On the Natural: Human Tendency for the Eradication of Dirt

Staub, as referenced in Ordinary Men, proposes that “ordinary psychological processes and normal, common human motivations and certain basic tendencies in human thought and feeling are the primary sources of the human capacity for mass destruction of human life” (167). This idea is indeed exemplified by the actions of the Nazi party towards Jews during the Holocaust. Though this statement raises controversy, in that most people dislike the notion that they, too, possess the capacity for such atrocious actions against other human beings, Staub’s claim is given merit by several authors in their own works regarding the events of the Holocaust and the nature and actions of human beings; specifically, Spiegelman’s Maus I and Maus II, Browning’s Ordinary Men, Bauman’s “The Dream of Purity,” and Sherman’s Bent support Staub’s accusatory claim. The aforementioned works support the notion that, given the proper conditions of existence, any otherwise normal human (that is, not selected for traits expressing violence) possesses a natural capacity for the “mass destruction of human life” (Staub 161) due simply to the intrinsic nature of humans to desire order.

In his essay, “The Dream of Purity,” Bauman discusses the desire, possessed by all humans, for the complete control over the order of their lives. As conscious beings – that is, capable of forethought – humans have a dependency on familiarity and order such that they can reasonably guess the events of the future and plan their actions accordingly. Bauman makes this desire for order clear when he says that people’s desire to “[stigmatize] traitors [and banish] strangers stems from the motive of preservation of order, of making or keeping the environment understandable and hospitable to ...

... middle of paper ...

...quire order to be able to fully control a situation – even to a level of ordering that which is unordered by its very nature.

This selection of works shows that any normal human does, in fact, possess the capacity for the “mass destruction of human life” (Staub 161) due to his or her natural need for the complete order of all that exists. This is most clearly visible in the application of Bauman’s metaphor of dirt to many real life examples, in which anything which is undesirable and incapable of being ordered must be completely eradicated. As such, it is clear that “common human motivations and certain basic tendencies in human thought and feeling” are quite sufficient to propel the “mass destruction of human life.” Given that this is the case, humans should trudge forward carefully, ensuring not to repeat the events of history due to their own intrinsic nature.