I can get behind murder. I feel like this, to some extend, is a genuine part of human behaviour. Even the horrific aftermath of such. But genocide truly feels inhuman to me. So I can never fundamentally understand how in history, civilizations went from point A to point B to Point Genocide. Any thoughts on this?
Imagine that you know someone who intends to kill you. You can run and hide, or you can can kill them instead. Genocide is that on a large scale.
Or at least that’s the version of genocide thar is easiest to understand. There is also the Nazi version where you kill an entire people just because you hate them, not because they threaten you or have a resource that you desperately need for survival.
There is also the type of genocide that was committed against the indigenous people of the Americas. That happened over a long period of time and over two continents. It involved every type of genocide noted above at different times and places, plus the initial accidental genocide by disease (probably influenza) that killed off about 90% of the population prior to the colonizing that came later.
And just because you can’t imagine it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t do it in the right circumstances. There is nothing more human than genocide. The only other animal that does it is chimps, if I remember correctly.
Sorry, that is a depressing note to end this comment on. Humans are scary.