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Lang reflects on how technology facilitated boththe perpetration of the Holocaust and the preparationsfor nuclear omnicide. See also 7. 97.~ 7. 99 ~Kelman, Herbert C. , and V. Lee Hamilton. Crimes ofObedience: Toward a Social Psychology of Authorityand Responsibility. New Haven and London: YaleUniversity Press, 1989.Many of those involved in governmental masskilling projects justify their complicity by claiming to"have "obeyed authority. Kelman and Hamiltonexamine several "crimes of obedience, " including thecases of William Calley, Klaus Barbie, and KurtWaldheim, in order to clarify the psychological andsocial dimensions of such crimes. The authors examineseveral social-psychological processes that facilitateviolence by weakening moral and'empathic restraints.Among these processes are authorization, routinization,and dehumanization. They also discuss the infamous"Obedience to Authority" experiments conducted byStanley Milgram. The final chapter, "On Breaking theHabit of Unquestioning Obedience, " is particularlynoteworthy.* 7. 100 *Kuper, Leo. "Epilogue: The Nuclear Arms Race andGenocide. " In The Prevention of Genocide. NewHaven: Yale University Press;. 1985. LC 85-40465.ISBN 0-300-03418-0.Kuper, one of the leading scholars of genocide,comments on "some of the implications of nucleararmaments, which now present an overwhelming threatof genocide, and indeed of omnicide, the extinction ofour species. " (p. 228) Among his points: "Manysources of conditioning to nuclear w'arfare derive fromquite ordinary routines in industry, government bureaucracies,and the armed forces. Some of the implicationsof their conditioning appear more clearly in the contextof Nazi experience. " (p. 235) See also 7. 102.~ 7. 101 +Lifton, Robert Jay. The Broken Connection: On Deathand the Continuity of Life. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1979. LC 79-12886. ISBN 0-671-22561-8.Lifton explores psychological issues relevant togenocide, war, and nuclear omnicide. He traces asequence in genocidal killing from what he terms"psychohistorical dislocation, " that is, disconcertingand bewildering confusion and anxiety caused by rapidsocial change and economic and political instability,to a desperate search for "cure" in the form of atotalitarian ideology that purports' to explain thedislocation and provide a means for transcending it.The transcendence usually occurs by radically trans-forming the society at the expense of designated victimswho become scapegoats for the perpetrators' anxietiesand fears. Part III, "Death and History: The NuclearImage" (p. 283-387), and the chapters on "Dislocationand Totalism" and "Victimization and Mass Violence"are particularly valuable.* 7. 102 *Lifton, Robert Jay, and Eric Markusen. The GenocidalMentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat. NewYork: Basic Books, 1990. LC 89-43101. ISBN 0-465-02662-1.Lifton and Markusen argue that the actual genocidecarried out by the Nazis and the potential genocideinherent in the preparations for nuclear war both reflectan underlying mind-set which the authors term "the"genocidal mentality. In the nuclear case, this "can bedefined as a mind-set that includes individual andcollective willingness to produce, deploy, and, accordingto certain standards of necessity, use weaponsknown to destroy entire human populations — millions,or tens or hundreds of millions, of people. " (p. 3)While recognizing important differences between thetwo cases, Lifton and Markusen identify and analyzea number of important parallels and commonalities.Among these commonalities are the embrace of aviolent national security ideology in response to a senseof threat to the society; the use of science, and pseudoscience,to rationalize policies involving actual orpotential mass killing; the involvement of highly-educatedprofessionals in the enterprise; and the facilitatingroles of bureaucratic organization, euphemisticlanguage, and a variety of psychological defensemechanisms, such as psychic numbing and doubling.The authors devote a chapter to the question of victimsof the Holocaust and potential victims of nuclear war.They conclude with a call for further development ofa gradually emerging "species"mentality, that is, "fullconsciousness of ourselves as members of the humanspecies, a species now under threat of extinction. . . asense of self that identifiesspecies. " (p. 258)* 7. 103 *with the entire humanMarkusen, Eric. "Genocide and Total War: A Prelimi-"nary Comparison. In Genocide and the Modern Age.Ed. by Isidor Wallimann and Michael Dobkowski. NewYork; Greenwood Press, 1987. LC 86-9978. ISBN 0-313-24198-8.Markusen identifies a number of psychological,organizational, and technological factors common toboth genocide and total war and concludes that "Warfarein the twentieth century has become increasinglygenocidal, and several genocides. .. resemble military146 GENOCIDE