Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and the Politics of Exclusion: 1994 Presidential Address

In most societies, there is an ongoing contest over who is the we, to whom specific moral obligations apply, and who is the they, to whom they do not. This paper explores and contrasts the most blatant forms of active exclusion, which includes genocide, and indirect exclusion, which is characterized by subtle forms of exclusion through social invisibility. In genocide, the targeted groups are not simply excluded from life integrity rights, but offenses against them are explicitly encouraged, rewarded, and sanctioned by the regime. In indirect exclusion, the exclusion is implicit in cultural and institutional practices and is often unintentional. I examine the difficulties and dilemmas involved in resisting and preventing active exclusion and in challenging the cultural codes that maintain indirect exclusion. O ) n this day, the 49th anniversary of the nuclear dawn, our world is full of contradictions. On the one hand, there is abundant evidence of an increasing global consciousness. A transnational environmental movement promotes the idea of planetwide ecological interdependence. Ideas of common security, which assume mutual interdependence, were once treated as the baggage of soft-minded peaceniks, but are now respectable fare in official discourse. Observations about worldwide economic interdependence are now cliches and have become part of the operating assumptions of governments and corporate players.