(update: the diarist in question has removed from his post the rhetoric, discussed below, that I address. But, while the original poster has done the morally upstanding thing, a disturbing number of people commenting on my piece saw nothing wrong with the rhetoric or else complained that it wasn’t about the “extermination” of a group but, rather, a specific individual — a spurious distinction, in my opinion.
Thanks for your support.)
“we need to... exterminate him like the vermin that he is" —This classic eliminationist rhetoric, which could even be interpreted as incitement to violence against a named, specific human being, is from a recent diary on this forum.
Many members of this forum have supported these eliminationist words, by recommending the post.
This cannot pass. This must not pass. There are many reasons why. Let me give you one such reason.
By marriage, I will one day inherit a shoebox-sized cardboard box with a number of black and white photographs. Perhaps a hundred or more, as I recall.
The photos are of members of my wife’s extended family, who lived in Russia and Eastern Europe — all gone, all savagely murdered during the Nazi occupation.
Nazi propaganda, such as the film The Eternal Jew, had compared my wife’s ethnicity to vermin. The Jews were likened to hordes of rats that carried disease, crime, and other pathologies.
That Nazi propaganda helped pave the way towards the murder of millions, among them members of my wife’s family. All that’s left now are the photos in the box.
Eliminationist rhetoric can come from the right and left alike and it almost inevitably feeds a spiral of growing polarization and hatred.
Sociological studies have shown, quite clearly, that words which target our fellow humans and liken them to vermin, insects, or other species which have few protections under existing law, help make violence against those humans more likely.
We cannot, we must not sanction such words.