Never Again Say “Never Again”

I

Is it not time to get rid of this unhelpful shibboleth?

“Never Again” is one of those slogans on which practically everyone can agree. How can one not? (Unless you belong to the flat-earth Holocaust-denial lunatic fringe). When we use “Never Again” it is, of course, a shorthand to the enormity of German National Socialism. The pledge “Never Again” is absolute in time: Never again. It is absolute in space too: “That” cannot and should not ever take place anywhere. It is universal: It bridges Left and Right, North and South, Rich and Poor.

To paraphrase St. Paul’s dictum:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for we are all one … (Gal. 3:28)

in our pledge “Never Again!”.

My interest in this piece is decidedly not with the noble sentiment underlying “Never Again”. It is the usage of such in public and political discourse. Please keep this in mind.

And also keep in mind that “Never Again” in public discourse is always a shorthand: It most commonly involves a Reductio ad Hitlerum, identifying something contemporary as coming within the purview of the “Never Again” pledge.

No wonder, then, it is such an attractive and tempting Cri de Coeur. Standing at the barricades under the “Never Again” banner is both powerful and self-empowering. It paints us in the most shining hue. It paints those against whom one is inveighing in the darkest brown colors: This is Nazism, and if so, it is absolute evil. It bestows, too, a particular “status” on the victims. (Mind you, for our class of academics and intellectuals, the barricades are often little more than a tweet on a social network, or a blog post, like this one, from the comfort of our homes).

But herein is its potential for abuse. What exactly is the “that” which must never happen again? There are countless permutations; ultimately it is in the eyes of the beholders and it is invariably hotly contested.

Even in the narrow historical frame from which “Never Again” arose the issue is contested. Is it the “Shoah” – the specific calamity that befell the Jews with the ghastly paraphernalia of industrial death camps, gas chambers and all the rest – that must happen never again? Is it instead, the general WWII carnage, the 60 million not just the 6 million? Or perhaps also the years from 1933 to 1939 with the Nuremberg Laws which prepared the ground? This very under-specificity offers a canopy under which practically everyone can find cover and use and misuse for their noble or nefarious agenda. After all, Putin, too, is a “Never Againer” – as in “We are fighting the Nazi Ukrainian State, Never Again!” Should this not at least give some pause?

The Shoah was the original source of the Never Again pledge already in 1945. But this original usage need not and did not define its meaning. About three million Jewish Poles were murdered by the Germans in Poland but so were about three million Christian Poles who are usually not considered as part of the Shoah stricto sensu. Should “Never Again” not apply to them? Of course it should. And the countless other victims of German barbarity and their collaborators? If one needs more examples of the non-specificity and controversial nature of the term, with time, Stalin would be mentioned alongside Hitler in the same “Never Again” breath. (Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands makes for sobering reading). And if you want to add Mao and the Cultural Revolution, as some do, be my guest.

For some, in good or bad faith, “Never Again” has, thus, a very specific ontological meaning as in “the Shoah is unique, the Shoah “is ours”, and any attempt to use it in any other context is an inappropriate appropriation which cheapens it and obliterates its normative force. It banalizes it.” This is not an altogether specious argument.

For others, in good or bad faith, “Never Again” is a way to mobilize moral outrage (as well as political support) for just about any man-made humanitarian outrage. Limiting its meaning to the specificities of the Shoah, it is said, enfeebles and dilutes its historical importance as a warning for the future – its very “Never Again” lesson. This, too, is an argument with considerable force.

So then, loose use or strict use? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

II

Not surprisingly, “Never Again” – has come to be used not only on issues of War and its horrors. Consider, to give but one example, the following statement of Robert Cardinal Sarah, if Wikipedia is to be trusted. Made with sincere inner conviction, in addressing the issue of homosexuality and abortion, he made a remarkable but not uncommon Reductio ad Hitlerum:

“What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion Ideologies and Islamic Fanaticism are today.” “Western homosexual and abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism” could be seen as “almost like two apocalyptic beasts” with demonic origins, thus drawing parallels between them and Nazism and Communism…

You will not be hard pressed to find plenty of other usages equally remote from physical eliminationist projects.

“Never Again” is also, unintentionally perhaps, sometimes used as a statement of fact, of the world as it is, rather than a desideratum, and thus may constitute a conscious soother in the face of the sorry and fallen world in which we live and in the sorrowness of which we are complicit. It facilitates consigning any outrage to the Yes, it’s awful, but it is not “That!” because “That” after all can never again happen. And in so doing we risk constructing our very own Zones of Interest and as collateral damage, diminish the gravity of that which does not come within one’s favorite definition.

If you expect now a statement or formula for the appropriate use of “Never Again” you will, I fear, be disappointed. And this for many reasons, though I shall mention but one: The present state of normative intellectual discourse on controversial issues.

In the current circumstance of rampant polarization, including in academia, increasingly I witness, notably in Social Networks but not only there, a degradation of careful, patient, fine grained, discerning tackling of complex moral issues in which grey is, or should be, as present as are black and white. This degradation is as much, at times even primarily, on the side of readers rather than writers. The tendency is bellicose, going directly to the final conclusion of any given reflection. “Art Though for Us, or for Our Adversaries?” (Joshua 5:13) is frequently the only thing that matters, followed by Twitter storms.

Practically any use of “Never Again” (as a shorthand to the Reductio ad Hitlerum and for some the Shoah) in contemporary circumstances not only invites and feeds this polarization but gives it the most sharpest, uncompromising of edges. It is the ultimate polarizer.

For one, because of its inevitable very categorical nature: This is Black and White – a kind of moral Jus Cogens, the ultimate evil. On this there can be no compromise.

And, second, because of its elevation into a quasi-religious transcendental incommensurate and non-negotiable Truth. Since we all believe in “Never Again,” it has become a veritable Article of Faith. The enormity of the underlying “thing” that informs the original “Never Again” pledge may perhaps justify this elevation, but in turn its alleged misuse becomes not just wrong but a sacrilege, a form of blasphemy. The only problem being, as mentioned, that there are many passionately conflicting denominations in the Church of “Never Again” and, hence, there are many views of what constitutes such sacrilege and blasphemy. History has taught us that conflicts over religious Truths and Articles of Faith might bring out the worst in humans and are oftentimes the most fierce and bloody, whether real blood or ink. “If you do not agree with me on this, you deserve to be excommunicated, excised, cancelled!”

One frequent result is that once “Never Again” is introduced in discussion concerning any human outrage the discourse is immediately deflected and sidetracked to an argument about the appropriateness of the badge instead of a focus on the awfulness of what is taking place.

I applaud the Editors of this symposium for their focus on International Law in this context. Not surprisingly, some of the issues just discussed play out here as well. For example, when the endless debates concerning the definition of genocide in the Convention have as their subtext, the “Never Again” badge, the discussion oftentimes turns to heated arguments of the “is it really the same” type, as if should it not “really be the same” the awfulness matters less. And, both hermeneutically (and politically) it becomes extremely tempting to try and bring everything within that definition of ultimate evil (or to exclude such) with possibly the same effect: Implicitly reducing the enormity of other horrible crimes which might not fit that definition. And the other side of the same coin – is there not a risk that the high stakes involved will shape, or even pervert, in one direction or another (too expansive, too restrictive) the way we interpret the Convention?

Be this as it may, ultimately one has to give meaning to legal instruments and do such to the best of our hermeneutic abilities. This is the great value of this symposium. But one must be mindful of the limited (limited does not mean unimportant!) epistemic and normative value of IL determinations, conditioned as they are by IL’s equally limited interpretative communities and certainly not outsource the meaning of “Never Again” to IL.

Please make no mistake: I am not against strongly held normative commitments nor for standing steadfast in defense of such commitments. On some issues one does not have the luxury of sitting on the fence. But the attendant polarization which the “Never Again” vocabulary invites, all too often comes at a cost to our ethical, moral and legal discernment and degrades the culture of discourse which is essential for such. The use of the Reductio ad Hitlerum trope which “Never Again” encapsulates is unhelpful and contributes to such.

III

The very first Never Again pledge was given, not surprisingly, after the Ultimate Genocide – that of entire humanity in the Biblical narrative of the Deluge.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.⁷ And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. (Gen. 6:5-7)

The Deluge followed (though somehow the fish escaped this fate). But then

[T]he Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

While the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest,
and cold and heat,
and summer and winter,
and day and night
shall not cease. (Gen.8:21-22)

That divine pledge has been observed. But with it, the responsibility for justice on this earth has been given to us, humans.

How well have we done, then, with our human 1945 pledge “Never Again”?

Consider the Cambodias and Biafras, and Kigalis and the list goes on and on. But why go so far from home? Let’s think Bosnia and Srebrenica, in the heart of Europe. Honorable, well intentioned, post WWII European soldiers, confessing, like you and me, the new civic holy trinity of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, stood by passively observing the worst possible atrocity, a true massacre of the innocents for the simple reason of their (Semitic) religion. And this in the very continent where we pledged that this could never again happen, at least not here. Can any of us put an untrembling hand on our heart and be sure that had we been there, alongside the hapless Dutch soldiers, we would have acted differently? The voice of our brothers’ blood crieth unto us, from the ground, European ground.

If we look unflinchingly in the mirror, what stares back at us is the terrifying realization that never again has morphed into an ever again, and again, and again. The historic pledge suddenly seems pretty hollow, does it not? It has become a norm consecrated in its breach more than in its actuation. It is also a sharp reminder how easy it is to profess a commitment, even sincere, to the most noble of values when there is no realization and internalization of the virtues necessary for realization. Virtue theorists, an endangered minority, have been lamenting such forever.

There is, thus, a measure of both arrogant hubris and self-adulatory feelgoodism in the “Never Again” pledge which, given the human condition, is a pledge that cannot and will not ever be fully honored. For this reason too, in addition to the degradation of discourse discussed above, let’s leave that “Never,” a concept both infinite and transcendental, to the metaphysical realm wherein it rightly belongs, beyond human reach.

So, must we abandon our moral commitment which animates the pledge and throw up our hands in the face of inevitable failure? Quite the contrary. But we have more chances of success, even if limited, if we do this with humility, aware of our frailties, personal and collective. Maybe it is best that each of us, whatever meaning we give to the pledge and its source, treasure such as a compass and beacon in one’s internal consciousness. But when it comes to actuating the pledge in our commitment to Tikun Olam through big things and small, through action and words, perhaps we can dispense with the Reductio ad Hitlerum encapsulated in that worn-out lexical shibboleth of “Never Again.” Some hope.