Editing Genocide (section)

=== Criticism of the concept of genocide and alternatives ===
[[File:Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. CL3400 (cropped).jpg|thumb|The death of large numbers of civilians as [[collateral damage]] of military activity such as [[Aerial bombardment and international law|aerial bombings]] is excluded from the definition of genocide, even when they make up a significant portion of a nation's population.{{sfn|Moses|2023|pp=22–23}}<!-- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_II_destructions_in_the_Soviet_Union -->]]
Most civilian killings in the twentieth century were not from genocide, which only applies to select cases.{{sfn|Moses|2023|p=25}}{{sfn|Graziosi|Sysyn|2022|p=15}} Alternative terms have been coined to describe processes left outside narrower definitions of genocide. [[Ethnic cleansing]]—the forced expulsion of a population from a given territory—has achieved widespread currency, although many scholars recognize that it frequently overlaps with genocide, even where Lemkin's definition is not used.{{sfn|Shaw|2015|loc=Chapter 5}} Other terms ending in -cide have proliferated for the destruction of particular types of groupings: [[democide]] (people by a government), [[eliticide]] (the elite of a targeted group), ethnocide (ethnic groups), [[gendercide]] (gendered groupings), [[politicide]] (political groups), [[classicide]] (social classes), and [[urbicide]] (the destruction of a particular locality).{{sfn|Shaw|2015|loc=Chapter 6}}{{sfn|Lemos|Taylor|Kiernan|2023|p=33}}{{sfn|Jones|2023|pp=42–43}}

The word ''genocide'' inherently carries a value judgement{{sfn|Lemos|Taylor|Kiernan|2023|pp=31–32}} as it is widely considered to be the epitome of human [[evil]].{{sfn|Lang|2005|pp=5–17}} In the past, violence that could be labeled genocide [[genocide justification|was sometimes celebrated]]{{sfn|Lemos|Taylor|Kiernan|2023|p=32}}—although it always had its critics.{{sfn|Lemos|Taylor|Kiernan|2023|pp=45–46}} The idea that genocide sits on top of a hierarchy of [[atrocity crimes]]—that it is worse than [[crimes against humanity]] or [[war crimes]]—is controversial among scholars{{sfn|Mulaj|2021|p=11}} and it suggests that the protection of groups is more important than of individuals.{{sfn|Sands|2017|p=364}} Historian [[A. Dirk Moses]] argues that the prioritization of genocide causes other atrocities to not be considered in study and response.{{sfn|Moses|2021|p=1}}{{sfn|Bachman|2022|p=118}}