Week 6- Wednesday

I thought that the idea of the Holocaust being a modernist way of dealing with the world was interesting. We have anxiety because we are taken out of communal and familial attachments and we attempt to re- attach to industrial society or a particular class, but the anxiety remains. Thus we attempt to order our lives by defining who is in and who is out. Interestingly enough, this is a perfect description of the years of adolescence.

Additional thoughts: Kids are taken out of the strength found by identifying themselves within their family structure and attempt to re- attach to something else. But without some sort of solid ground, they are left flailing and tottering on the tightrope between childhood and adulthood. They try to find some sense of order in their lives, something to attach to. Thus the existence of clicks, gangs, sexual behaviors, etc… Anxiety produced a need to order life in a changing world in the Holocaust. The same idea is at work in the tumultuous years of adolescence.

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