Genocide & Cruelty

Genocide and Cruelty

Throughout history people have taken actions which show us that some people are cruel and participate in outrageous acts. We can go back and look at the United States and their use of slaves from Africa. In Germany, less then 100 years ago, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis orchestrated one of the most hateful and dehumanizing acts with their concentration camps with the killings of millions of Jews, Gypsies, gays and others. Following these devastating acts the United Nations said they would not let genocide like the concentration camps ever occur again. But just 11 years ago in Rwanda 800,000 people were killed in genocide with little or no intervention from the United States or any other country. Philip Hallie spoke about some of the actions and the reason behind some people and their cruelty in Ð"'From Cruelty to Goodness.Ð"" In the article Hallie is questioned as to whether these acts of genocide can be prevented through good or if these acts can not be stopped and are an event in history. Hallie makes a great point when he says that goodness can prevail over evil. My feelings are similar to those of Hallie as I feel that there is some good in everyone and that genocides and Rwanda can be prevented or helped through good.

The premise behind Philip HallieÐ"*s article pretty much speaks for itself in the title, Ð"'From Cruelty to Goodness.Ð"" He first sets out to define cruelty. Hallie defines institutionalized cruelty as Ð"'cruelty (what the anti-cruelty societies usually call Ð""substantial crueltyÐ"*) involves the maiming of a personÐ"*s dignity, the crushing of a personÐ"*s self-respectÐ"" (Hallie, 6). Hallie goes on to say that Ð"'power differential is crucial to the idea of cruelty, then when that power differential is maintained, cruelty will tend to be maintained, and when the power differential is eliminated, cruelty will tend to be eliminatedÐ"" (Hallie, 8). He says cruelty is Ð"'an imbalance of power wherein the stronger party becomes the victimizer and the weaker becomes the victimÐ"" (Hallie, 8). Philip Hallie then relates this idea of cruelty and imbalance of power to past events in which a group of people were subjected to inhuman conditions. He uses slavery and the Nazi death camps as examples or the powerful majority institutionalizing the weak minority. He talked about how the whites outnumbered the blacks and the NaziÐ"*s overpowered the Jews. It leaves the reader wondering what can be done, can this cruelty be overcome?

This brings us to HallieÐ"*s second part of the title, Ð"'From Cruelty to Goodness.Ð"" Hallie refers a small town in France where goodness overcame cruelty. This example contrasts the Jews and Gypsies in the death camps where Ð"'Here were the weakest of the weak. Not only were they despised minorities, but they were, as individuals, still in their non-ageÐ"" (Hallie, 9). Hallie recalls reading a story about Le Chambon and what it meant to him and his research on cruelty and goodness. Ð"'I wept at first reading about Le Chambon in those brief, inaccurate pages was that at last, I had discovered an embodiment of goodness in opposition to crueltyÐ"" (Hallie, 10). Le Chambon is a French Protestant village with a population of about 3,500 people. They saved the lives of over 6,000 people, mostly Jewish children whose parents had been killed in the death camps. This example of a small town saving the lives of thousands of people shows how one group was able to make a difference during a major event and as Hallie puts it, Ð"'I had found goodness in opposition to crueltyÐ"" (Hallie, 11).

According to Hallie goodness differs from cruelty in that the opposite of cruelty is not kindness. Ð"'The opposite of institutionalized cruelty is freedom from the cruel relationshipÐ"" (Hallie, 9). Hallie feels that goodness accomplishes this and is something positive. While Philip Hallie seems to make a good case of goodness overcoming cruelty it is not met without opposition. In his article Hallie talks about a letter he received from someone from Massachusetts.

I have read your book, and I believe that you mushy-minded moralists should be awakened to the facts. Nothing happened in Le Chambon, nothing of any importance whatsoever. The Holocaust, dear Professor, was like a geological even, like an earthquake. No person could start it: no person could change it: and no person could end it. And no small group of persons could do so either. It was the armies and the nations that performed actions that counted. Individuals did nothing. You sentimentalists have got to learn that the great masses and big political ideas make the difference. Your people and the people they saved simply do not exist (Hallie, 14).

Philip Hallie responds by telling the person that Ð"'I shall answer it only by telling you that one of the reasons institutional cruelty exists and persists is that people believe that individuals can do nothing, that only vast ideologies and armies can act meaningfullyÐ"" (Hallie, 14).

When comparing the two perspectives between Philip Hallie and that of the Massachusetts person, I would have to side with Hallie. For starters the Massachusetts person seems to go overboard with his broad Ð"'mushy-minded moralistÐ"" statements and by saying that Le Chambon has no importance whatsoever. I would ask that person, what about those 6,000 lives the villagers of Le Chambon saved? The other issue here is that the Massachusetts man says that it was a Ð"'geological eventÐ"" and that no person could change it. I disagree with this man and would tell him that his approach encourages cruelty. For me to say that nothing can be done is taking the easy way out. It is almost a way of explaining why these outrageous events occurred. The fact that no country intervened immediately and millions of lives were lost is no way of explaining why the events occurred. Something should have been done and action should have been taken but were not. The United States as well as other countries along with this person from Massachusetts must accept that fact that everyone is at fault for not intervening and that events like the Holocaust could