Arbitrary-set hierarchies produce far more genocide than age or gender systems

Evidence

The arbitrary-set system is also, by far, associated with the greatest degree of violence, brutality, and oppression. While the age and gender systems are certainly no strangers to very brutal forms of social control, the brutality associated with arbitrary-set systems very often far exceeds that of the other two systems in terms of intensity and scope. For example, besides the infamous Holocaust, the 20th century alone has witnessed at least seven other major episodes of genocidal, arbitrary-set violence, including: (a) the episodic massacres of the Kurds by Turkey in 1924, Iran in 1979, and Iraq in 1988, (b) Stalin’s wholesale slaughter of the Kulaks in 1929, (c) the widespread massacre of the inhabitants of East Timor in the late 1990s, (d) the Khmer Rouge terror in the late 1970s, (e) ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia and other regions of the former Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, (f) the widespread killings of Kasaians in Zaire, and (g) the most recent massacres of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi in the late 1990s, just to name a few. Furthermore, Gurr and Harff catalogued some 63 ethnic and armed conflicts around the world in 1993 alone (Gurr & Harff, 1994). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3167

Categorization

• SHARE: The list of seven post-Holocaust genocides plus 63 armed conflicts in one year is a striking concrete enumeration worth sharing with someone working on genocide studies.