ABSTRACT
The themes of this volume – the problem of comparative victimization, the issues associated with the hierarchizing of genocide into greater and ‘lesser evils’ – are thoroughly charged, over-determined, and, for some, even a tasteless enterprise: how does one presume to grade evils? Perhaps a further source of disquiet arises from the point made by Martin Malia in his controversial article that has occasioned the proceedings of this book: ‘Nazism’s unique status as “absolute evil”’ he writes, ‘is now so entrenched that any comparison with it easily appears suspect.’1 One may (or may not) find such entrenchment normatively problematic or unwarranted but few, I think, would question the empirical accuracy of Malia’s assertion that Nazism has indeed come to occupy a unique demonic status within our moral economy, symbol of the deepest incarnation of barbarism and inhumanity. Perhaps Malia should have added an important rider to this statement: the model of Nazism as radical evil applies peculiarly and particularly to Anglo-American spheres of influence and western and central European societies (and to an increasing degree, certain countries in eastern Europe).
