Book Review: The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

Abstract

Genocide scholars are of course familiar with the work of John K. Roth who has authored, coauthored, and edited numerous volumes on the Holocaust and other genocides. His most recent book, The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities, may well be his most insightful work yet. It is a work that deserves a careful reading by all of us in the field of Genocide Studies, irrespective of disciplinary lens. Perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that he is resolute in confronting the horrors of genocide. He quotes Emmanuel Levinas to the effect that "The Holocaust of the Jewish people under the reign of Hitler…seems to me the paradigm of gratuitous human suffering, in which evil appears in its diabolical horror." 1 He concludes his chapter on "God's Failures" with a call for "no more theodicy." Roth explores the possibility that in an era of postmodern relativism the Holocaust might well be a "negative absolute." 2 And following Jean Améry, Roth takes to heart the insight that the Holocaust and other atrocities including rape and torture mark "the destruction of trust in the world." 3 Yet like Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel-Roth acknowledges a deep debt to Wiesel-Roth refuses to abandon hope. At the conclusion of Part I (of II) Roth writes: 'And yet. .. and yet,' Elie Wiesel has said, 'this is the key expression of my work.' That outlook should also be a key response to the failures of ethics, including God's failures, because life persists, history continues, and they embody so much that is good and precious, so much that must not be abandoned-perhaps even God?-lest failure is compounded to the point of no return. 4