I’m a lone gunman, and I kill someone because and only because he’s black, or Indian, or Jewish, or Palestinian. Have I committed genocide? Clearly not. Suppose there’s a number of us, and we kill a number of people because and only because they’re black or Indian or Jewish or Palestinian. Hard to say. How many were we, and how many did we kill? How organized were we? Was the state involved, or at least complicit? Were we intent on killing all or most or only some of our victims? How successful must we have been? Need we have intended to kill them or just displace them? Or perhaps neither. Perhaps, like the Inquisition or the residential schools, we just wanted to turn them into people more to our liking.

Until one answers these questions we have no idea what she means by genocide. And as often as not she says it is and he says it isn’t because they don’t mean the same thing. Occasionally – and I mean very occasionally – they do mean the same thing, and then and only then are they debating the facts of the case. Monica Schafer says there were no gas chambers. That’s verifiable. Or maybe not. Maybe there was a cover up, or maybe all the evidence was planted. And I’m expected to have thoroughly investigated and pronounce on these matters. That I haven’t, because I can’t, makes me a Holocaust denier, or a residential school apologist, or …

This places the social/political philosopher in a very difficult position. If we don’t descend to the epistemic standards of the hoi polloi we’re denialists. If we do we’re not doing our job. Some people – no, make that most people – think it’s a job that needn’t – no, make that shouldn’t – be done. I guess I just have to live with that judgment.

Categories: Angst, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: genocide, Holocaust, Monica Schafer, Palestine, residential schools