As a good wife, Florrie shared Paul's anxieties. They decided to
move to Washington, to learn first hand how the government operates.
Employed by a consulting company, Paul continued to gain valuable
experience. He helped to organize a new federal department's
information resources. He also provided information support to a
major new government program to help the nation's cities.
A chance encounter introduced Paul to a new field of study -- that of
alternative futures. He learned about the possibilities of exploring
and influencing the future in more desirable directions. The
uncertainties caused by the increase of national and world problems
also created a professional interest among many to understand and
manage these problems. Gradually more and more respected scholars and
thinkers became involved in these efforts. Eventually the time came
to establish a formal organization to stimulate, collect and
disseminate knowledge and information about the future. He became one
of the founders of the Forecasting Society. He met and worked with
experts in the field. He learned that the future trends can be
projected, and even altered by appropriate actions. Perhaps such an
activity could have prevented the Holocaust, he wondered.
Paul became a full-time employee of the Forecasting Society, and
gained much experience in education and publishing. During the
celebrations of America's 200th year of independence Paul was project
manager of the government-funded "Resources Directory for America's
Third Century." Working with this, and with other future-oriented
educational programs and publications, he gained considerable
knowledge about world problems and opportunities. He also learned
ideas for influencing the future in more desirable directions.
As the Cold War continued, he began to be concerned that sooner or
later the safeguards against using the destructive armaments of the
Nuclear Age would fail. Another Holocaust was becoming increasingly
probable, with the continuing deployment of nuclear weapons and the
on-going tensions of the Cold War. Paul increasingly felt the
compulsion to take preventive action, and not wait passively as
before. He read an address by evangelist Billy Graham: "The present
insanity of the global arms race, if continued, will lead inevitably
to a conflagration so great that Auschwitz will seem like a minor
rehearsal..." Because of Paul's understanding of warfare and military
technology, he had to agree with the statement. The unspeakable
horrors of Auschwitz would indeed be dwarfed by the universal
destruction unleashed by the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons of
the superpowers.
"I am for certain informed that this city
will be burnt with fire from heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both
myself, with thee my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall miserably
come to ruin, except (the which yet I see not) some way of escape can
be found, whereby we may be delivered."
World War I was a tremendous catastrophe.
Europe was by far the most prosperous and powerful of the continents.
But the foolish, unthinking militarism of the leading countries led
to the breakdown of a century-long peace, with catastrophic results
for everyone concerned. The ten million combatant deaths and the
vindictive peace treaties left the continent in a turmoil of hatreds
and enmities.
Once World War I broke out, the Holocaust became a high probability
event, with an annual probability factor of 10% or more. There was a
need for scapegoats by the military and politicians of the losing
side; numerous personnel were trained in killing and obedience (such
as Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz); and the Armenian Massacres
set a precedent (by showing to Hitler and his accomplices that large
numbers of innocent people can be killed with scant protest on the
part of the "civilized" world).
At least five motives can be assigned to the Nazis and their
confederates for initiating and conducting the Holocaust:
* Generating "enmity" to gain and retain power -- the usual
totalitarian technique of consolidating the in-group by stimulating
hatred against the out-group
* Delivering on electoral campaign promises -- punish the Jews for
alleged "plots" and "conspiracies" against Germany
* Shifting blame for incredibly costly policy blunders -- alibi for
political and military mismanagement (like starting World War II;
losing World War I)
* Destruction of Christianity (for opposing extreme totalitarian
measures and presumably impairing military effectiveness) -- by
annihilating its biblical roots
* Greed -- looting the possessions and taking the labor of the
victims.
The most significant proximate causes of the Holocaust include the
following:
* Vulnerability of populations in societies characterized by
bureaucratic institutions (police registries, for example).
* Anti-Semitism propagated by some of the Christian churches.
* Dehumanization caused by the large-scale modern warfare of World
War I.
* Horrendous casualties and their moral cowardice caused the German/
Prussian military to deny responsibility for defeat -- giving rise to
myths of betrayal and Jewish "plots"
* False Allied war propaganda dehumanized the enemy, and made rumors
of true German atrocities less believable
* The massive destruction inflicted by modern military technology
made human life appear to be cheap and expendable
Military training created obedient executors of genocide.
"Peace" Treaty of Versailles -- this vindictive termination of World
War I made the nascent German democracy an inevitable victim of
totalitarian forces.
* Reaction to the outcome of the Russian revolution or "Bolshevism"
-- fear, hostility (and more enmity).
* The Depression of 1929 and the resulting economic turmoil.
A pre-existing infrastructure for genocide, and a series of
triggering events culminated in the Holocaust.
The Principal Causes of the
Holocaust
The principal factors contributing to the Holocaust are as
follows:
* Enmity: Nationalism and endemic anti-Semitism
* Technology: Railroad network; poison gas; crematories
* Vulnerability of populations to violence
* War as a social institution
* Political mismanagement
Probability of a New
Holocaust
A new Holocaust, from the use of nuclear weapons, continuous to
remain a strong probability:
* Organized warfare remains an accepted -- and increasingly more
practiced -- social institution, with the continuing development of
extremely lethal weapons, and the growing militarization of the world
(evidenced by military expenditures reaching one trillion dollars
annually).
* Populations (due to concentration in urban areas) remain extremely
vulnerable to the ever-increasing lethality of nuclear, chemical,
biological and high-tech conventional weapons.
* The level of enmity among national, religious and other cultural
groups remains high, as world economic, social and environmental
problems remain unresolved.
* Political and military mismanagement continue to flourish, as
organizations and problems become more complex and intractable.
* A global arms trade continuous to pour weapons and armaments of all
levels of sophistication into the hands of irresponsible
non-democratic regimes. Many of these governments also attempt to
develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Preventing a New
Holocaust
Most of the causes or contributory factors of the Holocaust were
caused by World War I. Similarly, the danger of a new Holocaust would
come out of wars and militarism. Accordingly, the surest ways of
preventing genocides is the abolition of war as a social
institution.
A little recognized by-product of our
military "advances" is our progressive dehumanization. Americans
especially ought to be sensitive to this issue, since many of their
ancestors were victimized by being treated as a form of lesser
humanity. First and foremost was the institution of slavery practiced
on black Americans. But many of the immigrants of the 19th century
were, or had ancestors who were, serfs -- persons bound legally to a
piece of land and subject to the will of the owner of the land.
While both slavery and serfdom were finally abolished in the 19th
century, our current period brought about new levels of human
degradation. Although a repugnant task, it is possible to list these
various forms of progressive dehumanization:
Serf
>>>Slave
>>>>>Statistic
>>>>>>>Target
Although slavery was a
very dehumanizing social institution, there was considerable economic
-- and some moral -- incentive for the master to treat his slaves
with some degree of humanness and preserve his life.
Serfdom in Europe was strictly regulated, with legal limits
to the lord's power. Both of these forms of dehumanization granted
some level of humanity to their victims.
In our own century the old forms of dehumanization became obsolete,
and even outlawed. But in their place new, and even worse, forms of
dehumanization emerged.
I personally experienced the degradation of being a mere
statistic of Nazi Germany. As concentration camp inmates, we
were condemned to perish slowly from hunger and exposure, while
performing essentially meaningless tasks. With my fellow victims we
were building air fields, roads, even advanced jet aircraft and
missiles for the defense of the Third Reich. But it was all for
naught, because the Germans had no longer the fuel to fly the planes
or the missiles. The purpose of this futile exercise was to show with
"facts," or statistics, that large numbers of people were working on
the war effort, and to give some reassurance to Hitler, Speer and the
other misleaders of Germany. My ultimate function as a statistic was
to increment -- or, in case of death, decrement -- by 1 the
appropriate tables of numbers. Still, there was a small incentive on
the part of the Nazi bureaucrats to prolong my existence, and with
some luck I was able to survive.
But our ultimate dehumanization is that we Americans -- and our
counterparts in the Soviet Union -- became targets of the
nuclear war planners of our war machines. Under existing defense
policies, our taxes are used to facilitate target planning. Target
lists are prepared, targets are ranked according to priorities, and
appropriate combinations of nuclear weapons and delivery systems are
matched to the targets. A similar activity is taking place on the
Soviet side. Of course, most frequently the targets are, or are
located in or near, urban areas where typically we (and our Soviet
counterparts) live. In the end, we are the targets.
All our ambitions, hopes, fears can go up in radioactive dust in an
instant -- beyond our control, or indeed beyond the control of our
military if terrorists or other irrational forces get hold of nuclear
weapons. Unlike that of a statistic, the death of a target would not
even be recorded in somebody's statistical report.
It is especially ironic that Americans, who as a group are most
concerned about their appearance, health, comforts, entertainments
and other expressions of their humanity, have allowed themselves to
become victims of the ultimate form of dehumanization possible!