The dominant civilizing narrative arbitrarily divides norm from abnormality

Evidence

Focusing on one facet of the historical process, it draws an arbitrary dividing line between norm and abnormality. By de-legitimizing some of the resilient aspects of civilization, it falsely suggests their fortuitous and transitory nature, simultaneously concealing the striking resonance between most prominent of their attributes and the normative assumptions of modernity. In other words, it diverts attention from the permanence of the alternative, destructive potential of the civilizing process, and effectively silences and marginalizes the critics who insist on the double-sidedness of modern social arrangement. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 108

Categorization

• XREF: Bauman’s critique that the standard story de-legitimizes civilization’s destructive potential as merely fortuitous parallels postcolonial critiques the Islamophobia module draws on. — connects to: Moral unmasking that fails to shock bolsters the very values it attacks; the MOC “The Loudest Silence: How Enforced Not-Knowing Shapes What We Dare to Say”

Related

• The Holocaust question must keep its full weight and horror (similarity 0.79)
• The Holocaust must be read as integral to modernity, not as its aberration. (similarity 0.79)
• Exceptionalist Holocaust readings let the rest of the world off the hook. (similarity 0.78)
• Normalizing the Holocaust as one genocide among many also defuses its challenge to sociology (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Moral unmasking that fails to shock bolsters the very values it attacks #qualifies (0.72)