Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 19, No. 4, Winter 1980
Is the Holocaust Relevant to Sociobiology? MAX HAMBURGH ABS T R AC T : Sociobiologists have emphasized that altruism and benevolent behavior are part of the genetic repertoire of most animals and certainly of man. They have constructed a theory of "ethics" as a biological phenomenon without reference to the concept of evil. It is concluded here however, that holocaust behavior is not equivalent to the "natural manifestation of an incompletely tamed animal flashing its teeth." Biologists have been too rigid in trying to equate "ethical behavior" with "social behavior." The added dimension of ethical behavior is a special kind of sensitivity to the needs of others, just as evil is the total lack of it. The evolution of this moral sense may itself have important selective value for the human species, whose survival depends on creating ma~-hnal diversity in its gene pool.
The year 1978 seems to have been the year of the revival of the memory of the Holocaust. It is probably no accident that the Holocaust comes back to haunt us at this unlikely moment of our history, so many years after it has happened. First, the fact that the Statute of Limitations on Nazi war criminals was scheduled to run out brings the unhappy chapter back into focus. Second, November 10, 1978, marked the fortieth anniversary of the real beginning of the Holocaust. On that day a seventeen-year-old German-Jewish refugee by the name of Herschel Grynszpan shot and mortally wounded the Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, Ernst Vom Rath. William L. Shirer, in his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, describes the significance of this day in the following terms: "On the flaming riotous night of November 9-10, 1938, the Third Reich had deliberately turned down a dark and savage road from which there was to be no return. ''1 Last, but not least, the arrival on the scene of the story of "Holocaust" on television helped to arouse us from the slumber of forgetfulness, a fact largely made possible because a new generation had grown to maturity that was more receptive and more likely to be moved by Holocaust stories than was the old. To the generation of the thirties the Halocaust is like a bit of unfinished business, with which it never quite came to terms. We tried to ignore the Holocaust for a long time because the tales about it were too obscene and reading them was like being caught watching pornography. Then we studied the Holocaust like history. There was not a selfrespecting campus among the bigger universities that did not offer courses on the Holocaust. Jewish and non-Jewish students alike flocked to them, and Max Hamburgh, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the Program in Anatomical Sciences at Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, City College of the City University of New York. 320 0022-4197/80/1600-0320500.95
9 1980Institutesof Religionand Health
Max Hamburgh
321
these courses became heavily oversubscribed. After we had enough of studying, we rewrote history and toppled our heroes. Roosevelt was transformed into a cold-blooded villain, more cruel than Hitler for watching "while six million died." Finally, under the chairmanship of Hannah Arendt, we psychoanalyzed the victims and shook our heads in puzzlement at the "cattle syndrome" by which the unresisting Jews of Europe propelled themselves to the gas chambers in perfect collaboration and cooperation with their slaughterers.
The Holocaust and views on the nature of man
Many of the questions raised by science-minded students of the Holocaust revolve around the issue of the "true nature of man." In my estimate, most of the answers given in response to these questions miss the point. The Holocaust, exemplifying the exercise of total evil, cannot reveal exclusive insight about the "nature of man" any more than an earthquake can serve as a good introduction to basic geology. Those who conceived and executed the Holocaust were not acting like ancestral original humanoids, about whose customs and preferences we know next to nothing, nor like animals, as so often implied, for animals are innocent, and the concept of evil is totally irrelevant to animals. But to bioethicists exploring the nature, origin, and evolution of ethical behavior, the Holocaust holds perhaps some special not yet explored insight that may be relevant to the attempts that are now being pursued by philosophy-minded biologists and biology-minded philosophers who seek to understand ethics as a "biological phenomenon." The most successful of these attempts, and the one that made the loudest noise and greatest impact is, of course, "sociobiology." The joining of forces between biology and philosophy to construct, explain, or deny ethical theory has considerable history. According to philosophical neo-Darwinists, culture, religion, and morality constitute at best cosmetics, which, even if generously applied, rub off easily. Civilization, they say, is not a lasting, reliable, or effective form of plastic surgery, since it can never transform an animal into anything but another animal. The Holocaust, they claim, proves their point beyond a reasonable doubt. That view is a bit insulting to animals and will find few biologists to support it, for no respectable zoologist will recognize in Holocaust behavior anything equivalent to the drives of animals, even those released from control of the frontal cortex. Humanists also remain stubbornly unconvinced. They continue to suspect, with little proof to back them up, that violence, wars, and genocide are merely perversions that culture has imposed on the human condition. H o m o Sapiens, though genetically not programmed to be angelic, presumably includes in his behavioral repertoire along with considerable aggressiveness and appetite for competition also a limited capacity for cooperation, mutual aid, and even altruism. This view has had considerable assistance from more recent genetic and anthropological theories. It is interesting that a full turn has been executed away from the definition of human nature along the lines popularized by social Darwinists. If previous
322
Journal of Religion and Health
genetic insights have focused on the genes that made us act like self-assertive and aggressive animals, and new bioethics insists that altruism and empathy are part of man's genetically fixed repertoire, along with dominance, territoriality, and aggressiveness. It is unlikely that altruism, if by that term is meant the investment of some effort for the benefit of others at the expense of the self, could have been perpetuated unless such altruism or "ethical skills," as I prefer to call it, were part of the genetic inheritance. Altruism, bonding, parental care, pity, and all the social and ethical skills that made the "good life" possible are part of man's genetically fixed repertoire, and probably of more consequence to his evolution and survival than his fighting behavior and self-assertedness. W. Gaylin tells us: We must look once again into ourselves, and brace ourselves for good news. I do not deny that there may be a genetic directive for aggression in mankind, but the genetic basis for love is far more obvious, and that is what I plan to explore here. 2 Granted that altruism is an ingredient of most, if not all moralities, it is generally assumed that ethics consist of something more than the mobilization of behavior that is equal of equivalent to that practiced by soldier ants or worker bees. The question arises, what more? Possibly the task of finding the missing ingredients could be eased if, instead of focusing on " w h a t constitutes the good," one were to try to define its opposite, namely, evil.
The concept of evil Most scientists do not find the concept of evil a very useful one. Like the soul or God or immortality, the notion of evil either gets in the w a y of scientific inquiry or obscures it. The Holocaust and the more recent attempts to explain and understand the forces that drove men to participate in it have revived interest in the concept of evil. W h a t source of energy shall we assume is capable of providing the force that mobilized behavior such as that described in the examples cited below, which were picked at random from the record of The Holocaust, the Destruc-
tion of European Jewry, 1933-45. On September 3, the Germans occupied the industrial town of Bielsko in Silesia. J e w s were all rounded up and herded into the courtyard of a local Jewish school and cruelly beaten. Some were hung b y their hands and covered with boiling water. The nozzles of rubber pipes were put into the mouths of others and water pumped into them until their stomachs swelled and b u r s t ? In another town, SS men broke into Jewish homes and apartments, forced young and old to undress and dance in their nakedness, arm in arm, as phonographs played. Rape was optional, if one wanted to risk being tried for race defilement. Jewish girls were haphazardly arrested, made to wash the feet of their jailers and then drink the dirty water. 4 On September 4, the Germans took Kalisz, a city with a Jewish population of 30,000. There the great synagogue was transformed into a prison camp. The
Max Hamburgh
323
Holy Scrolls were ripped and made into a huge bonfire which the Jews were forced to j u m p over2 In Wloclawek, the Germans went hunting for worshippers on the eve of the D a y of Atonement and dragged many in their prayer shawls to army barracks. There Jews were forced to sweep the floors on the barracks with their shawls while soldiers jeeringly took photographs. On the same night, men and women were dragged out of their beds for a forced march. Those who could not walk as fast as the Germans wanted them to were shot on the spot; some were buried by their horrified fellow Jews while still suffering their last death agonies. ~ In Mielec, near Krakow, thirty-five Jews were driven naked from the community baths to a nearby slaughterhouse. The Germans poured gasoline over the building and set fire to it. The shrieks of the imprisoned Jews left them unmoved, and all of the victims perishedJ Neither passion nor hatred nor jealousy nor greed--not even the sexual release provided b y sadistic pleasure seems to qualify as a sufficient biological energizer to sustain the six years of the Holocaust, even though they left generous fallout to satisfy the greedy, the sadists, the opportunists, and the cowards. Equating Holocaust behaviors with the "natural manifestation" of an incompletely tamed animal flashing its teeth, when challenged, seems tantamount to misreading all of the insights derived from modern animal behavior studies. Neither is evil the consequence of aggression, territoriality, or selfassertiveness, all of which are legitimate strategies for animal survival. The concept of evil is applicable to "the ethical animal" represented by one species only, man. Alexksandr Solzhenitzin wrote in his Gulag Archipelago: "The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own breast? ''s M a y b e evil in its more common form constitutes a sort of congenital dulling of the senses that closes the mind to the needs and rights of the "alter" along the lines made famous b y Psalm 115: They have mouths, but they speak not; Eyes have they, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not; Noses have they, but they smell not; They have hands, but they handle not; Feet have they, but they walk not; Neither speak they with their throat. They that make them shall be like unto them; Yea, every one that trusteth in them. Conversely, ethics may reflect an imagination that is aroused by a heightened perception of and identification with the "alter," coupled with a recognition of the categorical imperative imposed upon those who are caught up in a moral situation. Interestingly, in the literature of the nation that gave us the Holocaust, we can also find one of the best symbolisms of evil. In the classical German epic,
324
Journal of Religion and Health
"The Song of the Niebelungen," which provided the text for Wagner's "Ring," the knight Hagen von Tronje is described as the grey eminence, or "prince of darkness," who slays Siegfried, the blond hero and prototype whom every German would like to resemble. Siegfried, having bathed in the blood of the slain dragon, has acquired an impenetrable skin. He cannot be wounded except in one spot, between his shoulder blades, where a leaf had dropped and covered him while he was taking a bath. Hagen von Tronje, having pried the information from Kriemhilde, Siegfried's wife, aims his weapon with masterful precision at Siegfried's vulnerable spot and slays him in the act of drinking from a well. The master story tellers, whether the unknown authors of the Niebelungen epic or the tellers of fairy tales, like the brothers Grimm, Hauff, or Hans Christian Andersen, like the producers who gave us "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" and "Dr. Moriarty," always knew that extreme evil implies the exercise of a special sense that is nourished by intimate perception of the vulnerability of the one who has been picked to be the victim.
"Take-home lesson" for biologists What are the implications for biology of amateur philosophy, such as that offered here? I think biologists have been too rigid in trying to equate "ethical behavior" with just "social behavior." The latter can indeed be mobilized with relative ease, because a genetically fixed talent for altruism is probably distributed, somewhat unequally, among members of the human species. Biology teaches us that there are many different patterns by which animal species manage to survive. The fact that animals act in such a way as to aid t h e survival of another animal may be a surprise to those who have always assumed, mistakenly, that the only biological strategy for survival is the pursuit of self-interest and that all animals are engaged in it. Bioethicists,, in general, have been so spellbound by the discovery that animals sometimes aid each other, even sacrifice for one another, that they have constructed an ethical theory for humans almost exclusively on this link with the animal kingdom. But the mutual aid and subordination we so much admire in bees and ants are in themselves not sufficient for homo sapiens. The only strategy of survival for homo sapiens is neither imitation of the ways that serve the tiger nor of those that serve the insects. The future of man is inextricably linked to culture. The human condition presents a paradox, insofar as culture has released man from the tyranny of natural law so that he remains anchored with only one leg in the natural order and the other outside of it. Culture as a way of life, while it is based upon and made possible by the accumulation of such genetic traits as cooperation and mutual aid (not uncommon among many animals), depends for its perpetuation on continuous, creative efforts requiring an environment that favors the growth of a fantastic number of individual variations through a minimum of restraint. The creation of diversity, which in all other species is met by filling the genetic reservoir with sufficient variations, may have to be supplemented by more Lamarckian
Max Hamburgh
325
methods in the human situation. In a species like the human, where individual differences must be amplified far in excess of what is required in all other species, neither mutation rate nor selection, not even stereotyped altruism like that practiced in the beehive or anthill will suffice. Instead, an altruism based on perception of and sensitivity to the very specific, extraordinary, and often unique requirements of the "other's" survival may constitute the basic skill, prerequisite for the exercise of all subsequent forms of "altruistic" or "benevolent" behavior. It is one thing to suggest that ethical behavior makes biological sense, at least when survival is used as a measuring rod (in itself a point of controversy}. It is quite another thing to trace the evolution of this unusual behavior from the customs developed in hunter-gatherer societies, where culture, civilization, and sharing Ithe latter presumably the precursor of ethical behavior} are supposed to have originated. Diane McGuiness 'has recently advanced the provocative theory that the evolution of ethical skills is the outcome of the development of female specific behavior, rather than that of males. Disputing the Washburn hypothesis that sharing is presumed to be derived from hunting in the early hunter-gatherer societies, she suggests that sharing began as a cooperative endeavor by females. One of the most primary distinctions between apes and men is not the proclivity for hunting, but the fact that apes are hairy and we are not. Young apes are transported by clinging to their mother's fur. Human mothers, being hairless, have to carry their infants. Whatever clues may be found to solve the riddle of our hairlessness, the fact remains that human beings carry their children, and this has a multitude of consequences2 If McGuiness is right t h a t empathy, cooperation, and all the other traits that made morality possible represent really "the difference that makes a difference," then the evolution of homo sapiens into an ethical animal is tantamount to feminization of the species. Goethe's Faust, while pleading to be admitted to heaven, exclaims: "das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan." Perhaps the ethical millenium will be reached when, supported by the relevant genes carried presumably on the X chromosome, we will have learned to act not just as brothers or sisters to one another but as mothers--preferably Jewish mothers, who, as we all know, have developed to perfection a sixth sense by which they know what afls their children and how to cure them.
References 1. Shirer, W.L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1960, p. 434. 2. Gaylin, W., Caring. New York, A. Knopf, 1976. 3. Levin, N., The Holocaust, The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933~,5. New York, Schocken Books, 1973, pp. 150-151. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Solzhenitzin, A., The Gulag Archipelago. New York, Harper & Row, 1974. 9. McGuiness, D. "Was Darwin Conscious of His Mother?" Delivered at the 7th International Conference of the Unity of Science, Boston, 1978.
