Sociology after the Holocaust : introduction : chapter 1 The Holocaust as the test of modernity The meaning of the civilizing process Social production of moral indifference Social production of moral invisibility Moral consequences of the civilizing process Modernity, racism, extermination I : chapter 2 Some peculiarities of Jewish estrangement Jewish incongruity from Christendom to modernity Astride the barricades The prismatic group Modern dimensions of incongruity The non-national nation The modernity of racism Modernity, racism, extermination II : chapter 3 From heterophobia to racism Racism as a form of social engineering From repellence to extermination Looking ahead The uniqueness and normality of the Holocaust : chapter 4 The problem Genocide extraordinary Peculiarity of modern genocide Effects of the hierarchical and functional division of labour Dehumanization of bureaucratic objects The role of bureaucracy in the Holocaust Bankruptcy of modern safeguards Soliciting the co-operation of the victims : chapter 5 "Sealing off" the victims The "save what you can" game Individual rationality in the service of collective destruction Rationality of self-preservation The ethics of obedience (reading Milgram) : chapter 6 Inhumanity as a function of social distance Complicity after one's own act Technology moralized Free-floating responsibility Pluralism of power and power of conscience The social nature of evil Towards a sociological theory of morality : chapter 7 Society as a factory of morality The challenge of the Holocaust Pre-societal sources of morality Social proximity and moral responsibility Social suppression of moral responsibility Social production of distance Rationality and shame : afterthought : chapter 8 Social manipulation of morality : the European Amalfi Prize lecture
Among the conditions that made the mass extermination of the Holocaust possible, according to Zygmunt Bauman, the most decisive factor was modernity itself. With his provocative new interpretation, Bauman counters the tendency to reduce the Holocaust to an episode in Jewish history, or to one that cannot be repeated in the West precisely because of the progressive triumph of modern civilization. He demonstrates, rather, that we must understand the events of the Holocaust as deeply rooted in the very nature of modern society and in the central categories of modern social thought. Zygmunt Bauman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds. He is author of "Legislators and Interpreters" and "Modernity and Ambivalence" (also from Cornell University Press)
