Seeds of the Holocaust

Part of the story that I construct about myself, and I believe this is true of a lot of people, is that I am basically a good person. Sure I mess up here and there, but by and large what I do is moral and right. Occasionally, when I do something, it will be accompanied by a bad feeling, like "I know this is wrong," but by and large my actions are accompanied by a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, being myself, playing on the home field, surrounded by my familiar mental environment. (Which is interesting given how my self-criticizing faculty and desire to please others are undeniably acting from behind the scenes, and often fairly overtly.) Part of the process of this blog has been for me to identify certain things, that while "obviously" pathological in others, are difficult to recognize as such in one's own mindstream. I talked about the delusions experienced by a schizophrenic, and how I could find certain experiences of mine which, while not as grandiose or pervasive as full-blown schizophrenia, could at least be seen to have a similar nature: a mental mechanism inappropriately labeling a mental event as "absolutely certain." I also talked about clearly seeing racial prejudice in myself, but only after giving myself the space to look. Today, I want to talk about an incident from my childhood which I think gives some insight into how the Holocaust could have happened with the complicity of so many people who we would otherwise expect to behave morally.

I was going to the circus with my Mom. I was living with my Dad in central NJ, but my Mom was taking me to the circus in NYC. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey. I was very excited to see the circus, and happy to be with my Mom. We were  outside on the sidewalk with a crowd, waiting for a door to open. When it did, we all rushed forward, and I noticed a prone figure on the ground right outside the door. A homeless person was lying there. I was momentarily confused. Here was a person on the ground, with no shelter, possibly in distress. Why was nobody helping him, or even acknowledging his presence? Then I did what must be an easy thing for humans to do, I accepted what the crowd had communicated. This person was not to be acknowledged.

There are so many conflicting messages along these lines that we are sent as kids and adults. Childrens' books and TV programs tend to promote love and inclusiveness and this is a message I ate up as a kid. It certainly felt right then and still does now. But then, experiences like the one above with the homeless person at the circus begin to create a dissonance. The world is not sending a consistent message, and our behavior starts to become confused and inauthentic. Looking back at this incident, seeing how easily I recategorized a living person as subhuman, not to even be acknowledged, I begin to see how a society could do the same with Jews, or other racial groups. Society sends very powerful messages, and our brains seem fairly hardwired to accept them, perhaps as part of our biological evolution as a social animal. And reflecting on this, it becomes much more plausible to me that this sort of thing could happen again in a western democracy.

I'm not saying that people are mindless automatons and when enough racism takes hold in society, everyone's brains will suddenly start switching from nonracist to racist. I believe that, at least in the U.S., the country I am most familiar with, we are making progress. However, it is sobering to reflect that I can see a similar process in myself as that which contributed to much of German society going along with the persecution and murder of so many in their midst.  All the more reason to promote mindfulness and consciousness, so we can recognize these tendencies in ourselves and as a society, and help prevent future atrocities.