Contribution short abstract:

“How can they possibly support that?” is a rhetorical question that does not beg for an answer. I seek to answer it by following the lead of Hannah Arendt's "worldlessness”. When empathy and solidarity become the moral ground to support mass murder, what grounds exist to recover a shared world?

Contribution long abstract:

Following the outbreak in 2023 of the most recent and by far deadliest in the ongoing series of wars over Palestine, I was often told that the others have now shown their true face. Pro-Palestine activists said so about German media and authorities who supported Israel’s destruction of Gaza. Mainstream German media said so about activists who supported Palestinian militants. The recognition of the true face of the enemy does not imply a recognition of the enemy’s motivations but rather the opposite, incomprehension: “How can they possibly support that?” - a rhetorical question that does not beg for an answer. I try to provide a partial answer to this question by taking the lead offered by Hannah Arendt about the world as what is between us, and “Weltlosigkeit” or “worldlessness” as a feature of war and extreme violence. Based on conversations I participated in during 2023 and 2024, I suggest that under circumstances of violent polarisation empathy and solidarity can become the moral ground to support sustained mass murder. In the splintered world that results from exclusive solidarity and extreme acts of violence, emotions and stances of the enemy are not only wrong: they become impossible. People who hold them can be only stupid or evil. Seeking to restore a common ground with them is immoral, a betrayal of solidarity and humanity. Rather than offering moral alternatives, I therefore probe some historical precedents of the partial recovery of a shared world.