Post-Holocaust shame remains morally binding regardless of practical impossibility

Evidence

Even if one knows that not much more could have been done practically to save the victims of the Holocaust (at least not without additional, and probably formidable, costs), this does not mean that moral qualms can be put to sleep. Neither does it mean that a moral person’s feeling of shame is unfounded (even if its irrationality in terms of self-preservation can be, indeed, easily proved). To this feeling of shame – an indispensable condition of victory over the slow-acting poison, the pernicious legacy of the Holocaust – the most scrupulous and historically accurate computations of the numbers of those who ‘could’ and those who ‘could not’ help, of those who ‘could’ and those who ‘could not’ be helped, are irrelevant. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 586

Categorization

• XREF: Shame as the precondition for overcoming the Holocaust’s legacy echoes the earlier moral-emotions thread; pairs well with the bystander complicity argument. — connects to: Citizens remain morally responsible for atrocities committed in their nation’s name.

Related

• The Holocaust’s moral categories grew more contested after consensus about the facts settled (similarity 0.78)
• The Holocaust question must keep its full weight and horror (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Citizens remain morally responsible for atrocities committed in their nation’s name. #expands (0.85)