Human In Darkness: Article Analysis

“Night” by Elie Wiesel explains how dehumanization occurred during a weak point in human history.

The Holocaust is something that we must never forget. Its occurrence relied only “upon the indifference of bystanders in every land” (Zukier). Even today we stand by while innocent lives are taken. The recent conflicts in Rwanda or Bosnia, or past conflicts in Cambodia, are merely three examples. Wherever genocide occurs one thing is sure to happen– individual lives become lost in massive numbers and the tolls are so large

In the night one is frightened to try to determine whether one should undergo the perception of being fearful and unattended. To be hopeful and wanting to get through the position one is in during war and the separation of loved and dear ones. This is the darkness and negativity affecting people who may have been in the holocaust. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, portrays such graphic and traumatizing experiences one may have gone through in the holocaust. Which establishes night and darkness as a key subject to focus on throughout the book, it may be used metaphorically or literally in such context. A theme that may be used is, to lose one's consciousness and ones self worth may also lose their humanity and feelings when going through traumatic

Violence “The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

Elie Wiesel was a young boy strongly devoted to his faith, but it quickly dwindled as he experienced dehumanization. Throughout the novel Night, The Nazis conducted many acts of dehumanization upon the Jewish citizens. The Nazis harshly targeted the Jews’ humanity, and gradually softened their perception of being human. The inhumane treatment began in their very own town of Sighet and continued into various concentration camps they were forced into. Jews were brutalized in these camps and experienced many forms of mental and physical abuse. They were given tattoos in the camps, which was quite demeaning. They physically mistreated them, starved them and separated them from their loved ones.

Throughout history, instances of genocide, mass murder, and extreme acts of violence are widespread and pervade through every culture and society. As demonstrated by Panh, Lifton, and O’Brien, similar examples of excessive violence can occur in widely different situations. In order for such violence to occur, there first must exist certain systematic factors. In this paper, I will argue that conditions of instability within a country allow for changes in belief and perception, and these changed perceptions leads to dehumanization and the loss of human rights. The Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide and the Vietnam War, all follow this pattern to some extent. First, I will compare and contrast the ways in which the Holocaust and Cambodian genocide follow this pattern, as well as explore the separate factors within each and possible solutions to these factors. Next, I will discuss the dramatically different Vietnam War, compare and contrast it to the other two, and explore how the uniqueness of the Vietnam War impacts the possible solutions for the loss of human rights within this situation.

Inhumanity Morphs Alone… Forgotten… Hurt… The worst of inhumanity is being caught in it. Many survivors of the Holocaust recognize this and just fall in grief; some just don’t react at all. Either way, the inhumanity that the Holocaust inflicted upon countless souls was not easy to adapt to. Over six million Jews, handicapped, and ‘different’ people were executed in Hitler’s murder spree. In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night, the author paints an image for the reader of what an unimaginable, first-hand experience of the Holocaust was like: starvation, abuse, inhumanity. Night is just one example that proves that inhumanity can cause anyone to become evil because the cruelty can morph them into a barbaric individual, who lacks a sense of identity.

The book, communities of violence: Persecution of the minorities in the middle ages, written by David Nirenberg, examines violence between the Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Lepers, primarily in the Crown of Aragon. Nirenberg focuses on the history during narrow time period of the first half of the 14th century.

Dehumanization of the Jews “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” stated by Elie Wiesel. In the book Night Elie Wiesel describes in traumatic details of the year he spent at Auschwitz. In Night, Elie Wiesel reveals the devastating experiences that took place in the death camps.Throughout the novel, examples of dehumanization occur when the many jews are forced to cut their hair, when they are compared to or called dogs, and when they had to throw their friends and family into the crematorium.

In his Wall Street Journal essay, “Violence Vanquished,” Steven Pinker claims that contrary to perceived notions of increasing violence and turbulence in the world, "brutality is declining and empathy is on the rise.” Pinker establishes this argument through numeric comparisons of death tolls, genocides and other aggressive perpetrations in modern

Nikolina Besic

As most people would agree, the 20th century contained some of the bloodiest and most gruesome events ever recorded in history. Why do words such as Hiroshima, Rwanda, The Final Solution, A Great Leap Forward, The Great Purge and so many more spark such vivid images of blood, torture and murder in our minds? And despite those horrific images, what is it that causes us humans time and time again to commit such crimes against humanity? Those are the kinds of questions Jonathan Glover, a critically acclaimed ethics philosopher, tries to answer in the book he had spent over ten years writing, Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. Through Humanity Glover tries to answer those questions in a way which will give a solution as how we can

Irrational ISIS The holocaust was one of the worst tragedies that took place in the world. Over fifty years later, history is repeating itself with the new terrorist organization known as ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. This horrendous organization prides itself on terrorizing humanity with kidnappings, forced amputations, videotaped beheadings, and attacking any form of humanitarian aid. Moreover, the Islamic State is killing hundreds of innocent people while countries around the world stand by shocked. Although fighting fire with fire is not the answer, sometimes fire is the only weapon that will work. I have gathered Adolf Hitler, Mohandas Gandhi, Helga Schneider, Paul Baumer, and the United Nations to help discuss why violence

The history of human nature has been bloody, painful, and even destructive. Nonetheless, before understanding their environments humans used to kill each other based on their own mindset on the ideal of violence, and what it actually meant. Pinker describes narratives of violent acts from the past, that today are foreign to us. He gives us a tour of the historical human violence and how the violence in human nature has changed throughout time. The main idea from Pinker’s book,“The Better Angels of Our Nature ', is “for all the dangers we face today, the dangers of yesterday were even worse.” He provides its readers with explicit violent stories beginning from 8000 BCE to now, and describes how violence has evolved from a blood lost to more of a peaceful existence.

In the article titled, “The spirit of Terrorism”, by Jean Baudrillard, 2001, He captures the notion that “evil is everywhere and is an incomprehensible object of desire” (pp.1). He further went on to explain that war is horrific and demeaning to humanity but it has its contribution. Furthermore, war ended, European supremacy and the colonial era, Nazism and Communism. I support this argument, there is evil all around us, lurking in wait. Many would argue that with war comes great suffering and pain, lost of lives, years of civilization has been wiped out with just a bomb and individuals who survive war are often emotionally, physically, and psychological damage. For example, when the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. To rebuild a country to its original state after a war takes years but there is just cause for war. Hence, in the context of war done to achieve what is deemed as the greater good, we can draw on the example of eliminating Nazism, European reined and the fall of Sadam Hussian. Indeed, many innocent people lost their lives but the consequences of war are bloodshed and suffering.