kirsten neilsen wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > One of the things I've found most depressing about this evil war has
> > been all the side-taking.
>
> on a related note:
>
> anthony lewis' column today The Question of Evil
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/lewis/062299lewi.html
>
> he makes it pretty clear: all serbs are evil, a la goldhagen's willing
> executioners.
Of course one of the interesting things was the popular appeal of Goldhagen to many Germans. Despite the historians rejoinders (cf. Finkelstein's _A Nation on Trial_ and _Hyping the Holocaust_ )a kind of (needed?) expiation trumped the exasperation of the historians. I think this not just the oversimplified needs of journalist hams like Lewis.
Now what will be interesting is the language (and needs?) of expiation among serb oppositionalists. There was much claimed for the internal opposition to the monstrous nationalism (and Milosevic in particular) of Serbia and how the bombing undid said internal opposition.
And perhaps more abstractly is to question do certain kinds of discussion about complicity, shame, expiation produce solidarity among oppositionalists (chez, "the left") or does it enervate? Or some other possibility.
michael