*blink*

[yendi]

The National Review is actually upset that Obama used the phrase "senseless violence" in reference to the Holocaust.

I'd say there are no fucking words, but there really are a slew of them.

(hat tip to james_nicoll)

Comments

[miss-lisa-ma.livejournal.com]

Well, to paraphrase Liss at Shakesville, I could say all violence is senseless, but in fact, I don't think it's senseless at all. If you spend all that time and energy demonizing, othering, and scapgoating a certain population, it makes perfect sense that, sooner or later, you'll try to eliminate that population. Evil, hateful, and wrong, abso-fucking-lutely. But "senseless," to me, lets them off the hook as merely irrational actors when they were anything but.

Just my $0.02. YMMV.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

But "senseless," to me, lets them off the hook as merely irrational actors when they were anything but.

And I wish that was where the article went with this! Because, yes, I can see exactly this happening -- not using "senseless" to mean "completely impossible to comprehend the scope of", which is fine, but using it to mean "irrational and chaotic" rather than deliberately planned and carefully executed evil.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Well, I think they were irrational actors. Murderous anti-semitism is senseless, as in, it does not make any reasonable sense. That doesn't mean it wasn't planned and organized.

[aedifica]

What. The. Fuck.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

I don't know if FUCK THOSE FUCKING FUCKERS counts as a slew...

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

Well to be fair, the Holocaust wasnt senseless, it was a deliberately planned genocide.

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Seems like talking right past each other to me... they're saying that because evil had a goal (or goals), that makes it make "sense"? I think just because there were goals stated along the way doesn't make the end result any more comprehensible, which is what I hope "senseless" means in this case. Evil can be organized and deliberate as well as random and chaotic. (And I suppose by the logic in that article, only natural disasters can ever truly be "senseless" violence, because human beings will always have some sort of motivation for action. So will animals -- self-defense, hunting prey, etc.)