As most people would agree, the 20th century contained some of the bloodiest and most gruesome events ever recorded in history. Why do words such as Hiroshima, Rwanda, The Final Solution, A Great Leap Forward, The Great Purge and so many more spark such vivid images of blood, torture and murder in our minds? And despite those horrific images, what is it that causes us humans time and time again to commit such crimes against humanity? Those are the kinds of questions Jonathan Glover, a critically acclaimed ethics philosopher, tries to answer in the book he had spent over ten years writing, Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. Through Humanity Glover tries to answer those questions in a way which will give a solution as how we can prevent ourselves from ever repeating those crimes in the future.
Jonathan Glover, born in 1941, is a British philosopher known for his studies on ethics. Earlier in his career he was a fellow and tutor at New College, Oxford, but he is currently a professor at King’s College London. He, much like Professor R.J. Rummel (1932-2014) of the University of Hawaii who revived and redefined the term democide, believes that humanity and morality were at their worst and most questionable times during the 20th century. Throughout his book, Glover considers the moral predispositions which cause humanity to commit barbaric acts of genocide such as the ones committed by so many world leaders before this time. Each chapter of Glover’s analysis focuses on one historical event which he rips apart and tries to make sense of. Though this approach to the book may be a bit distracting and confusing at times, one must understand that a simple ethical and philosophical analysis of those horrific events is not enough...
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...n Humanity Glover gives a slightly frightening depiction of the 20th century. Yes, the 20th Century was undoubtedly an extremely bloody one, but there are some professionals such as psychologist Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor, who argue quite the opposite from Glover. Pinker, in his The Better Angles of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, says that the 20th century was actually the least bloody in history because human nature has changed significantly. He poses numbers that aim to prove the fact that tribal warfare was nine times deadlier than genocide and war in the 20th century. Despite these counter arguments, however, Jonathan Glover gives an extraordinary analysis of humanity, morality and ethics in the 20th century which can give humans a solution as to how we should all go about preventing genocide and other war crimes in the future of our species.
Stanton, Gregory H. "Genocides and Conflicts." World Without Genocide. World Without Genocide, 7 May 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. .
The physical and mental intent to destroy another being often unveils the darkest side of human nature. In the memoir, “An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography” dedicated to the Rwandan genocide, war hero Paul Rusesabagina states: “A sad truth of human nature is that it is hard to care for people when they are abstractions, hard to care when it is not you or somebody close to you. Unless the world community can stop finding ways to dither in the face of this monstrous threat to humanity those words never again will persist in being one of the most abused phrases in the English language and one of the greatest lies of our time.” The United Nations promised never again would they allow genocide to occur after the Second World War. Unfortunately, less
Life is a valued concept, as are the people and experiences associated with it. However, when one is pushed to the limit of human capacity, they can lose familiarity with the value of their own life. Genocide-- the mass slaughter of a group of people based on their identity-- can have severe effects on the victimized people in a plethora of ways. One can not possibly quantify the grotesque, inhumane treatment witnessed in many genocides. Simultaneously, many victims are vulnerable to their identities being left behind and only their will to survive being left intact. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, recounts his experiences being at the hands of a brutal, systematic killing regime in his award-winning memoir, Night. Wiesel
Genocide: The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular group or nationality. When people think of this forbidding word, their mind immediately flashes to images of concentration camps and Adolf Hitler’s army raising their arms, saluting to swastikas used during the Holocaust in WWII. But what people don’t realize is that genocide is not such a rarity. Thousands, even millions of civilians die each time genocide strikes. Genocides have been committed since the beginning of humanity, but three massacres since Hitler’s reign left the world shocked again at its own cruelty.
"The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century: The Nazi Holocaust 1938-45." The History
...rime of Genocide." "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Perennial, 2003. 62-63. Print.
In his piece, “Human Dignity”, Francis Fukuyama explores the perception of human dignity in today's society. This perception is defined by what Fukuyama calls “Factor X”. This piece draws attention to how human dignity has been affected recently and its decline as we go into the future. Using the input given by the Dalai Lama in his piece, “Ethics and New Genetics”, the implementing of factor X and human dignity on future generations will be explored. Through the use of the pieces, “Human Dignity and Human Reproductive Cloning by Steven Malby, Genetic Testing and Its Implications: Human Genetics Researchers Grapple with Ethical Issues by Isaac Rabino, and Gender Differences in the Perception of Genetic Engineering Applied to Human Reproduction by Carol L. Napolitano and Oladele A. Ogunseitan, the decline on the amount of human dignity found in today's society as well as the regression in Factor X that can be found today compared to times past. Society's twist on ethics as a result of pop culture and an increase in genetic engineering has caused for the decline in the amount of dignity shown by the members of society and the regression of Factor X to take hold in today's society.
History aims to examine the actions and legacy of mankind. The past is filled with the achievements that humans have reached, however, history also shows us the evil that man is capable of. No atrocity against mankind is more heinous than the act of genocide. Genocide is the aim to destroy all (or part of) of a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group of people. This paper will examine two famous cases of genocide in history: The holocaust of Jews and other groups in Nazi Germany, and the destruction of the Congolese people under Belgian colonialism. The Holocaust remains as one of the main legacies of Hitler and the Nazi party, who claimed an estimated 11 million victims, 6 million of which were Jews. Comparatively, the Congolese Genocide
The twentieth century was a time of change. With two world wars occurring within roughly three decades, it was no surprise that society became forever changed. These two world wars, however, resulted in perhaps one of the most significant and catastrophic events in history - the Holocaust. The Holocaust saw about six million Jews killed by command of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Despite resulting from World War II, however, Hitler’s massive genocide of European Jews was planned before the Second World War, and therefore was intentionalism, because of the blame from post-World War I Germany, the twentieth century movement of eugenics as a “racial hygiene”, and the actions to exterminate Jews before the outbreak of World War II.
Wiesel’s speech, persuasive in nature, was designed to educate his audience as to the violence and killing of innocent people across the globe. Wiesel spoke of acts that had taken place throughout his lifetime, from his youth, up through present day atrocities. His focu...
Steven Pinker implied that, “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to the mass murder of people” (1). Steven Pinker revealed an interesting side to the controversial topic of mass murders and the causes of them. He revealed that as long as people in this world believe that they are better than other due to their race, religion, and everything else that defines a group of people as different from another group of people. People are and have been wrongfully treated differently due to the incompetence of some to realize that everyone is equal. They often believe that they were superior to others because of their physical attributes and beliefs that they had. The Holocaust is a major example of the ignorance of some in history. This ignorance often resulted in the murders and mistreatment of many. Elie Wiesel was one of the six million plus people who were wrongfully mistreated during the Holocaust. Many believe that this sort of event could not occur in the current time period because people have become more civilized and tolerable to the differences of others, but sadly the world is not ready to contain a social utopia. The mass murder, and violence that is occurring in Darfur is one of the many things that shows that the world is far from achieving this social utopia. Throughout history, many occurrences of genocide have occurred due to the diversity of people and even though society has evolved greatly, there are still people and places today that are suffering.
...rom making the same mistakes over and over. The data shows that the number of people that died due to violence in twentieth century is higher than the number of people that died in the nineteenth century. Limerick writes: "By the measure of numbers, the comparison between violence in the nineteenth century and violence in the twentieth century clearly works to the disadvantage of our times" (497). Humans do not seem to learn that wars and violence are not the best way to resolve arguments. She goes on to stating that "whatever else we learn from numbers, we learn that twentieth-century human beings do not have much in the way of moral high ground" (497). Limerick implies that people today are not morally higher due to a greater historical awareness than they were a century ago.
The atrocities of the Belgian Congo and the Holocaust are two of the main events in history that have been responsible for the mass murdering of millions of people. Although these events significantly changed the course of humanity, and the story behind each one is very different, there are significant factors that make them alike as well as different. Many would agree that comparing two atrocities that affected the lives of so many people and gave a 180-degree turn to each of their countries would be something very difficult to achieve. However, by comparing the behavior of both the perpetrators and the victims of both cases we might be able to further understand the lack of morality and the inspiration that led to these awful events. The perpetrators in both atrocities tended to have a similar pattern of behavior when it came to the way they saw their victims. But, they also acted in ways where you can draw the conclusion that one set of events was not inspired by the other. These two sets of atrocities were reported to have a very similar number of victims. However, the Holocaust is one of the most reminded events in history as a period of shame, tragedy and sadness, while many still ignore the atrocities in the Belgian Congo.
In the article “What makes us moral” by Jeffrey Kluger, he describes how morality is defined and how the people follow rules. Kluger discusses about scientific research that has been done to point out the important reasons of morality. Kluger explains that a person’s decision to do something good or bad is based on empathy, that humans tend not to do bad to those they sympathize with. Kluger also compares humans with animals and thinks that morality is the only thing that separates us from animals. I do agree with Kluger that people are born with a sense of right and wrong, but we should be taught how to use it. We learned to be nicer to those around us because we already know the type of person they are, and the morality we learned as children
Print. The. Hymowitz, Sarah, and Amelia Parker. " Lessons - The Genocide Teaching Project - Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law." American University, Washington College of Law. American UniversityWashington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, 2011.