Concept
Mass killing
Overview
Mass killing is a concept which has been proposed by genocide scholars who wish to define incidents of non-combat killing which are perpetrated by a government or a state. A mass killing is commonly defined as the killing of group members without the intention to eliminate the whole group, or otherwise the killing of large numbers of people without a clear group membership.
Mass killing is used by a number of genocide scholars because genocide (its strict definition) does not cover mass killing events in which no specific ethnic or religious groups are targeted, or events in which perpetrators do not intend to eliminate whole groups or significant parts of them. Genocide scholars use different models in order to explain and predict the onset of mass killing events. There has been little consensus and no generally-accepted terminology, prompting scholars, such as Anton Weiss-Wendt, to describe comparative attempts a failure. Genocide scholarship rarely appears in mainstream disciplinary journals.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Upon some occasions, indeed, we both punish and approve of punishment, merely from a view to the general interest of society, which, we imagine, cannot otherwise be secured. Of this kind are all the punishments inflicted for breaches of what is called either civil police, or military discipline. Such crimes do not immediately or directly hurt any particular person; but their remote consequences, it is supposed, do…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Mass killing is.
Universal military service is perhaps the extreme example of the power of the State, and the supreme illustration of the difference between its attitude to its own citizens and its attitude to the citizens of other States. The State punishes, with impartial rigor, both those who kill their compatriots and those who refuse to kill foreigners. On the whole, the latter is considered the graver crime.
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
States what Mass killing is.
She will not strike at combatants only; she will massacre women, children, old men; she will pillage and burn; the ideal will be to destroy towns, villages, the whole population. Such is the conclusion of the theory. Now we come to its aim and true principle.
Henri Bergson, The Meaning of the War
States what Mass killing is.
Related ideas
- The Holocaust
- Government
- German Empire
- Imperialism
- Empire of Japan
- Nazi Germany
- Authoritarianism
- Communist state
- Ottoman Empire
- Soviet Union
- State (polity)
- Totalitarianism
- The New York Times
- United Nations
- Vietnam War
- World War II
- War
- Cambodia
- Gender
- The Nation
- British Empire
- China
- Bourgeoisie
- Rwandan genocide
Place in the tradition
Part of Communism.