Triumph of the Human Spirit? Define That, Please.

I'm not sure why I loathe the phrase "triumph of the human spirit," but I cringe every time I see it used in connection with genocide.

Stories of genocide survival are, to me, awe-inspiring. Nothing has the power touch people, to draw them in, to make them understand the need to fulfill the thus-far empty promises of "never again," than listening to a survivor recount his or her story of narrowly escaping the horror that consumed so many others. The experience of genocide is something that seems a world apart from those of us who did not live through it -- the numbers are mind-numbing, but the individual act of story-telling can draw a closer connection between our world of apparent normalcy and "that world" of what is for us unimaginable terror. These are stories of courage, perseverance, and often sheer luck.

These stories also remind us that even the most extreme expression of evil is not all-consuming -- that there are those who will still risk their lives to save others, and who will stand up to and apart from the depravity that surrounds them. I suppose, then, what I find so distasteful about the repetition of "triumph of the human spirit" is that by isolating the "good" aspects of human nature, the phrase has the effect of distancing the "bad" as perhaps something foreign to human nature altogether -- in line with ideas of evil as a supernatural force. Genocide shows, more clearly than anything else, that evil is an entirely human concoction, just as intimate a part of our "spirit" as anything celebratory or triumphant.

This is not mere kvetching about semantics: Fulfilling the pledge of "never again" requires grappling with the reality of the problem, not distancing it as something separate from ourselves.

Photo credit: "Shoes on the Danube" Holocaust memorial, Tamas Szabo.