I remember that movie – HG Wells the Time Machine?
The question is are we eloi, or morlochs?
And weren’t we told that improper pronoun usage is no different from advocating genocide?
I think the biggest problem is people trying to mis-define it for tactical reasons.
Bingo. But that’s been the underlying problem for more than 100 years now.
Well, the ethnic cleansing democrats are engaged in in the USA qualify
What’s happening to Hamas and Gaza is called losing a war you started. Inquire of a German or Japanese circa 1945 for examples. 30,000 dead was just another night.
The practical political problem, as Erik points out, is that some people define “genocide” as whatever is convenient for their immediate political needs.
But there is a genuine difficulty in setting clear boundaries as to what counts as genocide. The destruction of a people is generally understood to mean killing on a vast scale, like the Holocaust. But what is the minimum level?
If a people (defined by culture and/or ethnicity) has shrunk to one small village which is then destroyed on the orders of the country’s dictator, is that still genocide? What if the remaining members of that people were only one family, or one individual? Can the murder of one person be genocide as well as homicide?
Does it matter if the victims were targeted because of their political allegiance rather than their identity? And if the same dictator then kills ten times as many people in a town populated by the majority culture is that a lesser or greater crime, because it’s more individual deaths but not the destruction of a whole people?
I suspect that none of these questions will ever be resolved. In practice, the majority will continue to treat the word “genocide” as meaning the mass killing of people because of their ethnic or cultural identity, and political activists will continue to use it to mean whatever is currently expedient.
When charges of ‘racism’ simply cannot survive the most cursory examination, what’s the left supposed to do?
Why, cry Genocide, of course!
AIs may be crucial to keep civilization functioning through these Crazy Years. Do androids dream of neoclassical art?
https://twitter.com/_tim_brooks/status/1764074241740460187
I remember that movie – HG Wells the Time Machine?
The question is are we eloi, or morlochs?
And weren’t we told that improper pronoun usage is no different from advocating genocide?
I think the biggest problem is people trying to mis-define it for tactical reasons.
Bingo. But that’s been the underlying problem for more than 100 years now.
Well, the ethnic cleansing democrats are engaged in in the USA qualify
What’s happening to Hamas and Gaza is called losing a war you started. Inquire of a German or Japanese circa 1945 for examples. 30,000 dead was just another night.
The practical political problem, as Erik points out, is that some people define “genocide” as whatever is convenient for their immediate political needs.
But there is a genuine difficulty in setting clear boundaries as to what counts as genocide. The destruction of a people is generally understood to mean killing on a vast scale, like the Holocaust. But what is the minimum level?
If a people (defined by culture and/or ethnicity) has shrunk to one small village which is then destroyed on the orders of the country’s dictator, is that still genocide? What if the remaining members of that people were only one family, or one individual? Can the murder of one person be genocide as well as homicide?
Does it matter if the victims were targeted because of their political allegiance rather than their identity? And if the same dictator then kills ten times as many people in a town populated by the majority culture is that a lesser or greater crime, because it’s more individual deaths but not the destruction of a whole people?
I suspect that none of these questions will ever be resolved. In practice, the majority will continue to treat the word “genocide” as meaning the mass killing of people because of their ethnic or cultural identity, and political activists will continue to use it to mean whatever is currently expedient.