As you say, history has been full of people like Hitler. But as you don't say, we must remember 1945 and proceed along those lines, for, as you don't say or see, they are finished forever. The illness of Germany in those days will not repeat.Originally Posted by Alexander III
That's why I don't care about the word "evil." An evil man has always been a smartass allowed to take it too far. C'est finit. Don't believe me. Know it or pay the consequences as fast as a saxo player spits.
Last edited by cafolini; 03-04-2012 at 04:18 PM.
Of course, if you can't even see it, you can't control it. But we saw it from the very beginning and became ready as soon as it started. Freedom fighters gave many lives to get the ill scoundrels. It took too long. Now, if you want to see how long it will take today, check what we have in store in Military.com, channel 287 DTV. I'm polishing my AK47 as I listen to ignorance.
my part jewish friend years ago tried to read in to understand that time better, but said "theres only so many times you can read the word negroid before you get bored".
I think Nazis and their like can only step in when a country is crazy and desperate, like after WW1. thats why i fear about their attempting to rise in the UK right now.
Caf man you've spouted some real gems but none can top this one.
Nothing to worry in the UK, Mutie. There are problems that are being handled. But madness is a different thing. Keep calm. There is a meritorious tradition in England that will not be overcome.
I never said that you could not condemn, I said that blind condemnation did not bring you anywhere. That is something totally different. All we have done for the last 60 years is condemn and nothing more. That is for the court, but it does not aid one in dealing with the trauma. German society is still suffering from it. They were once culturured people, but they lost it all in ten to fifteen years of that. On 11/11, the Germans celebrate the start of Carnival, not armistice. Maybe this is a tradition, but to me it is a bit like, 'We need to have a party to be able to ignore that the rest of the world is mourning their dead, which we essentially caused.' Instead of including everyone, Germany was present at such a remembrance event for the first time only a few years ago.
My first class in uni about modern German literature started with the fact that the Germans built their country again, cleared the rubble away, but never dealt with the trauma of the Third Reich and so it is with the rest of the world. We feel condemnation, call these people evil and would gladly ignore that they were like you and me and that such people, if they were not you or me, are still among us. That was the trauma, not the fact that a system murdered 6 million people out of ideology.
I think that is a good suggestion.
Nonono, that is not being evil, that is evil manifesting itself. If you put a murderer of one person, out of passion or desire (the one more excusable than the other) on an equal level with someone who plotted or at least allowed the industrial killing of 6 million, then you are essentially insulting the killer of that one person.
And of course you are going to rant and rave at this one: the paedophile is essentially of a different sexuality as is a homosexual. Fortunately they are a small minority. Before you go off on one, I consider it wrong and traumatic for the child, it should not happen, but a paedophile cannot control his sexuality and falls in love with children as a homosexual falls in love with men. Unless he is a psychopath or a sadist (and that is not related to paedopilia), he knows what he is doing is wrong and does not derive pleasure from doing that to a child as it is profoundly wrong, but as children are everywhere, you will understand that it is pretty difficult to control those urges. On the upside, they can be helped by (chemical) castration and some go totally numb which they prefer above having their urges. For some such treatment does not work, they relapse even with hormone treatment and they decide to become hermits to protect society from themselves. Again, I consider it wrong, but evil, no, for the reasons above. If authorities were clever, they would offer those people a place to live without children. They can be useful, only far away from children.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Quality post, Alex.
Agreed. I think the word 'functioning' seems to indicate there is no objective definition of evil though, especially when a tiny amount of people on an internet forum can't even decide. :P
I dunno, Darcy, those parts in bold can accurately describe many, many day to day common people...I'm not really sure if the definition holds up.
Vladimir: (sententious.) To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.
Actually it does hold up. If you equate taunting and bullying to hate speech and murder then sure, the average person is evil. Not a whole lot of people commit acts of "indiscriminate violence" and go out of their ways to cause others "pain and suffering." Common sense excludes bar fights and petty insults from any definition of evil.
And you think its a "quality post" in which someone asks us to view Hitler as a "victim?" I'm already on my soap box, been up on it since this thread began, so I'll just continue in the same vein....
WHAT!? What is there to possibly be gained by viewing as a victim a man who wiped off the face of this earth millions upon millions of innocent souls? This is pansy-assed political correctness grown to horrendously abominable proportions. Yes, its all well and good to recognize our own capacity for evil. But to label the greatest tyrant and murderer in perhaps all human history a "victim" is just ridiculous and insulting to the memory of his victims, all six million plus of them.
Why pick on homosexuals? By your definition pedophiles are just like heterosexuals too. I specifically said its wrong for pedophiles to have sex with children, not for them to experience the actual urges and not act on them.
It is still your contention that Hitler cannot be condemned as evil. I don't see how that position can have any solid basis and you've yet to demonstrate that it has.
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.
This only shows that evil people can spring up in any society, even the most peaceful. Let's not put the blame on German society for creating a Hitler. He was not a product of his times. He was an evil genius who was able to see opportunities, manipulate and take advantage of the conditions of his society to seize power and carry out his own agenda with a cleverness and cunning that is beyond the comprehension of most human beings.No, not because he made a more emotional impact on me because it was only a few months back, because Norway and the rest of Scandinavia are profoundly peaceful countries which have not seen murders in this kind of way. - Kiki
I agree that it probably doesn't help to call Hitler and his cohorts evil when everyone knows that already. I just don't understand how calling him "not evil" is going to help. Won't it be worse for German people if we were to say "Hey guys, it wasn't Hitler's fault. He wasn't evil. He was just a regular guy like you or me, who was conditioned by the society he grew up in. It was your evil society that made him do bad things"?German society is still suffering from it. They were once culturured people, but they lost it all in ten to fifteen years of that. On 11/11, the Germans celebrate the start of Carnival, not armistice. Maybe this is a tradition, but to me it is a bit like, 'We need to have a party to be able to ignore that the rest of the world is mourning their dead, which we essentially caused.' Instead of including everyone, Germany was present at such a remembrance event for the first time only a few years ago. - Kiki
Last edited by mona amon; 03-05-2012 at 01:29 AM.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
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.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
Yes, exactly. The people on the other side of the argument would never dream of using power to unleash such staggering statistics of suffering and death as Hitler did. Its deranged philosophical contortion for an average person to see themselves in Hitler. It focuses only on the minor irrelevant things they share with the man and ignores those stark profound differences which separate them. Blondes and brunettes share so much in common against the single difference which divides them. Thus it is with good and evil, and the division in this case is no less plain.
The holocaust is no mere idea or word, it was the unjust slaughter of millions of individuals just like us, as innocent and as loving and as desirous of life as each of us are. Yes, Hitler was human, we have much in common with him, but, morally speaking, its like night and day, and in the end morality must matter much if not most. Fate made Hitler what he was, made him evil, but that does not change what he was, that does not make him any less evil.
One frightening thing about Hitler was that he probably wasn't a sociopath.
A smiling Hitler sneaks out of his bunker to commend his child soldiers for their valour in the battle of Berlin after all hope for German victory had perished.
I wonder why Stalin isn't talk about as much. He was just as evil, killed possibly more people, and the scary thing is that he is still respected today by many in Russia.A smiling Hitler sneaks out of his bunker to commend his child soldiers for their valour in the battle of Berlin after all hope for German victory had perished.
Pol pot might be ever eviler than both. He killed a greater percentage of his people than both of them and certainly more insane.
Part of it might be that Stalin was our (most of us) ally. But then Russia became the villain, so you'd think Stalin would have been demonized as much as Hitler in the years since world war 2. I think just the sheer ugliness and inhumanity of the gas chamber presents so grotesque a thing that many of us feel greater outrage over the crimes of Hitler than those of Stalin.
I mean we fought Hitler, my grandfather and three of my great uncles actually fought him and his armies. It makes sense his infamy would exceed that of Stalin's, however unfair that is.
Last edited by Darcy88; 03-05-2012 at 03:40 AM.
Posting Permissions
