Why is the twentieth century considered a century of atrocities?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include:The twentieth century was a century of atrocities, partly because it was a century of war. In the aftermath of World War II, as the scale of the massacres became apparent, the world realized that war, though it can inspire heroism and selflessness, is also morally brutalizing. Wartime censorship, which portrays atrocities as excesses of the other side, often conceals that fact from the public. Propaganda, ably supplemented by filmmakers, concentrates on the genuinely ennobling effects of combat—the incidents of heroism and self-sacrifice, the growth of camaraderie. The corrupting effects of war on character—the corrosion of decency, the demonizing of the foe—are omitted from the picture. War stimulates massacres because it blinds people to their enemies' humanity. Along with war, ideological and intercommunal hatreds stimulated horrifyingly inhuman behavior, which war conditions commonly made worse. The atrocities showed that no level of civilization, education, or military discipline immunized people against barbarism, whenever war or fear ignited hatred and numbed compassion. No case of genocide quite matched the Nazi campaign against the Jews, but that was not for want of other attempts. On a lesser scale, atrocities accompanied wars, including those fought by soldiers who were raised in democracies and were relatively well educated in humane values.