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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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430 |
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Contents |
Index |
Home
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Forward |
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| Chapter 20 |
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The Auschwitz Self:
Psychological Themes
in Doubling |
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The doctor, … if not living in a moral situation … where
limits are very clear, … is very dangerous. |
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— Auschwitz survivor |
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He has the capacity to veer with every wind, or, stubbornly, to
insert himself into some fantastically elaborated and irrational social
institution only to perish with it. [For man is a] fickle, erratic, dangerous
creature [whose] restless mind would try all paths, all horrors, all betrayals
… believe all things and believe nothing … kill for shadowy ideas
more ferociously than other creatures kill for food, then, in a generation or
less, forget what bloody dream had so oppressed him |
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— Loren Eiseley |
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| The Healing-Killing
Paradox |
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| The Nazi doctors’ immersion in the healing-killing
paradox was crucial in setting the tone for doubling, as the Auschwitz self had
to live by that paradox. To the extent that one embraces the far reaches of the
Nazi vision of killing Jews in order to heal the Nordic race, the paradox
disappears. The Auschwitz self can see itself as living out a commendable
principle of “racial hygiene” and working toward a noble vision of
or- […ganic] |
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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Back |
Page 430 |
Forward |
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