is, the truly horrific, the baffling, the incomprehensibly evil--deserves to be treated with a kind of awe and terror, to be sure; it is necessary that we recognize its severity both to try to learn from it and to pay simple respect to its victims. But do we need to hold it in a separate ethical category altogether? I think that's problematic, precisely because it implies a regimented ethics where things get worse in incommensurable plateaus instead of in a contiguous way. I think that vision presents a philosophical challenge.
It's clear that to steal $1000 is worse than $500, and we could probably agree that murder or rape are worse than stealing, and so there is a taxonomy of evils. If you kill two people you're more strictly punished than one; we do understand a practical hierarchy of immorality at least for the purposes of justice. And this even stretches right up to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity--the latter thanks, in fact, to the Nuremberg Trials--which are punished more and less harshly according to severity. (In theory, at least. International organizations are impotent for a variety of reasons.) So we have to ask: maybe at some point, as you admit, an evil is comparable to the systemic murder of six million Jews: for example, the systematic murder of Rwandans (500,000-750,000) or Darfuris (450,000 and counting) might qualify, but then again it might not. This isn't to say these horrors might or might not be as bad as the Holocaust: only that they might or might not be acceptable candidates for comparison.
At some point, then, by Funny's logic (which I admit I have extrapolated unfairly but because I think this view is common I'm going ahead), you don't qualify--even for comparison. Let's say the magic number is, oh, I don't know, 10,000--let's be generous--suddenly the systematic murder of 8,000 Bosniaks at Srebenica is in a totally different category of evil: it can't even be said to be less evil, because that requires a comparison to determine. And if it isn't there, it's somewhere: if the number is 30, to be even more understanding, then Willie Pickton doesn't qualify. Now our thought experiment is getting closer to the truth: you wouldn't really say "Come on, guys, sure he killed 26 people but it's not like it was as bad as the Holocaust, right?" but you could get away with it because 26 is still a pretty awful number. So for comparison purposes Willie still squeezes by--but not by such a large margin some people wouldn't still accuse that comparison of being insensitive or even meaningless. By the time we screw down to the grand theft auto, never mind the McNugget level of immoral actions, the comparison has become outrageous.
I don't really know where I was going with this. Something about how any distinction that excludes something bad from comparison with something really bad both marginalizes the bad thing (Srebenica) and, in a way, glorifies the really bad thing (Holocaust) and ensures we can't ever talk about it as part of a flowing, living history of people doing shitty things to each other.
Maybe someone else will pick up here?
Dear Funny,
It's cool, really.
Sincerely,
TH
I think we're coming from different points, Love.
The comparison strikes me as absurd for two reasons: first, that the magnitude is different. It's not the number that matters as much--comparisons between the Holocaust and Darfur/Rwanda are way more acceptable because they all involve grown human lives. (I emphasize "grown" for the comparison between the big H and fetuses.) I take issue with the comparison between humans and chickens, yes. I would rather kill six million chickens than six million humans. There--I said it. Suck it, PETA.
Secondly, I take issue with the apparent ease of comparing shit to the Holocaust because they know it's fucking ludicrous. PETA knows that by making ads that compare McNuggets to the Holocaust, people will take a second glance at PETA. They're making a scene. The abortion issue is similar--I feel like he's using the Holocaust for shock value, when really it's incomparable.
Holocausts have their own category, Love; I agree. THE Holocaust is not separate from all other holocausts. It just might be the worst in recent memory. I would not compare it to killing 26 people, or killing six million chickens. I would only compare it to the systemic killing of at least a couple hundred people.
Yeah, I'm okay with that. I just thought it was interesting for some reason. Fuck PETA, word.
Fuck PETA indeed.
its robert pickton
It's actually Robert William Pickton. He calls himself Willie.
It's funny, Funny--I guess what I'm objecting to, logically at least, is that in order to determine whether or not A is comparable to B is to compare them. If the difference is too great, then the comparison becomes disallowed. Paradox. But, in the end, it is a semantic, pedantic objection, which hinges on a too-strict interpretation of the concept of comparison. Of course we can compare things to the Holocaust, we do this every time we look at a PETA ad and decide whether or not to be irritated. But we can't compare things, in the sense of equation, unless they're similarly bad. Duh.
Sorry guys?
oops... my bad
Right. They're two obviously different types of comparisons, right? The first is analysis between the two to discover differences, similarities - the second is to use these to make a point.
Seems to me like it's not hypocritical, good ol' English just doesn't allow us to make a concise distinction.
I have more to say about the topic itself, but that'll have to come later.
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