"Explosion" in Manchester

[Montmorency]

I said much the same a few posts back.

While I'm at disagreeing, I have to disagree that you said much the same a few posts back.

You linked "total war" to the size and organization of a country, but when PVC deals with "barbarism" he seems to imply, among other things, that the German system was somehow more humane than past analogs, or maybe he took the weak tautological position that Nazi actions were not barbaric because the Nazis were not barbarians and only barbarians can do barbaric things.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

While focusing on the killing process, you seem to forget the violence, torture, forced labor, and protraction that precede it. And given the drain it took on the German war economy, and the ultimate failure of existing camps to liquidate their occupants, I would argue against their efficiency (though to be fair saboteurs and resistors at all levels were part of this picture)

So what's barbarism? Does Japanese vivisection and biowarfare testing not count either? Be sure to distinguish between characteristics of an act itself, and the circumstances in which it appears. Is it just a Hellenic "not-us", or the Renaissance equivalent in "Gothic"? Is it specific to a particular time-period, or the size of the state apparatus?

While I'm at disagreeing, I have to disagree that you said much the same a few posts back.

You linked "total war" to the size and organization of a country, but when PVC deals with "barbarism" he seems to imply, among other things, that the German system was somehow more humane than past analogs, or maybe he took the weak tautological position that Nazi actions were not barbaric because the Nazis were not barbarians and only barbarians can do barbaric things.

Congratulations on completely missing the point.

The Japanese, like the Germans, were civilised people - they were the polar opposite of barbarians.

Ever heard the old adage that if you go too far one way you end up right back at the beginning.

Barbarians are, per definition not rational, they do not make rational decisions. The Nazi's made exclusively rational decisions, devoid of any morals or compassion.

You have fallen into the trap of equating barbarism with evil and civilisation with goodness. I was trying to break you out that narrow view with rhetoric, but I see you failed to grasp the point.

[Montmorency]

Barbarians are, per definition not rational, they do not make rational decisions. The Nazi's made exclusively rational decisions, devoid of any morals or compassion.

That's a poor definition of barbarism, I'm afraid. Nazi's made the decision to exterminate on the moral basis of Nazi ideology's racial order and principles of German security and prosperity. Not just because it would be economically beneficial somehow, but because that was the morally correct order of things to enforce.

You would do nothing but abrogate barbarism. Why couldn't a "civilized" society be both civilized and barbaric? Why would they be opposites, if you feel that taking them as opposites is a narrow rhetorical view?

Thumbs down.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Bar, bar, bar.

It is the bleating the sheep, as opposed tot he rational discourse of men.

So, like it or not, it is the correct definition.

You are attempting to re-purpose barbarians for your own rhetorical benefit rather than face up to the reality that Nazisim is one logical progression of the Enlightenment.

The Nazi order was not "moral" in the mundane sense, the order was determined by the Nazi understanding of biological science, specifically the heritability of traits. The Nazi's looked at Germany and dertmined that it was both advanced AND ordered, they then looked at their near relatives the Anglo-Saxons, and the Dutch and saw more or less the same. The further a people diverged from Aryanism, however, the lower down the socio-economic order their society was.

You must remember that this was a widely accepted scientific view at the time, that white people were "more evolved" than other races, it was the basis for Segregation in the US Army - for example.

All the Nazi's did was take this to a logical conclusion bereft of any moral constraints - i.e. if Aryans are better than other people then application of Darwinian principles allows for the extermination of other competing populations.

[Montmorency]

Bar, bar, bar.

It is the bleating the sheep, as opposed tot he rational discourse of men.

So, like it or not, it is the correct definition.

You are attempting to re-purpose barbarians for your own rhetorical benefit rather than face up to the reality that Nazisim is one logical progression of the Enlightenment.

You did not read me correctly, if you saw anywhere that I denied the roots of Nazism in the Enlightenment. I thank you for clarifying that you use it in the Greek sense, but you have not grasped the real substance of the Greek sense, which was as I said, "not-us". A face-value application from within the original stance leaves us with no barbarians to speak of.

The Nazi order was not "moral" in the mundane sense, the order was determined by the Nazi understanding of biological science, specifically the heritability of traits. The Nazi's looked at Germany and dertmined that it was both advanced AND ordered, they then looked at their near relatives the Anglo-Saxons, and the Dutch and saw more or less the same. The further a people diverged from Aryanism, however, the lower down the socio-economic order their society was.

You must remember that this was a widely accepted scientific view at the time, that white people were "more evolved" than other races, it was the basis for Segregation in the US Army - for example.

All the Nazi's did was take this to a logical conclusion bereft of any moral constraints - i.e. if Aryans are better than other people then application of Darwinian principles allows for the extermination of other competing populations.

You are wrong to take Nazi philosophy as amoral, when Hitler specifically advanced exclusion and extermination as moral over other means of dealing with the problems he identified. Cooperation and co-existence wouldn't simply be un-optimal in this understanding, but wrong and a disgrace to the German people. Soviet Communism was more interested in "rational application" than Nazism, which primarily dealt with the moral order of human existence.

[Strike For The South]

The majority of holocaust victims were not killed in an orderly fashion. Most were simply shot, starved, or burned in the pale.

[Gilrandir]

He was a soldier. Served in front line combat in WW1 as a "runner." This was easy duty between things as you hung around the regimental headquarters bunker in the 2nd or 3rd line. However, the job was to run messages and orders forward during attacks etc. in case wired communication broke down, as it often did.

I know that. But the argument was about murdering women and children by Einsatzgruppen during WWII and how it was incompatible with a warrior's ethic code. At that time Hitler was not a warrior, nor a soldier. So in fact, he didn't kill a single person, just gave orders to do it.

Barbarians are, per definition not rational, they do not make rational decisions.

I believe they do make decisions which are rational FROM THEIR POINT OF VIEW. It is the fault of un-barbarians if they can't see the logics of such decisions. And I think barbarians are of the same opinion of the decisions made by un-barbarians.

[Husar]

But the argument was about murdering women and children by Einsatzgruppen during WWII and how it was incompatible with a warrior's ethic code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_massacres

French troops and Indian allies killed around 1,000 Fox Indians men, women and children in a five-day massacre near the head of the Detroit River.
[...]
Natchez Indians attacked French settlements near present-day Natchez, Mississippi, killing more than 200 French colonists.
[...]
Soldiers under General Henry Atkinson and armed volunteers killed around 150 Indian men, women and children near present-day Victory, Wisconsin.
[...]
The 12 leaders of a Comanche delegation (65 people including 35 women and children) were shot in San Antonio, Texas, while trying to escape the local jail. 23 others including 5 women and children were killed in or around the city.
[...]
Indians massacred eighteen members and relatives of the Killough family in Texas.
[...]
A hunting party of 26 friendly Wichita and Caddo Indians was massacred by Texas Rangers under Captain Samuel Highsmithe, in a valley south of Brazos River. 25 men and boys were killed, and only one child managed to escape.
[...]
Members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry attacked and killed between 130 and 250 Sioux men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.CHAP3.HTM

Even the Hebrews, according the Bible, put to the sword those they conquered. It was the Assyrians, however, whose reputation for such savagery would be transmitted down the ages. They would reward their soldiers for every severed head they brought in from the field, whether enemy fighters or not. They would decapitate or club to death captured soldiers; they would slice off the ears, noses, hands and feet of nobles, throw them from high towers, flay them and their children to death, or roast them over a slow fire. Consider what one historian writes about the capture of Damascus by King Sargon of Assyria.
[...]
So in revenge for an arrow from Nishapur's walls that killed Jinghiz Khan's son-in-law in 1221, when the city was finally captured the Mongol Tolui massacred its unarmed inhabitants.3 So this ancient capital of Khorassan in Persia was then a "scene of a carnival of blood scarcely surpassed even in Mongol annals. . . . Separate piles of heads of men, women, and children were built into pyramids; and even cats and dogs were killed in the streets."4 So an utterly fantastic 1,747,000 human beings reportedly were slaughtered, a number exceeding the contemporary population of Hawaii, Rhode Island, or New Hampshire; a number that is around a third of the total Jews murdered by Hitler.5 This possible world record massacre is only a fugitive datum, unrecorded in most histories.
[...]
In massacre and generalized killing, other nations made their own very bloody contributions to our history. When the Ottoman Mohammed II sieged and finally took Constantinople in 1452, he massacred thousands.48
[...]
In destroying whole populations and in the pursuit and accomplishment of mass murder, Europeans were no better. In 1527 the army of Tirolese condottiere Frunsberg and Charles, Duke of Bourbin, captured and sacked Rome. Historians record that at a minimum 2,000 corpses were thrown into the Tiber river and 9,800 dead were buried;50 many more were killed. During the Thirty Years War the Count of Tilly and Count zu Pappenheim may have massacred as many as 30,000 inhabitants of Magdeburg when the city fell to them after a six-month siege.51 Magdeburg was only one of numerous massacres of this very destructive war. But probably more common folk died when towns and farms in the path of invading or marauding armies were pillaged and families killed. Moreover, many died from famine and disease caused by passing armies. The German Empire alone may have lost more than 7,500,000 people in the war,52 most doubtless perishing from such causes. The population of Bohemia was been reduced from around 4,000,000 people to possibly no more than 800,000.53 Putting a number of such figures together I estimate that in this war alone from 2,000,000 to over 11,000,000 people were probably murdered.54 That aside from combat and nondemocidal famine and disease.55

Really? Warrior ethics?