Originally Posted by
stlukesguild
mona amon-You really don't understand evil. It doesn't matter what is its cause, all that matters is that it is done. You think that by tracing the line of cause and effect back to evil's origination you somehow eliminate it. You don't. An evil person is a person who does evil things, plain and simple.
Absolutely!
kiki1982- I think you are confusing two things here. Actions being evil and people being evil.
There is no confusion here. All you are doing is regurgitating the mantra: "There are no bad people, only bad decisions and bad actions." To repeat the emboldened phrase from above: An evil person is a person who does evil things, plain and simple.
I for one am not defending anyone here, I have never denied their responsibility, but only said that calling all of those people evil is a bit rich
It's a bit rich to call someone "evil" who is responsible for the systematic genocide of 6 million Jews, God knows how many homosexuals, physically and mentally handicapped, mentally ill, and any number of other individuals who were deemed "inferior" and "less than human"? It's a bit rich to suggest that an individual responsible for a war that ravaged nearly the whole of Europe, killed untold millions, and resulted in the Götterdämmerung... the devastation and ruin of his own nation just might be considered "evil" is rich thinking on my part? I would suggest that your continued attempts to justify and validate the actions of Hitler and the Nazis call your own intentions and beliefs into question.
Where are you then with your capital punishment? Things can seem absolutely certain now, but can you be 100% sure that that is going to be the same in 10 to 20 years?
The fact that one were to get pleasure from seeing someone hanged is worrying, certainly in modern society. In the past, humanity may have been a bit weird (maybe because they had so much contact with death that it didn't really matter how it happened), but nowadays, I find that profoundly strange and even slightly twisted.
I even found it an outrage that the Polish bungled the Sobibor camp commander's hanging three times. Only the fourth time it worked. In medieval times they would have considered it a sign that this person was not to be hanged, but that's modern times for you... I do not say he was not rsponsible or cruel (he was particularly twisted), but doing it in such a way shows your own cruel streak and in that case you are no better than the one you are hanging. Then you are motivated by revenge which makes you no better than the first Germanic tribes and the maffia now.
Yes... of course. Those responsible for sadistically killing innocent women and children and the mentally and physically handicapped should never have been so ill treated. They should have instead been treated to an all expense paid vacation to the south of France, and while there we might have suggested that they think about participating in some group therapy. After a few sessions they undoubtedly would have been fully fit to re-enter polite society.
What you miss is that the goal of execution is multifold: it is to provide some sense of justice or retribution and closure for the victims; it is to act as a warning to others; and it is a means of eradicating such evil persons from society. The notion that by taking such vengeance we become no different than our enemy is but one more weak-minded platitude. The difference between the Nazis and those who executed them is that the Nazis actions were undeniably "evil"... the killing of innocent human beings. This is the point you repeatedly ignore.
Words words words. Sounds good, means nothing. Do you truly and honestly see yourself mirrored in Hitler? Or in Pol Pot or in Stalin? Or for that matter in Jesus or Gandhi or Martin Luther King? The fact is that all these people are exceptional, and beyond a few uninteresting and unimportant things common to all human beings, they are nothing like you or me. That's why everyone knows their name, but has never heard of you or me.
Earlier I spoke of the fact that in many ways we have not learned the lesson from the Third Reich in that it can happen again... it can happen anywhere. I should clarify things... I am not suggesting that there was nothing exceptional about Hitler or Himmler or Mengele (or Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot)... that none of us are in the least different form them, and that with the slightest change in our up-bringing and experiences anyone of us could be them. What I was addressing was the blindness of the masses... the seduction of the many by the charismatic individual that most certainly can happen anywhere and at anytime.
German society is still suffering from it. They were once culturured people, but they lost it all in ten to fifteen years of that.
German culture was certainly undergoing a peak at the time of the rise of Hitler. Literature, painting, and sculpture in Germany and Austria rivaled that of Paris. German music was still the standard against which all other music was measured. The German film-makers were among the leaders of what would become the most important art form of the 20th century. German architects were inventing what would become our modern cities. All of this was swept aside by the rise of the Third Reich. The Germans themselves should despise Hitler and all he stood for that reason alone.
Germany's reputation was undoubtedly soiled by the events of WWII. the stain remains for several reasons. Both the scale and the nearness (in time) of the events of the Holocaust cause it to resonate far larger that the "Reign of Terror" or the atrocities that took place under Napoleon... let alone the Mongols or the various Roman despots. The systematic and mechanized genocide was also documented so well both boy the Germans and by the Allies as opposed to the mass killings in the Soviet Union or China under Mao. WWII itself stands as a pivotal point in the history of the UK and the United States (among other countries) so that they repeatedly return to the war. The Jewish population of the world has also, rightfully, done much to assure us that we can never forget.
And yet how deep is the "stain" on Germany? How profoundly have they been brought low by history? Germany is now one of the most powerful nations in Europe... probably the most powerful in economic terms. German culture is still among the most influential in the world: German composers account for more of the music performed by symphonic orchestras than those of any other country. German literature is broadly studied at the universities, while Kafka, Mann, Hesse, Grass, and Rilke remain among the most read writers in the world. German film-makers had a profound impact upon American film industry... and especially the film noir... an influence that continues to be felt. German painting has only grown in influence until painters such as Paul Klee and Max Beckmann are seen as standing shoulder to shoulder with Matisse and Picasso, while perhaps the greatest (certainly the highest paid) living painter, Anselm Kiefer, is a German artist who has repeatedly confronted Germnay's history and the Holocaust. Most intelligent human beings recognize that Germany is more than Nazis just as japan is more than Pearl Harbor and the Batan Death March.