My Struggle: Book 6

by Karl Ove Knausgård

The biological perspective was superordinate to the individual, the human being as a body came before the human being as a person, and the properties of the individual were unimportant, for regardless of how good and unselfish a Jew might be, regardless of how hardworking and innocent, he or she was nonetheless guilty by virtue simply of being a Jew. In this way, the individual Jew was absolved of guilt, he or she being unable to do anything about it, whereas the Jews collectively were condemned, associated with a whole range of properties they could never escape, and without having any say in the matter. This is exactly how we have always regarded animals, which are condemned to expressing themselves by way of the properties of their species, a relationship they are unable to escape, a cat or a rat always at first being a cat or a rat and only then perhaps the cat or the rat. To conduct court proceedings against a cat or a rat would be meaningless, for they possess no guilt, are mere expressions of their species, without a say in the matter, a concept such as morality would be equally meaningless when applied to their lives. In the event of their doing