The Holocaust And Western Imperialism And The Holocaust

People are never evil just for the sake of being evil. They always justify to themselves in some way that all of their actions are for the greater good and that the actions they have committed are not atrocities. This has to be done since normal individuals cannot justify to themselves that they are immoral. Both western imperialism and the Holocaust had their atrocities justified by the illusion of progress. Even though numerous millions of people were slaughtered in these campaigns, many of the people doing the killing, believed that it was for the greater good. Western imperialism used the notion of bettering the native population and expansion in order to justify their mass killings. On the other hand, the Holocaust rationalized its†¦show more content†¦we begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said, ‘Go! You are only beasts yourselves; you are nyama (meat).’† This sense of super iority allowed the imperialists to justify to themselves the atrocities that they were committing. Furthermore, the Nazi regime slowly dehumanized these fellow Europeans until they were dehumanized enough so that they could be killed. This effort was done methodically, since it took an entire eight years after Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 for the Jews to begin being killed in 1941. The length of time this took is interesting since it shows how the average German population did not have anti-semitic views they were willing to act upon until much after Hitler came to power. The Nazi’s were able to change this by incrementally disparaging Jews whether it be through the laws they passed or the math textbooks that were handed out to children. 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