Nathan Ellefson (April 10) takes Ben Jones (April 9) to task for having the temerity to compare the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany to the arrest of three students from The September 29 Movement for “criminal trespass.”

Ellefson refers to the sit-in at Jischke’s office as “some minor student protest” and accuses Jones of trivializing “the deaths of millions of innocents.” Had Jones in fact equated the two, Ellefson’s outrage might be more understandable. However, the claim Jones makes is much more narrow.

The point Jones makes in his essay is that the larger crime against humanity was made possible because of a history of persistent trivial oppressions. Ordinary people — good, moral, honest folk — do not speak out when the indignities and violations by those in power are “minor.” They assure themselves that they are being sensible. In their hearts, most people believe that if the atrocities were truly horrific, then they would stand up with the brave and be counted among the dissidents.

What these good people discover too late is that by the time the long arm of authority finally knocks on their own door in the middle of the night, no one else is home.

Prevailing against vested authority, especially when it is protected by a large bureaucracy, is profoundly difficult. If you manage it at all, it is because you touch the conscience of someone with the power to make a difference. We are a hierarchical species, collaborators with and quislings to whoever, momentarily, has the power.

To live in an ethical community, given our biological predispositions, it is necessary for our leaders to be principled themselves and be committed to presiding over a principled community. The genius of the Constitution of the United States is not democracy: Democracy turns too readily into mob rule. The genius is that it binds our leaders to a set of principles, not grounded in Nature (as the framers believed), but grounded in a Constitution guaranteeing protection of individual rights.

That guarantee is a powerful force against the minor indignities and trivial oppressions that condition members of our species to take out our frustrations on the scapegoats among us.

Stonewalling those with legitimate grievances against the institution encourages and legitimizes the scapegoating of its dissidents. When outcasts are portrayed as designated targets for hostility, the go-along-get-along good folks among us feel authorized to unburden themselves of some of their own aggressions and to curry favor with the powers that be at the same time.

Many lessons can be learned from the Nazi rise to power, not all of them flattering to our species. Attempted genocide is common among homosapiens; what made the Holocaust so horrific was that it was so easily rationalized by an educated and democratic nation.

Virginia Allen

Associate professor

English