Brooke Chase (2023)
Dagger of the Mind
What pushes a person to brutally murder their neighbors? The question is, do they even need to be pushed? The hunger for superiority, control, and power is an ugly part of human nature that most of us suppress. Could the presence of evil, bothwithin us and around us, cause the darkest and most evil parts of our human nature to possess us in a way we never thought possible? Is this why
8.5 million people joined the Nazi Party? In the wake of World War I, how did Jewish blame, and the systematic dehumanization of the Jewish people, cause the Nazi party to showcase the worst parts of humanity? Between 1941 and 1945, the dehumanization of Jews, uninhibited human nature, and the presence of evil within and around people caused the Holocaust to happen.
Most people would never willingly kill someone, however, when you strip away that person's humanity, killing becomes exponentially easier. When the Nazis slaughtered the Jews, they were not thinking of the Jews as human beings. Through endless propaganda, and perpetuated antisemitic thought, the Jews were labeled as the enemy. Labeling Jews as the enemy served to dehumanize them. Thus what was once considered murdering your neighbor became killing the enemy. Keen states, "When your icon of the enemy is complete/ You will be able to kill without guilt,/ Slaughter without shame./ The thing you destroy will have become/ Merely an enemy of God, an impediment/ To the sacred dialect of history," (Keen, To Create an Enemy). This demonstrates that when the humanity of your enemy is stripped away, like how the Nazis stripped away the humanity of the Jews, killing becomes easy. When you do not even think of your enemy as human, killing loses its meaning. General Dallaire argues, "All humans are human. There are no humans more humans than others... " (Dallaire). The Nazis opposed General Dallaire's rationale by claiming they were superior to theJews, whom they claimed were subhuman. When we allow ourselves to think we are above or more human than other people orgroups of people, we dehumanize them. This sense of superiority allows the "superior" people to justify their unjust treatment of others. To prevent another event like the Holocaust, we must stop ourselves from labeling others as simply "the enemy." We must remember that all people are human and that no group of people is superior to another.
Opportunities to acquire unprecedented power can bring out the worst parts of our human nature. After the Treatyof Versailles, Germany was at an all-time low. Because of this, the Nazis were able to rise to power by offering Germans unprecedented power within the party, the chance to feel superior over another group, and a sense of control over theirlives. After the period of uncertainty following World War 1, the Germans jumped at the chance to reestablish themselves both individually, and as a country. The Nazis offered the German people the chance to be respected and feared by other nations. The allure of superiority, control, and power caused many people to abandon their morals, and give in to human nature. As Kellerman said, "The real shock isn't that the massacre occurred. It's that it doesn't occur more often,"(Kellerman, Few Surprises). Kellerman makes this claim because he is surprised that people suppress their hunger for power, control, and superiority as much as they do. The taste of superiority given to the Nazis through their anti semitism fed into the German's human nature. The superiority felt by the Germans over the Jews on such a mass scale, allowed the Holocaust to happen. As Runes said, "Nothing is so infectious as hate... " (Runes). When this hate also comes with a sense of superiority over another group it is hard for people to resist its allure. Our human nature causes us to give in tohate, so we can have a sense of control. Being aware of our human nature allows us to not give in to it so easily, in a hateful way. While a want for power can be good if used appropriately, we cannot sacrifice our morals for power. A desperateness for power, and control, can corrupt people, and lead to something like the holocaust.
During the Holocaust, the Germans were surrounded by people who committed atrocities against the Jewish people. The Germans saw the Nazis committing unspeakable acts against the Jews, and it brought out the evil inside of them. Sometimes instead of seeing evil actions and condemning them, people instead take part in them. Once some people started acting antisemitic and evil towards the Jews, it brought out the racist evil within other people. As Morrow said, "Evil is the bad elevated to the status of the inexplicable. To understand is to forgive. Evil sometimes means the thing we cannot understand, and cannot forgive. Evil is a word we use when we come to the limit of human comprehension." (Morrow, Evil essay). This means that what the Nazis did to the Jews is hard to even comprehend due to the sheer number of deaths, and the horrific ways these deaths were caused.
The existence of such ununderstandable evil can be explained through the influence of evil within the people of power in Nazi Germany. Once people were exposed to the evil inside of other people, it influenced them to unleash their inner evil. As Rosenblatt said, "... in every civilization, however lofty, a lion always roams the streets, the jungle never entirely disappears. What most men fear is the lion in the soul," (Rosenblatt). This means that inside every person, however good, there is evil within them. Many people are afraid if left unchecked how evil their "shadow" could be. In Nazi Germany, it was considered good to "exterminate" the evil Jews. This led people to justify their murderous shadows and their actions by saying they were killing Jews for good. The justification of killing and murder lead people to let go of their inhibitions and commit atrocities. To prevent a holocaust, people need to be self-aware of the evil inside them and fight it. People also need to not let the evils of the world influence their soul and their decisions.
To conclude, to prevent the Holocaust we must not dehumanize others, instead, we must consider our foe's humanity. We must also be aware that within all of us, there is a hunger for power, control, and superiority, and when we are given a tasteof these we can be corrupted. This corruption can cause people to commit atrocities such as the Holocaust. We must also not let the evils both within us and around us lead us to stray from our morals. Lastly, we must be careful how we use the word "evil" to portray our enemies. Even if you deem their behavior evil, as the Nazis did the Jews, people might look back and not agree with you.
Learning about the Holocaust affected the way I view the world by showing me the darkest aspects of human nature. Researching how quickly ordinary people can lose their humanity and succumb to their deepest and darkest urges was utterly horrifying and eye-opening. Learning about the horrific philosophies that were spread throughout the Nazi party will help people be able to recognize and fight the evils within society, as well as within themselves.