The Ethics of Genocide Scholarship and New Trends in Rhetorical Manipulation in Genocide Studies

This article uses a more than decade of written and oral discussion with Herb Hirsch as the basis for an articulation of key concepts developed by Hirsch and an evaluation of the state of genocide scholarship and critical analysis of certain trends in the field. The dialogic Herbcratic Method disrupts normal, institutionalized, sterile genocide studies production by introducing challenging interventions against generally accepted viewpoints that are problematic and the over academicization of the field and supports a vibrant intellectual approach to addressing genocides of the past and preventing genocide in the future. This includes both a critique of claims of disinterest in scholarship and a rejection of the exclusion of interested activist-scholarship, as well as a defense of a philosophically-grounded yet workable notion of “objectivity” for genocide studies to be achieved through careful efforts. The article elaborates on Hirsch’s exposure of policy recycling regarding genocide prevention and the damaging consequences of apparently innocuous if annoying use of jargon in policy proposals. Building on Hirsch’s critical framework, the article exposes a new post-denial trend in perpetrator rhetorical falsification and manipulation, fabrication of false claims of genocide. False claims of genocide have the devastating effect of forcing victims of actual genocide and related oppression to appear to be genocide deniers when they refute the false claims.