Notzick the holocaust

Question 1

I do not claim to understand the full significance of this but there is one piece, I think:

Answer 1

it now would not be a special tragedy if human kind ended, if the human species were destroyed in atomic warfare or the earth passed through some cloud that made it impossible for the species to continue reproducing itself

Question 2

I do not mean that

Answer 2

humanity deserves this to happen

Question 3

now that history and that species have become stained

Answer 3

its loss would be no special loss above and beyond the losses to the individuals involved

Question 4

humanity has lost its

Answer 4

claim to continue

Question 5

like relative shaming family, the Germans

Answer 5

our human relatives, have shamed us all

Question 6

although we are not all responsible for what those who acted and stood by did

Answer 6

we are all stained

Question 7

imagine beings from another galaxy looking at our history. it would not seem unfitting to them, I think, if that story came to an end

Answer 7

if the species they see with that history ended, destroying itself un nuclear warfare or otherwise failing to be able to continue

Question 8

these observers would see the individual tragedies involved, but they would not see- I am saying-

Answer 8

any further tragedy in the ending of the species

Question 9

not -let me repeat- that the species deserves to be destroyed; it

Answer 9

simply no longer deserves not to be

Question 10

humanity has

Answer 10

desanctified itself

Question 11

whatever changed situation or possibility the cruxifixction and resurrection were supposed to bring about

Answer 11

has now ended

Question 12

the holocaust is the third momentous transformation [after fall and resurrection]

Answer 12

(…) there no longer operates the saving message of Christ.

Question 13

the Christian Era

Answer 13

has closed

Question 14

he died for all our sins, past and future, small and large. but not

Answer 14

for that one, I think

Question 15

the holocaust has created a radically new situation and status for humanity as a whole, one

Answer 15

the sacrifice of Jesus could not and was not meant to heal

Question 16

is humanity reduced to this de sanctified

Answer 16

status?

Question 17

is there anything we can do by our behaviour over time, so that once again it would be a special and further tragedy

Answer 17

if our species were to come to an end or be destroyed?

Question 18

perhaps what we need to do

Answer 18

help produce another better species or make way for it; can we regain the status of deserving to continue only by stepping aside?

Question 19

perhaps we need to change our own nature, transforming ourselves into beings who are unhappy and who suffer when others do

Answer 19

or at least into beings who suffer when we stand by and allow the infliction of suffering

Question 20

yet there s so much suffering in the world, if we were unhappy whenever others suffered for whatever reason

Answer 20

we would have to be unhappy always when some people inflicted suffering in others

Question 21

or is it that we should be unhappy only when

Answer 21

others inflict massive suffering?

Question 22

perhaps it is only by suffering ourselves when any suffering is inflicted

Answer 22

or even when any is felt, that we can redeem the species

Question 23

before, perhaps we could be more isolated

Answer 23

now that no longer suffices

Question 24

if the Christian Era has ended, it has been replaced by one in which we each now have to take humanities suffering upon ourselves

Answer 24

What Jesus was supposed to have done for us, before the holocaust, humanity must now do for itself

Question 25

see others now truly wear over suffering so momentous and so momentous and so monstrously inflicted

Answer 25

that everyone must now be different henceforth

Question 26

someone might think that rather than take other’s suffering upon himself, he would prefer to leave humanity as a species unredeemed

Answer 26

letting it remain no tragedy if the human species ended. he might even think this would be better overall

Question 27

if we all do take humanities suffering upon ourselves, that involves many

Answer 27

additional events of actual suffering

Question 28

I have outlines here one interpretation of the holocaust

Answer 28

that gives it commensurate weight

Question 29

the full significance and implications of that trauma- so recent-

Answer 29

dwarf a single person’s understanding; certainly they dwarf mine

Question 30

the holocaust is a massive cataclysm that

Answer 30

distorts everything around it

Question 31

the holocaust is a massive and continuing

Answer 31

distortion of the human space

Question 32

the vortex he created has not

Answer 32

disappeared

Question 33

hitler too constituted a force that

Answer 33

distorted the lives around him- his followers, his victims, and those who has to conquer him

Question 34

perhaps every evil of whatever magnitude constitutes

Answer 34

some distortion of human space. it has taken a cataclysm to get us to notice it