Questionable practices in genocide discourse

Once it is recognized that the same normative words such as “right,” “wrong,” “evil,” or “genocide” can equally well be used to express claims within either of the three normative orders - moral, legal, and political - the necessity emerges that our assessment of those sorts of claims must be conducted within the framework of the proposed “reflexifity in normativity”. This chapter explores various ways things can go wrong within the genocide discourse in general, and particularly within scholarship. Moral permissibility and overall normative character of several practices common in the literature on genocide are examined and deemed problematic. Specifically, four questionable practices are examined: the use the Holocaust as the measuring rod of immorality, genocidalism, narrativism, and activism in scholarship.