CFA Flatus alert! Todorov and Clendinnen on the Holocaust

[calbert at pop.tiac.net]

> > This sounds like an invention. I've never heard the Warsaw Ghetto 
> > used as a "spurious justification" of any official or unofficial act 
> > of the state of Israel, or its supporters. 
> 
> Like I said, I have every reason to believe that Todorov has done has
> homework and isn't out merely to provoke controversy or sensationalise
> in order to self-aggrandise.

I'm not implying that his motives include those you mention. It could 
simply be that he stretched to make a point. The Warsaw Ghetto 
incident is simply not an element of political and/or social 
discourse in this country and has not been in the 25 years that I 
have lived here. I Learned of it, not from scads of Jewish relatives, 
or even the few survivors that I met as a child, but from picking up 
MILA 18 in the course of a heavy Uris jones. It, along with the SS 
St. Louis history, is entirely unknown to the bulk of the US 
population. I am unable to credit such a point based on my 
experience.

> I'm sure the book is generally available
> (and that as well as being received with respect in the academy it has
> been quite widely-read in French and in English.)


This is the part where I will have to do some lifting. I've not been 
involved in Holocaust history since I was in college. Hasn't seemed 
to be a point.

> And also as I've said, I have the feeling that the sort of approach
> Todorov is advocating (perhaps) derives from, or equates to, that in
> *GR*. It seemed to me that the ambiguity of the novel's opening section,

Ambiguity is good.

> which could quite feasibly refer to the Holocaust death trains as well
> as to the Blitz Evacuations, is comparable to this idea that "the camps
> revealed an environment where common human characteristics were driven
> to their extreme but never beyond the universally human."


This is where I must depart. It is difficult to reconcile this notion 
with that of the author of  The Survivors (Terence Duprese 
(sp.?)can't find an Amazon listing to confirm). THe author discussed 
the methods by which the Nazis conditioned those who worked in the 
camps. The assumption was that atrocities of this kind could only be 
managed by those who would not recognize the humanity of their 
captives. This program went well beyond the "judenrat" movies, and 
was by all evidence quite successful.

If this was the explicit intent of those who ran the camps, it is 
difficult to see how those interred there could see it much 
differently. TO expect moral order in such a context is exactly what 
I refer to when I draw the distinction between those who discuss the 
experience and those who lived it.

> I can't happily put this into other words, and
> I draw back from venturing total approbation of the type of reevaluation
> of the Holocaust undertaken or advocated in GR and Todorov's book
> because it really worries me that it does *seem* totally insensitive,
> disrespectful, or anti-Semitic even, and it's certainly not my intention
> to express such attitudes.

I will take that as a given, and to the extent of my authority, 
absolve you of any responsibility. I am curious, however, why you 
would even concern yourself with the topic - re-evaluating the 
holocaust now, is the poster child of academic masturbation. It is an 
issue maintined, not by jewish interests, but by some other wierd 
dynamic, and I don't even want to guess at why.

> On the other hand, I don't think people with
> expertise should be vilified or prevented from expressing a legitimate
> historical perspective just because they aren't Jewish, or don't have
> certified victim-status, either.

This is quite true. However, it is entirely appropriate for those who 
have immidiate experience to question those who would "exploit" such 
for academic or more generally forensic purposes.
> 
> As Todorov apparently does with his primary sources, Pynchon examines
> the points of view and conduct of his fictional victims and tormentors
> alike without beginning with a blanket assertion that all Nazis were
> intrinsically evil or that all Resistance fighters were noble.

Now hold that thought.....and read WARLOCK while it is still warm. 
The issues of what I refer to as moral ambiguity are laid out in a 
more direct fashion in Hall's book, and there is NO QUESTION in my 
mind that Pynchon took a liking to Hall's perspective. The elect, and 
preterite, the zone.. all that choice stuff is in there.

>Perhaps
> it's simply my bias, but of all the characters in GR that Pynchon draws
> for us it is not Blicero or Pokler or even Pointsman, but Major Duane
> Marvy who disgusts me the most.

But it is interesting that Duane and Marvy are not provided with the 
complex moral fabric of Blicero, who engages in the kinds of 
activities which we find distasteful in the other two. Perhaps such 
an absence is deliberate.....the point being that even mass 
murdering/rapist exploiters like Blicero have hearts, and if we were 
privy to the details we may recognize one in Marvy as well.

> Said's been under siege quite a bit in recent weeks too, I believe,
> amidst accusations that his family isn't really Palestinian as he claims
> they are in a recent biog., or something like that.

It is a more complex issue than that. If you are interested there is 
a long trail in Salon Magazine, and I would point you to the NYRB 
piece by Said for his responses.
 
> Thanks for your courteous and considered reply.

Given the controlled crankiness of my response, I'd say this is most 
gracious....and right back at ya.

love,
cfa