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On Holocaust Remembrance Day We Should Remember The Past For The Sake Of The Future
[Jerusalem Post] Sunday before Yom Hashoah through the following Sunday. 2021 Thursday, April 8. 2022 As we approach the sixty-ninth Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGevurah (Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day), the lessons of the Holocaust are both fading from public consciousness and echoing into public policy at the same time. Those survivors who are still alive are currently in their 80s and 90s, and even when they continue to tell their stories—or have had their stories documented by organizations such as the USC Shoah Foundation—fewer and fewer people are interested in hearing, let alone learning from, them. Contemporary genocides and current public health crises crowd out our attention, leaving little room for events of a bygone era. More dangerously, public eyes look forward to the future without realizing that history repeats itself if we don’t learn the lessons of the past. It is true, there are other genocides that we must not forget, but the existence of other atrocities should not marginalize the Holocaust. The Holocaust is not simply a Jewish calamity. Even if it were, the intentional elimination of one group of people is not something to brush aside. If this were the case, then no genocide is worthy of attention, except that of those being exterminated. One reason why leaders and moral philosophers may justify moving on from the Holocaust is the argument that history and morality have very different foci. History attempts to tell a story of what occurred. Ethics attempts to teach people what should occur. History is descriptive, while ethics is prescriptive. Ethicists will always say that one cannot learn an "ought" from an "is"—this is what philosophers call the naturalistic fallacy. Moreover, it is never convincing to say, "We should do this or not do that, because otherwise we will have another Holocaust." To threaten a return of the Holocaust oftentimes is just hyperbolic or absurd. Yet, while history and ethics may face different directions, they have more to say to each other than philosophers and social and political leaders may like to acknowledge. Just as a person learns how best to act through reflecting on his or her past experiences, so can the world community learn how best to move forward by reflecting on its history. In this view, history does not simply tell a story, it provides practical experience. It is time we learn from the Holocaust not only how Nazi leaders took advantage of modern medical and social technology, but also how ordinary men and women were taken advantage of at the same time. Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-08 |
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