Has anyone else read Mein Kampf?

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!

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Originally Posted by Adolescent09

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.

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It's not boring to me.

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?

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Originally Posted by ScribbleScribe

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!

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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.

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.

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I cannot see evil no, evil as a force maybe, but not as a man with a trembling hand. - Kiki

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Oh well, to each his own. :D And this thread really is becoming hilarious - I'd never have believed it at one time. :lol:

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

You spent a large part of that post trying to relieve Hitler and the Nazis of repsonsibility...

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No, I definitely did not. They are responsible, for the umpteenth time. Either you do not read properly or you refuse to do so.

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.

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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

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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I think Emil has done that for me already.

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.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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?

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?

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

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.

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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?
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Originally Posted by kiki1982

No, I definitely did not. They are responsible, for the umpteenth time. Either you do not read properly or you refuse to do so.

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.

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.?

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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.

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I think Emil has done that for me already.

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No, he really didn't. He ducked out of this conversation when I pushed him on that topic.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by KCurtis

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?

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Look, I am not going to show you the way to basic facts that anyone should know. Google 'mourning process' and then read.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

No, he really didn't. He ducked out of this conversation when I pushed him on that topic.

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That's not what I read. And I would be surprised that he was not serious, because he knows a lot.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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I thank you for the insult.

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?

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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?

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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.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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?

You do by the way, make Hitler this mythical satanic figure. Am I supposed to take that serious?

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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?

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

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.

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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.

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．．．

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

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. 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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

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.

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.

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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?

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?