Having done something protects against the worst arbitrary destruction

Evidence

In this connection, the following dialogue sums up the situation of the individual: “For what purpose, may I ask, do the gas chambers exist?”—“For what purpose were you born?” It is this third group of the totally innocent who in every case fare the worst in the camps. Criminals and politicals are assimilated to this category; thus deprived of the protective distinction that comes of their having done something, they are utterly exposed to the arbitrary. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1008

Categorization

• BMF: The gas-chamber dialogue’s logic of existence itself being the crime evokes Dostoevsky’s deeper pattern in which having done nothing is what makes one most indictable — but no match in the listed library, so suggest adding a Dostoevsky read.
• SHARE: The ‘for what purpose were you born’ exchange is stark enough to share with someone working on genocide testimony or Arendt scholarship.
• XREF: connects to: Destruction is a human act requiring a witness, not a natural event.; Destruction appropriates objects more keenly than creation does. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1376; To be acted upon can mean destruction or conservation — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 446