Introuduction to Deleuze

Modernity has faced many criticisms but none more disturbing than Bauman's claim that the potential for a Holocaust exists in all modern societies. Though essentially a sociological work, Bauman's Modernity and the Holocaust centers on political phenomena: bureaucracy, the State's monopoly of coercion and political democracy. This claimed relationship between modernity and the Holocaust is examined critically, drawing particularly on the classic analyses of totalitarianism. The findings show that there is no inherent potential for a Holocaust in modern, rational, society. Rather, ‘common and ordinary’ aspects of modern society serve not to promote but to prevent modern genocide and chosen policies play the largest part in explaining the horrors not only of Nazi Germany but also of Stalinist Russia.