ABSTRACT
Even the most extreme form of persecution is the effect of prejudice, and the impulse to prejudice is a fundamental human tendency. It exists before any incentive to hatred and below the level of conscious moral choice at which guilt would be felt. Antisemitism and racism are the result of a selfish attempt to inflate one's sense of self-worth, and often to compensate for one's feelings of inadequacy, by choosing to treat differentness as though it were a moral failing. Under the Nazis, antisemitism moved into its most extreme phase to the extent that individuals no longer had to generate their own rationalizations, and therefore hatred was no longer necessary. Once the government of the country took upon itself the responsibility of "validating" antisemitism, individuals were free to set even more distance between themselves and their sense of suppressed guilt. For the great majority of people, it was no longer necessary to hate.
