Interaction and Genocide: The Holocaust as a Case Study of Inventive Discourse

• In Event: Communication and Symbolic Interaction

Abstract

Confronted with whispered reports of Nazi mass murder, did ordinary Germans they invent novel beliefs to comprehend a novel situation? Goldhagen suggested that "most Germans could [not] emerge with cognitive models foreign to their society" and willingly executed the Holocaust. But what if novel beliefs are possible? Applying Yarbrough's theory of inventive intercourse—which combines symbolic interactionism and rhetoric—this presentation describes how novel beliefs in the legitimacy of state-sponsored mass murder may have arisen.

Author

• Mark Ward Sr., Clemson University