I don't know, but it's going around in circles now. I still think Darcy's doing a great job though!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Printable View
I don't know, but it's going around in circles now. I still think Darcy's doing a great job though!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Ridiculous judgments on you part. I said before I don't care much for the word "evil," but I don't have to make the leader solely responsible to say what Darcy is saying. Neither does Darcy. Not merely solely putrefied. How about far more putrid than the majority? He found the Bob ready. He merely tickled it as it passed through the +-5-degree hypotenuses, and eventually, as the network was built, everywhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
This is from page 21:
And it's still going!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Every time I see this thread pop up in the newest posts, like an Alzheimer's patient, I click on this thread to see what's happening, and I inevitably am lead to disappointment as I encounter yet another 1000 word pronouncement about what that person really said. Still, it's my fault for coming here.
Kiki isn't wrong to suggest that Hitler's rise to power and the occurrence of the Holocaust has its roots in a much longer history of anti-Semitism in German society. Why that exonerates Hitler from being evil, however, beats me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Many serial killers have deep traumatic childhoods too. That doesn't mean they aren't responsible for the murders they commit just because that school psychologist looked the other way in 3rd grade and his dad was an abusive drunk, therefore there was a whole institutional edifice that supported his behavior. We might say some blame resides with those people for the hypothetical serial killer turning out the way he did, but that doesn't mean said sociopath isn't evil or that he isn't responsible for his actions.
The point in labeling something evil is a philosophical one rather than an historical one. It is not only a discussion of history, but one of morals and ethics as it intersects with history. It's not just a matter of discussing how people do or did act, but how people should or shouldn't act.
Without reading all of the earlier posts, I think that Kiki's point was sort of a modern psychological/philosophical one that denied the existence of evil and good in favor of terms like sick and healthy. Furthermore, I think that Kiki was also taking the behaviorist stance that people's personalities can be largely situational and prone to environmental factors outside of their control. Take that concentration camp prison guard they found in Ohio or wherever last year. During war time, given authority over life and death, and he's a psychopathic monster. But then you put him on the assembly line at an auto plant for sixty years and he never harms a fly. Situational.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Like that book The Reader that came out a couple of years ago. The question isn't so much did the person do wrong, but more did the person do more wrong than a similar person in the same situation would have done. You raise two children in Ruwanda or the war torn Congo and you will probably get a warlord or a soldier of some kind, but sometimes you get a saint like a Ghandi or a Nelson Mandela, and that's where biology and free will comes in.
I don't think that Kiki is a Hitler apologist, although like I said I did not read every post. I think that he/she just doesn't believe in the existence of true evil, or believe that a full blown sociopath could rise through the ranks of German politicians and be as functional as he was. He loved animals, was a vegetarian, and a teetotaler who was fond of his family and could be generous to friends. That doesn't sound sociopathic, but maybe he was a master manipulator and this was all part of his cover, like Richard III walking around with his Bible. Ted Bundy was a lawyer active in politics who did volunteer work and who's friends described him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic", which begs the question 'How well can you know anybody?'
Finally, there is the question of scale. Is Hitler more evil than Ted Bundy because he killed more people, or were they equally evil and Hitler had more opportunity to act on it? Is it black and white or are there many shades of evil gray that run the gamut down to cutting someone off in traffic?
Personally, I don't know what to think. If there is true evil in the world, then surely the actions of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Ghengis Khan, and Kim Jung Il qualify.
No they weren't. You are so right. They were far far far far worse than your average murderer or serial killer. Serial killers kill out of psychotic impulse, they are pretty much insane. Himmler wasn't psychotic, he was sick, suffering from a cancer of dark inhuman ideology. They didn't kill for passion nor out of psychosis - they killed for ideas, in affirming Nazism they negated all else, life, love, beauty, peace. Worse than your average murderer indeed. Its statements like that from you which make me wonder why I bother putting effort into my ideas and words reading and responding to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
And no it is not irrelevant. You are doing what the Nazis did - you are negating people's lives, their sufferings and their deaths, by looking upon the situation with eyes blinkered by a passionless abstractive philosophy that ultimately has no heart. The subjective experiences of those slain Jews is what matters most here. Not your cold dead emotionally uninvolved gaze. Proof of what I say here follows in this statement you just made -Quote:
The argument that I have to tell this to a Jew is irrelevant in this discussion and it is the classic argument of someone who wishes to guide the discussion somewhere else where there is no longer any rationality. What is it going to benefit us to call this person evil, indeed anyone evil? What, pray? The point is not that they killed so many in such an industrial manner 60 years ago, the point is that they thought of it at all. That fact alone was what was so shocking.
And you go on, like after a binge on falsehood and absurdity your mind continues ever to vomit this false and absurd stuff without end.Quote:
You fail to see that it was not the number of deaths is the great shock, that it was the concept of it alone that was the great shock.
I don't care if you can't trace the whole sick shebang to those few men. They were in charge, the orders came from them, and even if one lends credence to an egregiously false revisionist history which teaches that they didn't you must still admit that THEY COULD HAVE STOPPED IT. The SS took their orders from the Nazis. As did the military. If those men had in themselves anything remotely resembling a conscience they could have ordered that the killing cease. But they didn't. Hence - they were evil Kiki, evil as night is dark and snow is white.Quote:
he was ultimately responsible, of course, but do you really think he had time for all these details? Come on! Of course he authorised it and knew about it (Eva Braun did as well, at least to some extent), but you are not going to tell me that he by himself and with his two companions (Goebbels and Himmler) sat down one day and conceived this from the start and organised it all? Do you really believe that? IF you call this man evil, I keep saying it and I will keep repeating it, you take away the responsibility we all had in this. Not only the academic world who propagated such ridiculous ideas about race, not only those who voted for him in Germany because he achieved good things for them (rest mostly to a society almost at civil war), but all of us who were blinded by his show.
Okay, so your argument now is that everyone was evil and so therefore no one was evil. The earliest Greek logicians, buried over two thousand years, all at once rolled over in their stone and ruin and dirt covered graves when you typed up this syllogistic monstrosity.Quote:
If Hitler ordered it, people let it happen. There were people enough who could have done something against it, yet they all contributed to a relentlessly efficient system which denounced anyone who did not agree. And that was the people, not those three blokes at the top.
Learn this: people at the top have no jurisdiction if the peple at the bottom, of which there are many more, do not give it to them. Yes, he did have dictatorial power, but he could not force several million people to not help Jews, to not denounce anyone else, to not think. Even in the most oppresed places you find people who do not agree and do illegal things. In Nazi Germany I would contend that they were very very few indeed.
Yes, the film humanized him. But if you can watch that film and not still see evil there, I'd say you should check your ears for wax and give your spectacles a good cleaning.Quote:
You may hate him all you like, but it does not make this man evil, to my standards at least. I would urge you to watch Der Untergang again to see what the director meant by it. Very powerful film, only you seem to have missed its message entirely. He is not a mythical evil man, he was a man, full stop. And everyone was swept away by this man. Why, God knows, mayby his oratory talent, but the fact is that that is true.
This is what I mean. That does not make a lick of sense. If they hadn't ordered the holocaust then some other men may have and those other men would have been evil too. You really just don't like the word evil. You wish it could be stricken from the letters and tongues of man. Well its a useful word that makes a meaningful reference. People will go on calling some people evil until the sun explodes in a few billion years so you may as well get used to it my friend.Quote:
If your WWII expert said the Holocaust would have happened anyway (which I honestly don't know), then why are you still arguing that he is evil? On the one side you mae him solely responsibe for this, but on the other side you come with an argument which essentially backs mine up.
This thread = :beatdeadhorse5:
No. :nono: She's perfectly willing to call some people evil, the Norway gunman Breivik for instance. It's only the Nazis like Hitler, Eichmann, and Mengele who have her sympathy, empathy, understanding and compassion.Quote:
I think that Kiki's point was sort of a modern psychological/philosophical one that denied the existence of evil and good in favor of terms like sick and healthy. Furthermore, I think that Kiki was also taking the behaviorist stance that people's personalities can be largely situational and prone to environmental factors outside of their control. - Mortalterror
I take offense at that graphic Mutatis. Doesn't give me close to enough credit. I'm not beating a dead horse. I'm now beating the spot of earth on which the dead horse I long ago began beating lay but where now no dead horse is to be seen but rather a patch of pansies and dafodils, their bright colorful blooms furtilized by the microscopic remnants of that long decomposed and dissapeared four legged mained beast I beat into fine near-nothingness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
:lol: Youre quite the wordsmith, Darcy. :nod:
I try. My obstinacy in opposing Kiki's arguments is born not of any hope that I may enlighten her or like a fencer make some final winning stroke. Its just a diversion. A kind of entertainment or sport. Like playing catch. I also find it fascinating that Kiki is an obviously intelligent and articulate individual and yet she puts forward statements that appear in my eyes downright stupidly inane. If I didn't respect her mind I wouldn't bother to persist in debating her.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
.....
Thank you Mortalterror for rewrding my view.
Correction, I said, I quote: "The only man who could be evil is the one who does these things by himself, having had no guidance to do so. Like a Breikvik (or however his name is spelled). He is a good candidate." I called him a good candidate, because I do not know enough of the man to judge. Fact is that he was less influenced by society than Hitler was. You can call that a sic comparison, but that fact stands. I never called him evil because I find an evil person is not capable of any good. I do not know enough of Breivik to judge, but I doubt that he was not kind to his friends.Quote:
Originally Posted by mona amon
And I am as obstinate as you, I'm afraid. And I am also as entertained every morning by replying to these emotional arguments which are frankly a little late for something that happened almost 70 years ago and how many generations? I find it fascinating how someone can a) hate a man he has never ever met, b) can hate a man he obviously knows so little about that his deeds amount to killing 6 million and c) have such little or no understanding of the vile system behind the result. So I am seeking to enlighten as well, but I am afraid that the darkness I am trying to shine my light into is thick as the night when the Vesuvius erupted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
A man he obviously knows so little about? I think you've both shown you know plenty about Hitler, so maybe it's time to drop the arrogant attitude, hmm?
And how do you know was influenced by society less than Hitler was, especially when you admit you know little about him in the first place?
Insane? A serial killer insane? I am sure if these people were really insane, that they would be interned and not executed or locked up. They have a problem with empathy and guilt and are often narcissistic. They live in a fantasy world where reality as they see it is not the reality we see as a society. That is not insane, they have a disturbed perception of things and are sometimes highly intelligent. There is a huge difference with mass murderers or so-called spree killers who do kill in a fit of passion and who may be insane, though sometimes not like Breivik (according to his psychiatrists).Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Himmler, I guess, had an inferiroity complex because of his inability to have a military career, both because he was unfit for it and because he was not allowed to do it (demilitarisation of Germany after WWI). He coveted power to account for that inferiority complex. He had a degree in agronomy which accounts for his fascination with eugenics for the Aryan race. He had a daughter he doted on which was his own and when his wife adopted a son, he couldn't be bothered. He had a mistress he had two children with, if I understand it well, for Lebensborn purposes. I don't know about his relationship with those children. At any rate, it cannot have mattered much as they were born in 1942 and 1944.
To me it is clear that this man was far more dangerous, as he saw what happened, allegedly vomited when visiting a camp (although that is unconfirmed) where the killing of Jews was demonstrated to him, and still maintained it.
Hitler never visited a camp. He authorised the plan, but, really, be honest with yourself: who here is the most disgusting and at first glance a budding serial killer/psychopath? Who is the most worrying of those two? Is it the one who knows what is going on and puts his signature under a paper which states 'I hereby authorise to solve the Jewish Question by extermination' or the one who witnesses it and is involved in the details? To whom it was even demonstrated. You will call those two evil, but I would regard it as an insult to those who have 'only' killed 3 or 20 that they are put in the same basket as this creep.
It is irrelevant to us now. How many generations ago was this? As we as the world are still dwelling on how many, people get killed every day in Syria, in Congo in the nineties, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
It is not that I have no heart. Every time I see this happening again, I think of all those who weep for the poor 6 million who died and they have not seen the cause of it, because they can't get past the stage of anger. To resolve an important issue like that, you cannot dwell on how many, you have to dwell on the how. Thankfully, no version as excessive has yet come up apart from the Soviet Union which we branded evil in the Cold War, but, once again, did nothing about.
If that is falsehood and absurdity, challenge it, with valid arguments. I am quite confident that won't happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Once again, you misconstrue the whole thing. Goebbels for one was not involved in any of this. Involved in clever propaganda and that was it. He was zealous, it has been argued, because he had a malformation on his foot which moved him to over-compensate for his 'perfect' fellows. He used to pass it off as a war wound in earlier days. He was a romatic and had a PhD and his ideas did not completely coincide with Hitler, although he basically 'swore' an oath of loyalty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Your idea about this is passionate but simplistic:
a) Those three you name (make it two: Hitler and Himmler) did not design this system themselves and they did not sit down together and said, 'well, what shall we do about this, then?' It is true, they could have stopped it if they had a conscience in this matter, no ideology and had they not been in the circumstances they were in. However, they would have had to give up all the forced labour (which accounted for a lot of products coming onto the market, not least the stones for their rally grounds in Nuremberg which I have seen, forced labour was also carried on in the ghettos) etc. And can you tell me what ridiculous impression they would have made if they had packed it in, had they entertained the thought? You just do not reset a system in one go! Are you sure they would not have been murdered? There were power struggles involved in this as much as in other regimes (you cannot conceive what went on behind the scenes). You think they could make their own decisions like that? The process of normalisation and of money (Aryanisation and people who lived on the camp system, companies like AGFA). I am sure the Führerprinzip would have gone straight out of the window at that point. They could have stopped the killing, if they had had enough logistical means to feed them. That was one of the first issues that cropped up and why the first ghetto was cleared. You can call that sick, but what was the other solution? Release them all?
It does not absolve them from their responsibility and sick ideology, but you do need to see that people take themselves somewhere where there is no way back. And in 1942, that was such a dead end.
b) the military could have refused. The military does not refuse. The military does what it's ordered to do. That is why soldiers get shot if they desert in a war situation. No matter what their problem is (even if it is shell skock or PTSD). If people in the military had a conscience at all, they would never ever win a war. b1) the people high up in the military are designed and selected for this especially. A general who refuses to carry out orders is frankly useles. I said that Goering opposed Hitler's invasion of Russia: he opposed it and frantically tried to dissuade Hitler from it, but when he saw it was useless, he backed off and as a true military man, did the best he could although he knew it would go wrong. It does not spring up in the mind of a soldier to have a conscience.
To illustrate this: when Hitler found out certain attack were not carried out he became furious and Himmler who had allegedly (I don't know whether that is true) been conducting negotiations for Germany's capitulation was arrested by the SS after his spokesman in Berlin Hermann Fegelein was executed on the spot for high treason. The latter was not even directly involved in this. The military does not make distinctions of this kind.
My argument is not that everyone was evil! For God's sake, that is twenty pages I have tried to make you see that my view is that the man who is evil is the one who is not capable of any good and thinks of horrible and terrible things by himself, of his own accord, unconditioned to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I cannot see evil no, evil as a force maybe, but not as a man with a trembling hand. The purpose of the director was to make Hitler more human so as to make whatever that was or had been (almost at that time) going on even more terrible. Hitler is not Satan, you know, he was a man and in that was even different from the Führer portrayed in Goebbels's propaganda. 'Married to the people', indeed...Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I know people will go on to call other people evil and that does not disturb me, it is when those same people wish me to call someone evil that I get disturbed. That is what you have been trying to do. You say, 'This person is evil, so call him evil.' I say, 'No, I don't.' And you read 'I don't think he did bad deeds or had twisted ideas (to me now)'. Where you ever read that, beats me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
@ Mutatis: I think his view of this man is at least one-dimensional and simplistic. If that sounds arrogant, then so be it.
If this needs to stop, I think it is best for the moderator to close the thread and for the OP to open a group where no direct criticism of the regime is allowed or something. That would prevent it going off topic.
Hitler was a complete moron. How so many people could have stood by or been influenced by his propaganda is beyond comprehension when his oratory skills were decent at best (and yes, I have seen hours of footage of his selling the idea of mass murder to millions and either the subtitles were abysmally translated to English, or he just simply couldn't speak properly). It was like watching a bunch of toddlers get hyped up over the dogmatic view of a priest when they don't have any preconceptions of the speaker's belief or the slightest clue as to the ramifications of their actions based on it. Hitler was indubitably a terrible man inside and out, but his writing of Mein Kampf was another scarcely discussed atrocity. It caused untold multitudes of readers to die of boredom. Next to every dresser in every hotel/motel should be a copy of Mein Kampf just to put people to sleep who have forgotten to take their sleeping pills.
This thread is only supposed to be about mein kampf and how hitler ties into mein kampf. Not discussion of the man sans the book. Not the discussion of what evil is.
GOOD GRIEF PEOPLE!
It's not boring to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adolescent09
WW2 was a major world war and millions of innocent people were killed. How could anything tied to that be boring due to it's sheer relevance in the larger scheme of what was happening at that time?
You started a topic about the book written by Adolfo Hitler. What did you expect? Plus, there've been quite a few comments on the book that you could respond to, or try reaparking conversation on the book by bringing up new points.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScribbleScribe
I think this thread has stayed in topic very well, actually. 26 pages in and the author of the book in question is still the main subject. Usually when a thread gets this long we're discussing the value of art, or having semantic arguments about what "value," or some other such word, means.
:lol:
Although the discussion strayed for a while to the nature of 'evil' in itself, that was quicly amended.
But indeed, that's usually what happens.
:devil:
Kiki,
You spent a large part of that post trying to relieve Hitler and the Nazis of repsonsibility. You say at times that you hold them responsible, but so many of your points and indeed your overall tone suggest that you think that history and circumstances and fate in a way exonerate them. You need to understand that my definition of evil is the standard modern one, and that yours is yours alone, or is only accepted by a small minority of people. An evil person is a person who does evil things. According to you an evil person is a person who does evil things but was not conditioned to do them, rather acting evilly spontaneously, against the grain of their circumstances and condition. That is a WEIRD definition of evil Kiki. I don't care if the person is psychotically deranged as was the immigrant who a few years ago cut off a napping man's head on a Greyhound bus in the middle of the Canadian prairie and then went on to feast on the brains of his victim (sorry everyone for the awful visuals.) He was later diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic suffering psychosis. So what he did was not some well thought out choice he made but rather a sudden mad uncontrollable impulse. But still, you cut off an innocent stranger's head and then eat his brains on a Greyhound bus and you are evil, or were evil while you were committing that gross act of evil. Hitler said in speeches he wanted to see all Jews hanged and their corpses left to rot in the street until the smell was too much for people to bear. Then he ordered the holocaust. He was evil. You are wrong. Most intelligent people seem to agree.
And I know Hitler did more than the holocaust. But show me one great redeeming act he did as fuhrer which would provide anything like a silver-lining to his disastrous inglorious legacy. He was a tyrant, he subverted freedom and democracy. He propogated irrationality and falsehood. He plunged civilization into the chaotic madness of war. I don't care if life under him was better for 5-10 years for the average German than it was before. Anyone who would pay the price of freedom to ensure economic stability is a coward and ought to be spat upon.
You say "you get angry and don't go beyond anger." You simply do not understand. Listen up: anger FOLLOWS from understanding. I understand and then am angry because I understand how evil the man was. And I shared how Hitler's actions have impacted my own life and everyone I've told that to has said "wow, what an insight. You're right." I have suffered, my family has suffered, because of Hitler's evil acts. And you say it was 70 years ago and we should just get over it (yes, that's really what you meant), Well, a lot of Jews survived the holocaust. A lot of the children of the slain remain with us today. If your position is anything more than weak airy philosophical nonsense I behoove you to go visit a person who lived through the horror or was the child of one who did or who died. Tell them all you've told me. Tell them Hitler was not evil. If your conviction lacks conviction then you are the only one it'll ever convince if you even are convinced.
Bottom line is your notion that a person conditioned and fated to be evil cannot therefore be evil is patently false. You are not allowed to simply define words as you want them defined. Make a habit of doing that and your thoughts and speech will become incomprehensible.
Oh well, to each his own. :D And this thread really is becoming hilarious - I'd never have believed it at one time. :lol:Quote:
I cannot see evil no, evil as a force maybe, but not as a man with a trembling hand. - Kiki
No, I definitely did not. They are responsible, for the umpteenth time. Either you do not read properly or you refuse to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I said, and I repeat, that you, with your definition of evil would put a pile of sh*t with a minority complex like Himmler on the same level as a serial killer who killed at least three (such is the FBI's definition of one). Call me strange by all means but I find the mere comparison an insult to the menial serial killer. It does not absolve anyone of his deeds, but I refuse to put anyone in the same basket as that creep and his fellow creeps.
I know what he said in that piece. He said it to a journalist and retired Major Joseph Hell. And do you know when the latter asked him why this with the Jews?
He said the following which shows that he was manipulating the crowds and casts a doubt on his actual intentions as to putting up the gallows or not.
So in short, Hitler decided he wanted to get the German people on his side and so he had to seek an enemy. The Jews were an easy target because the population was already anti-semitic and, a bonus, they are rich, so if you confiscate their goods, that's interesting for the state too. As is the Catholic Church, which he wanted to abolish in time as well, but that was still too controversial. You have to prepare the people a little bit. This stategy was also backed up by Goering in the converstions he had in his cell with an American psychologist.Quote:
Joseph Hell, "When I now broached the question of what the source of his so strongly felt hatred for the Jews was, and why he wanted to destroy this so undeniably intelligent race - a race to which the Germans and all other Aryans, if not the entire world, owed an incalculable debt in virtually all fields of art and knowledge, research and economics - Hitler suddenly calmed down and gave this unexpectedly sober and almost dispassionate explanation:"
Hitler, "It is manifestly clear and has been proven in practice and by the facts of all revolutions that a struggle for ideals, for improvements of any kind whatsoever, absolutely must be supplemented with a struggle against some social class or caste.
My object is to create first-rate revolutionary upheavals, regardless of what methods and means I have to use in the process. Earlier revolutions were directed either against the peasants, or the nobility and the clergy, or against dynasties and their network of vassals, but in no case has revolution succeeded without the presence of a lightning rod that could conduct and channel the odium of the general masses.
With this very thing in mind I scanned the revolutionary events of history and put the question to myself against which racial element in Germany can I unleash my propaganda of hate with the greatest prospects of success? I had to find the right kind of victim, and especially one against whom the struggle would make sense, materially speaking. I can assure you that I examined every possible and thinkable solution to this problem, and, weighing every imaginable factor, I came to the conclusion that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful.
There are few Germans who have not been vexed with the behavior of Jews or else have not suffered losses through them in some way or other. Disproportionately to their small number they account for an immense share of the German national wealth, which can just as easily be put to profitable use for the state and the general public as could the holdings of the monasteries, bishops, and nobility.
Once the hatred and the battle against the Jews have been really stirred up, their resistance will necessarily crumble in the shortest possible time. They are totally defenseless, and no one will stand up to protect them
Himmler's memorandum from 1940 also illustrates that there was no such explicit plan to exterminate from the start.
I don't know what I have to make of his first statement. Not saying that he was not antisemitic or did not entertain the thought of killing, although if he was decided on the fact already in 1922 then why did he wait so long to do anything about it? He had the freedom from 1933, or from the invasion of Poland. Why not? Too much money in the trade, maybe? Or maybe the fact that the persecution alone was needed for propaganda purposes. If you directly execute your enemy, there is no war, is there.
I grant you, a vile manipulator, but my father in his republican zeal has also expressed some gruesome wishes for the aristocrats to be guillotined.
Mind, I am not denying this at all, but there seems to be some discrepancy between what he said he was going to do with those gallows and when it finally happened. I am not the only one who says that the extermination of Jews was not intended from the start. Their persecution, that was yes, but not their extermination.
I think Emil has done that for me already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
If you call freedom the freedom to fight in a civil war then fine. I think for the average person, the choice was quickly made. They couldn't know what he was going to do in 1933 with the Enabling Act. And once they knew, it was too late.
My family-in-law has suffered as well I told you. I do not see them getting upset like you when the name occurs. They are more upset when the name Stalin occurs or the notion 'Russian' although the man's father was killed in Sangerhausen after 3 or 4 years in Auschwitz II as a forced labourer. I have read his letters. Others of that family lived through the London Blitz.
My own family were victims of the war. They do not feel any hatred like you.
Anger does not come after understanding, anger comes beore it. It is a well-known fact that any mourning process has first anger and then peace. The mourning process for any reason and any person is the same, it only varies in length. The mourning process for the Holocaust is not different.
You define them as it says in the dictionary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
And 'fated to be evil', what does that mean? You believe that people are born evil or what?
'I am not allowed'? Says who?
I said 'i consider a person [cue what you said I said about being evil], that is valid isn't it? I consider evil a force, not a characteristic. Evil is there and moves us to things, is within us, but we are not wholly evil, so we cannot be called so. If you reject that, that is great, but in a normal discussion you do not require the other who holds that opinion to reject it. And you certainly do not stamp the other's opinion as 'false'. Who is to say it is false? You? And why would you be allowed to say it is false, because you know everything?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
How do you know that anger does not come after understanding? For who?
These are opinions, NOT facts. Many people do not have peace after mourning, for some, mourning does not end. Parents of murdered children mourn, and for many, or most, it does not end, there is no peace. You are presenting opinions as facts here. Bad psychobabblists may say that mourning is a process that is the same for any person, it just varies in length. Prove it! The danger is when others assume that a person in mourning will go through a set process, hmm, really?
[/QUOTE]
If Hitler ordered the persecution and extermination of Jews principally from a motive of political expedience that almost makes it worse than if it was born of hatred and delusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
No, he really didn't. He ducked out of this conversation when I pushed him on that topic.Quote:
I think Emil has done that for me already.
I call freedom the right to be gay or Jewish without fearing death, the right to cast a ballot and choose who will represent you, not so the party you elect can end democracy but so they can rule and be held accountable the next time you vote. I also call it the freedom to express your political views, the freedom to not be put in uniform and sent off to kill or be killed in a pointless war. Hitler ended real freedom in Germany. A great leader could have pulled them back from economic hell without demanding his people forfeit their souls.Quote:
If you call freedom the freedom to fight in a civil war then fine. I think for the average person, the choice was quickly made. They couldn't know what he was going to do in 1933 with the Enabling Act. And once they knew, it was too late.
Then your family has a lame fatalistic view of things. A madman imposes his sick demented will upon millions of people and as a result myself and countless others suffer, most far more incredibly worse than I have, and I feel that I or anyone has the right to hate him. Really I am shaking my head right now in confounded weariness at the never-ending absurdity that I read from you.Quote:
My family-in-law has suffered as well I told you. I do not see them getting upset like you when the name occurs. They are more upset when the name Stalin occurs or the notion 'Russian' although the man's father was killed in Sangerhausen after 3 or 4 years in Auschwitz II as a forced labourer. I have read his letters. Others of that family lived through the London Blitz.
My own family were victims of the war. They do not feel any hatred like you.
You're just calling me a liar then, okay. How can anyone feel anger without first understanding? Seriously, how is that even possible? Its not. What are you talking about?Quote:
Anger does not come after understanding, anger comes beore it. It is a well-known fact that any mourning process has first anger and then peace. The mourning process for any reason and any person is the same, it only varies in length. The mourning process for the Holocaust is not different.
You are setting your own personal definition of evil. You aren't allowed in the sense that I am not allowed to define a carrot as a wooden star-shaped structure, or a mouse as a mythical beast part lion, falcon and deer.Quote:
You define them as it says in the dictionary.
And 'fated to be evil', what does that mean? You believe that people are born evil or what?
'I am not allowed'? Says who?
We are not wholly good so we cannot be called so. Again, to repeat myself yet again, my aunt with a few grey hairs on her head cannot be called brunette because she has those grey hairs and is therefore not perfectly entirely brunette.Quote:
I said 'i consider a person [cue what you said I said about being evil], that is valid isn't it? I consider evil a force, not a characteristic. Evil is there and moves us to things, is within us, but we are not wholly evil, so we cannot be called so. If you reject that, that is great, but in a normal discussion you do not require the other who holds that opinion to reject it. And you certainly do not stamp the other's opinion as 'false'. Who is to say it is false? You? And why would you be allowed to say it is false, because you know everything
Since when was absolute cell-by-cell, thought-by-thought evilness requisite for one to be called "evil?" Its not and never was. Its your own personal idiosyncratic definition.
You aren't paying any attention to my arguments at all. I've given in to your side on several points. To my side you've compromised on none. Reason is not determining your stance here.
[/QUOTE]Quote:
Originally Posted by KCurtis
Look, I am not going to show you the way to basic facts that anyone should know. Google 'mourning process' and then read.
According to functionalist historians (v intentionalist, which you obviously are) Hitler or whoever else did not order the extermination because it was his first intention, but because in 1942 all those locked up and void of any money (they had confiscated it all, after all) were posing a logistical problem they could not get rid of. One commander of a Polish ghetto (was it Lublin) plainly wrote in a letter that 'there would be a problem [that] winter to feed all the residents in the ghetto' and would it not be 'more humane' to kill them? In 1940 they wanted to banish them to Madagascar, a plan that had been thought about in 1885. The things which it was based on were a bit deluded though, and it did not happen down to the Battle of Britain going totally wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I retain the view that the street they had entered was a dead end. At the point where they were starting to lose the war and saw that their magalomanious illusions were not going to come true, they could not do anything else but kill these people. Sad, but true.
That's not what I read. And I would be surprised that he was not serious, because he knows a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Firstly no-one was allowed to be gay openly until about the 1990s. Granted, you were not prosecuted, but you could not walk hand in hand with your lover or live with him openly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Have you seen how divided the parliament was before 1933? It's a bit like Italy now. Berlusconi has stayed on and f*cked the country up because no-one else could keep them in hand. Romano Prodi won the election a few years ago with a conglommerate of the left and he lasted about one year, was it? Berlusconi reduced the threshold to get seats in parliament so the left would be divided and he would rule the roost. In Germany in the 1920s, there were far too many parties in the parliament who could not agree and therefore, there was no serious policy. Maily on the socialist side. That is what made the NSDAP catch on: they were one front, one line, one man who brought stability. People do not care whether that party 'can be held accountable', they want bread on their tables. If they have to go to a soup kitchen to get food and if they keep voting, but no-one seems to do anything to bring them that bread on their table, then they will vote for the first one who promises it. And if that one has bad intentions, then that is their own problem. The Christian democrats did nothing because they were the bourgeois elite. And I am living now in one of the two places where Hitler got no majority in 1933, as they voted Christian. I can tell you, a mess here for people without money.
A great leader could not have done this, because he would have to have been honest and an honest man honours his promises to the allies.
I thank you for the insult.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Never ending absurdity? I call it absurd to hate a man whom you have had nothing to do with. That is three generations ago at least for you. I know people as I said who lived through the London Blitz who do not hate him. How irrational are you compared to them, then?
It is possible. What am I talking about? If good is what brings you fulfilment, then evil is what does not bring you fulfilment. If good is knowledge, then evil is ignorance. And if evil is ignorance then anger, which does not bring one fulfilment, must be ignorance. And ignorance is the not knowing. So you see, it is possible. That is Socrates. You involved him in this, I did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I am not setting my own definition, I am taking an opinion that has been expressed by others like Ellis and Rosenberg. That is not my own personal view. I could reproach you with the same, but I am not, so why are you reproaching me then?Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
You do by the way, make Hitler this mythical satanic figure. Am I supposed to take that serious?
And why would I call her a brunette? What interest does it bring me? Does that define her character? I am sure if you had lived in the 19th century, you would have believed that, but we are not that deluded anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Apparently it has been for some. I cannot help you are an absolutist or universalist. I for one am not because I can see the flaws of such a view. Actually Rosenberg has claimed that calling someone a absolute term like 'evil' makes us more vulnerable for propaganda like Hitler's. You want to be one of that crowd?Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I am paying attention and contesting them by showing you that they are flawed. A discussion centres not around I giving into you or you giving into me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
After Hitler's rise to power, the book gained enormous popularity. Ｂｕｔ ａｆｔｅｒ ｈｉｓ ｔｕｍｂｌｅ，ｉｔ ｇｏｔ ｍｏｒｅ ｃｒｉｔｉｃｉｓｍ．Ｉ ｔｈｉｎｋ ｙｏｕ ｍａｙｂｅ ａ ｌｉｔｔｌｅ ｂｉｔ ｍａｄ ａｆｔｅｒ ｙｏｕｒ ｒｅａｄｉ ｎｇ．．．
Oh, I understand Kiki's relativist point about evil, I just don't agree with it and having actually read quite a few of her posts I find her unconvincing. A person can commit horribly evil acts like genocide and no doubt still care about their dog, give money to the poor, and love their family. That doesn’t exonerate them from their crimes or responsibility. Evil is about one’s actions and the extent of those deeds, not whether the person is a total bastard in every single aspect of their life.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
There are a number of sophisticated academic definitions of evil we could use. Earlier in the thread Pierre Menard complained since multiple definitions exist we can’t come to an objective understanding of evil, even though he was willing to accept a functioning definition. Of course, I’m willing to bet we could pick 10 or 20 or almost all “functioning” definitions of evil and Hitler would more than likely be considered evil by any single one of them.
By one of the definitions proposed Pierre Menard wasn’t wrong to suggest almost everyone would be considered evil. He and Alex misunderstood my point, though, when I said perhaps evil is more common than we think. My point was that, yes, everyone has committed acts that could be considered evil. But that doesn’t make all human beings essentially evil. This is where scale, remorse comes in, and the ability to change. There is a huge difference in bullying someone verbally in high school, feeling remorse and being genuinely sorry for it as you get older, and never doing that again compared to ordering the extermination of six million people and enacting it.
Another problem that happens in such discussion is the assumption that there are only two positions: absolutism or relativism. It is a perfectly reasonable position to think things like genocide are completely wrong and evil, while still allowing for some moral grey area in life concerning other things.
I never wished to exonerate anyone, though, that is where Darcy goes wrong. I am maybe a relativist and think more of circumstances than any other, but I still do think it wrong what he did. I only do not see the use of calling a person 'evil' or 'good' for that matter. That is all. I fail to see why Hitler's own and his regime's acts would be less evil, if you will, if I were not to call the man himself evil. The Dalai Lama's acts do not become even better than 'good' if I call him 'good', do they?Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
In that I go with Rosenberg who calls it dangerous to call anyone or any group of people 'evil', because we tend to turn off our feelings of empathy towards them which makes us vulnerable for manipulation by others (as the Nazis accomplished).
That is all. I would never ever claim that a genocide was fine. I would claim the people who did claimed it was fine, but I myself do not consider it fine. Why would I do that?
This is the kind of mind-bending absurdity I keep talking about. Of course its legitimate to call the Dalai Lama "good." Of course its CORRECT to call the Dalai Lama "good." But the Dalia Lama is not "perfectly" good. Switch Dalai Lama with Hitler and good with evil and there you have your own claims.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
I have to keep saying this - your requirement that a person be perfectly evil for them to be evil is your own and maybe a few others' opinion, but we're talking about a pretty basic word in evil that has a meaning across cultures which you, you great and wise Kiki, think is false.
I mean your response to my question with my aunt with grey hairs was truly pitiful Kiki, so pitiful I thought I would just let it go.
Come on! Why would I call her brunette? Why call a leopard spotted? Do those spots define the character of the leopard? I call her brunette because her freaking hair is for all but a few grey strands dark brown. Do away with all the abjectives!Quote:
And why would I call her a brunette? What interest does it bring me? Does that define her character? I am sure if you had lived in the 19th century, you would have believed that, but we are not that deluded anymore.
No, night is not dark - it has the dim light of the stars. Because, speaking technically, speaking about perfect absolute darkness - night really isn't dark, the Dalai Lama isn't good and Hitler was not evil.
That is not what I said. That is what I am talking about when I say you do not read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
I said, 'The Dalai Lama's acts do not become more "good" because I call him personally "good", do they?' Answer, no, surely. So, why is it necessary for me to call Hitler 'evil'? Because his acts are no longer evil if I refuse to call him that? Answer, no, they do not become any less evil. Then what are you on about?
It's a perfectly normal requirement and I believe millions hold it, actually, at least if they are religious. You may rave and rant as much as you like, I think the world would be better by using that characteristic than yours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
No, I do not think the meaning of the word is false, I think you and others employ it to stamp a person and not to stamp an act.
Stamping people does not resolve anything. On the contrary, it creates enmity which is something you do not want (look at the Holocaust for a good example of that).
As you used this as a metaphor for 'evil', I asked you a serious question: 'What does it bring me to call this person a brunette?' I.e. 'What does it bring me to call Hitler evil?' I could call your aunt a brunette to distinguish her from other people she is with (provided they are all blonde, you see even there it is relative ;D), but I could also say she was wearing a red sweater which would probably be more accurate, because the chance that anyone else is wearing a red sweater is smaller than them being a brunette. Does it fulfil me more to call her a brunette? I.e. does it fulfil me more to call Hitler evil?Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy88
Again, answer the question, 'What does it bring me to call her a brunette or to call Hitler evil?'
Actually I should have phrased the question better and asked you 'Why should I call her a brunette in favour of anything else?'
[edit] And never mind about the night. What I was actually referring to was Pliny the Elder's description of the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, 'not such as we have when the sky is cloudy, or when there is no moon, but that of a room when it is shut up, and all the lights put out.'
So your argument is that people will feel enmity over someone calling Adolf Hitler evil? Who exactly? Neo-Nazis?Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
I think I addressed this point already. At the very least labeling an action or a person evil states to future generations: "What this guy did was immoral and went against every basic ethical code. Don't be like him and don't do what he did."Quote:
Again, answer the question, 'What does it bring me to call her a brunette or to call Hitler evil?'
Actually I should have phrased the question better and asked you 'Why should I call her a brunette in favour of anything else?'
Is it that you do (not) know the answer to the question?
So, let me get this straight? We shouldn't bother labeling Hitler evil because it doesn't matter what we label him, he was what he was, be it evil or no. So, why should we bother labeling anything from the past, then?
Look, I am not going to show you the way to basic facts that anyone should know. Google 'mourning process' and then read.
[/QUOTE]
I can google anything I want, what comes up is ambiguous regarding this topic. The mourning process as defined by who? Psychobabblists? I guess your definition of basic facts is different.
No, not that. I said, like Rosenberg, that the danger of labelling someone, anyone, evil is that you create enmity towards those people. Look at the Holocaust: Jews are evil, they are treacherous, they are dangerous. And cue what happened.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
Labelling anyone person evil is not going to do anything at all, in fact you are copying those you despise.
And let me guess, if we do not label this person evil, people will not find what he did despicable? Be honest with yourself. Is it absolutely necessary to brand him 'evil' to discern that what he did was wrong?Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
And we see that, really, branding this person evil has done a lot to prevent these things from happening... 'It shall not happen again.' Ok, that is true, no-one has yet authorised the killing of 6 million more, but genocide has definitely happened since. So, has that label 'evil' helped at all, then? Clearly not.
The question is what use labelling people is, yes. Now or in history.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
And you are doing it again, straight copy from the much-thing. Don't be so childish.Quote:
Originally Posted by KCurtis
Regarding the question of evil, I think it is overly simplistic to label someone evil, and leave it at that. It creates the impression that these people with the potential to commit evil acts and wield terrible power are like Bwahahahahaaaaa cartoon villains.
A real person may have this evil potential about them, but they are not just this. Hitler committed evil acts, and is labelled evil. He was also brilliant in his own way, a shrewd politician, charming, cunning, a dog lover, someone who was polite to his staff, a good administrator and planner, a good recruiter of talent, someone who managed through the competition of his subordinates, a motivational speaker.
I'm not bigging him up because I like him. The real lesson of this history is that a cartoon villain would be easy to spot, and no-one would take them seriously. they would very quickly engineer their own downfall.
But how do you spot someone who has this perrible potential? They'll be talented, charming, clever, and with other impressive attributes. Nut jobs don't easily make friends. That's the real thing about this. Hitler was a real person, who loved and was loved by others at the time. If you remove the human qualities of history's monsters, then you stop looking at the potential monsters that are possibly out there now - the humans who may develop that terrible potential for power and destruction.
People resort to name calling when they cannot think of a response that matters, oh well. :banghead:Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982
I can't respond to something meaningless in a meaningful way, can I.
That's the very first constructive contribution you have made in this thread. Congratulations.
Oh. Well, then the answer is yes. Labeling serves a purpose. We can over-label, yes, but no labeling at all would be a mistake. The reasons seem self-evident.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki1982