The Holocaust was a product of modernity, not pre-modern barbarity.

Evidence

At no point of its long and tortuous execution did the Holocaust come in conflict with the principles of rationality. The ‘Final Solution’ did not clash at any stage with the rational pursuit of efficient, optimal goal-implementation. On the contrary, it arose out of a genuinely rational concern, and it was generated by bureaucracy true to its form and purpose. We know of many massacres, pogroms, mass murders, indeed instances not far removed from genocide, that have been perpetrated without modern bureaucracy, the skills and technologies it commands, the scientific principles of its internal management. The Holocaust, however, was clearly unthinkable without such bureaucracy. The Holocaust was not an irrational outflow of the not-yet-fully-eradicated residues of pre-modern barbarity. It was a legitimate resident in the house of modernity; indeed, one who would not be at home in any other house. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 82

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core Bauman thesis the Islamophobia field imports whole: modern rational administration, not atavistic hatred, enables mass exclusion. Connects to ‘Connection Points’ intent directly. — connects to: The Nazi movement’s novelty was organizing the racial idea, not inventing it; The Holocaust must be read as integral to modernity, not as its aberration. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 630; The Holocaust is a product of modern rational society, not a Jewish problem alone — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 21 (+10 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘modernity’ frame against which later readings on racialized exclusion will work — the Holocaust as paradigmatic of what rational bureaucracies do.

Related

• The Holocaust is a product of modern rational society, not a Jewish problem alone (similarity 0.93)
• The Holocaust combined long-festering social tensions with the rational instruments modernity created (similarity 0.91)
• The Holocaust must be read as integral to modernity, not as its aberration. (similarity 0.90)
• The Holocaust resulted from distinctly modern social and political conditions (similarity 0.89)
• The Holocaust was a product of modern civilization, not merely its failure (similarity 0.89)
• Modernity’s institutions actively enabled and supplied the Holocaust (similarity 0.89)
• The Holocaust is a by-product of runaway modernist design (similarity 0.88)
• Modern civilization was a necessary but not sufficient condition of the Holocaust. (similarity 0.87)
• Genocide is a normal potential of modernity, not its malfunction. (similarity 0.87)
• The Holocaust functions as a laboratory test revealing modernity’s hidden capacities. (similarity 0.86)
• The Holocaust reveals civilization’s capacity for industrialized destruction as inseparable from its progress. (similarity 0.86)
• The Holocaust is a possibility modernity contains, not its paradigm (similarity 0.86)
• Every ingredient enabling the Holocaust was normal for modern civilization (similarity 0.86)
• Normalizing the Holocaust as one genocide among many also defuses its challenge to sociology (similarity 0.85)
• All Holocaust scholarship is ultimately a debate over modernity’s self-image. (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• The Holocaust was a product of modern civilization, not merely its failure #corroborates (0.98) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 256
• Modernity’s institutions actively enabled and supplied the Holocaust #expands (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 251
• Genocide is a normal potential of modernity, not its malfunction. #corroborates (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 332