Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
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?
Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
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.