Description

Book Synopsis
Living in Death descends into the ordinary life of people who execute hundreds every day, the same way others go to the office. Bringing philosophical sophistication to the ordinary, the book constitutes both an anthropology of mass killers and a challenge to the conditions that make genocide possible.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Veena Das | vii
Introduction | 1
1. Those Who Kill | 13
The Confessions | 14 • The Killers’ Testimonies | 19
2. Monsters: Cruelty and Jouissance | 29
Fictions and Figures of Evil | 32 • The Archaic Remnants of Evil | 39
3. Ordinary Man and His Pathologies | 51
Banality and Mediocrity: The Ordinary According
to Arendt | 54 • When Ordinary Men Become
Killers | 65 • Blind Obedience and Submission to
Authority | 73 • The Pathologies of the Ordinary Man | 81
4. The Administration of Death | 92
To Make Die and Not to Let Live | 97 • The Khmer
Rouge Administration of Death, 1975–79 | 102 •
From Genocide to Genocidaires | 118
5. The Ordinary Life of Genocidaires | 130
The Executioner | 134 • Forms of Life and Ordinary
Lives | 141 • The Neighborhood, or the Elementary
Unity of the Genocidal Form of Life | 148
Conclusion | 173
Acknowledgments | 193
Notes | 195

Living in Death

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    A Paperback / softback by Richard Rechtman, Lindsay Turner, Veena Das

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      Book details

      Publisher Fordham University Press
      Published 2 November 2021
      ISBN-13 9780823297863
      978-0823297863
      ISBN-10 0823297861
      Also in:
      Asian history War crimes

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Living in Death descends into the ordinary life of people who execute hundreds every day, the same way others go to the office. Bringing philosophical sophistication to the ordinary, the book constitutes both an anthropology of mass killers and a challenge to the conditions that make genocide possible.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword by Veena Das | vii
      Introduction | 1
      1. Those Who Kill | 13
      The Confessions | 14 • The Killers’ Testimonies | 19
      2. Monsters: Cruelty and Jouissance | 29
      Fictions and Figures of Evil | 32 • The Archaic Remnants of Evil | 39
      3. Ordinary Man and His Pathologies | 51
      Banality and Mediocrity: The Ordinary According
      to Arendt | 54 • When Ordinary Men Become
      Killers | 65 • Blind Obedience and Submission to
      Authority | 73 • The Pathologies of the Ordinary Man | 81
      4. The Administration of Death | 92
      To Make Die and Not to Let Live | 97 • The Khmer
      Rouge Administration of Death, 1975–79 | 102 •
      From Genocide to Genocidaires | 118
      5. The Ordinary Life of Genocidaires | 130
      The Executioner | 134 • Forms of Life and Ordinary
      Lives | 141 • The Neighborhood, or the Elementary
      Unity of the Genocidal Form of Life | 148
      Conclusion | 173
      Acknowledgments | 193
      Notes | 195

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