Has anyone else read Mein Kampf?

[stlukesguild]

That is what you fail to see. By disapproving or hating, you are blinded for human reality, as you are putting your own morals and ideals above another.

Yep. That is exactly what I am doing. I am placing my moral standards above those of individuals who imagine that systematic murder of innocent human beings is OK. I placing my moral standards above that of those who could even begin to entertain the idea that infanticide is acceptable under any conditions. I am placing my moral standards considering the treatment of women and individuals whose religious views differ from my own above that of certain Islamic... and certain Christian fundamentalists. Ultimately I am placing my moral standards... in which I recognize certain actions as being universally wrong... even "evil" as being above your moral standards of moral relativism which is essentially a position of either moral cowardice (or even a lack of any real moral standards) or as I stated above, "moral retardation".

[kiki1982]

So if infanticide is always wrong, as you said, then why oh why did the Romans do this on an institutional basis as well as the Greeks, and the Germanic tribes (though the Romans did not agree about this)? Ok, so we should not call it 'infanticide' really, because it was merely exposure. But actually it is because one knows that a baby dies if it is not kept warm and fed.
Surely, they did not consider it wrong? So what will it serve me as a person to disapprove of it? Apart from concluding that the Romans and Greeks were more primitive and less civilised than I thought? Essentially I would then have to deduce that we are now lucky that we do not have to do this anymore and that we anticonception drugs.

Finding your own morals superior to anyone else does not solve a problem, it creates separation and that encourages extremism. What do you think these islamists aim at? They aim at putting their own morals above those of others and indeed think that those same morals are to be followed by anyone. Disapproving of these morals does not help those who are suffering from them. Only by helping those to fight against them and to strengthen them in their own opinions can we change the system of women's discrimination, for example. And that does not start with banning the veil, but by allowing it.

[KCurtis]

I did not say I personally do not consider it wrong, but I live in a society where there is no need to control numbers, nor not enough money/resources/etc to support those children. If we do not want any we know what we can do against it. In view of what has been said below your post, it shows that it is wrong subjectively, but not objectively. In India, they still kill babies (mostly girls). People from the same culture do it the UK for the very same reasons. Why?

They may do it in the UK, but it is illegal, so, legally it is murder- oh, unless of course you want to tell us that it shouldn't be because it is cultural relativism BS.


[originally posted by kiki1982]
Finding your own morals superior to anyone else does not solve a problem, it creates separation and that encourages extremism. What do you think these islamists aim at? They aim at putting their own morals above those of others and indeed think that those same morals are to be followed by anyone. Disapproving of these morals does not help those who are suffering from them.
[/QUOTE]

Okay, with that rationale I guess we should also approve of honor killings taking place in the UK too. There also have been a few in the U.S., and those who committed those crimes were arrested. Gee, what a thought.

[kiki1982]

They undergo abortions because they do not want girls. Who can blame them if you see the sheer amount of money a good dowry takes. This includes cars, houses etc. If you have already one daughter you will have to save for your whole life, what are you going to do with a second one? You need a son to compensate.

If you want to ban this practice, you need to understand it first and try to tackle it, tough it is not clear how that should be done.

So it is not actually 'murder', no, only wanted abortion. So it is not illegal, just (faintly) unsettling. Whatever you may think about it, is of no consequence to those people.

Honour killings are of a different nature. They come from the wrongful idea that girls should not even look at a boy. As these cultures can't lock their daughters up, those same girls change too much in a western society, so if they were living in their home country, they would probably not look at boys, but they are in a country where that is normal, so they do. Their parents do not consider this appropriate and so they go mad. Teenager rebels and the whole shabang starts. Of course it is murder, but I don't see the disapproval way working, actually. You may execute and put in prison lots of dads who killed their daughter, but as long as you do not do anything constructive, the whole thing starts again with the next immigrant family. They consider it an honour thing and a woman should be pure. That is utterly ridiculous, but in order for it to stop, disapproval will not work on the contrary, it will drive them further, convinced that they are following the right way and western society is doomed because of its debauchery. Don't laugh, that is what such extremists believe.

And, if you think that because I say 'do not condemn, but understand' that I mean 'I find this ok', then you are constructing things in your mind which have nothing, but really nothing to do with what I am trying to tell you. But any nuance is probably lost on you. Please try, if only for once.

[Darcy88]

They undergo abortions because they do not want girls. Who can blame them if you see the sheer amount of money a good dowry takes. This includes cars, houses etc. If you have already one daughter you will have to save for your whole life, what are you going to do with a second one? You need a son to compensate.

If you want to ban this practice, you need to understand it first and try to tackle it, tough it is not clear how that should be done.

So it is not actually 'murder', no, only wanted abortion. So it is not illegal, just (faintly) unsettling.
Honour killings are of a different nature. They come from the wrongful idea that girls should not even look at a boy. As these cultures can't lock their daughters up, those same girls change too much in a western society, so if they were living in their home country, they would probably not look at boys, but they are in a country where that is normal, so they do. Their parents do not consider this appropriate and so they go mad. Teenager rebels and the whole shabang starts. Of course it is murder, but I don't see the disapproval way working, actually. You may execute and put in prison lots of dads who killed their daughter, but as long as you do not do anything constructive, the whole thing starts again with the next immigrant family. They consider it an honour thing and a woman should be pure. That is utterly ridiculous, but in order for it to stop, disapproval will not work on the contrary, it will drive them further, convinced that they are following the right way and western society is doomed because of its debauchery. Don't laugh, that is what such extremists believe.

I don't mean this as a personal attack, but I have to say that I do not think you have any intellectual grasp at all of morality and what it means to be moral. Saying we shouldn't condemn or disapprove of honour killings or gender abortions, and calling the latter abhorrent practice "faintly unsettling." I'm not going to try to educate you on moral matters, I just had to say this.

[kiki1982]

Look, I would not kill a daughter because she was one nor abort her. However, you need to see that these people have to save dowries of sometimes 300,000 pounds (it depends on their status) or more, plus stage a feast of several days. And don't think this disappears at all with letting your daughter choose her partner (unless he is of another religion maybe and then there is the question whether she wants that or not - but that aside). So you have 18-odd years to get your daughter a dowry of about that amount and otherwise you can't get rid of her. That is a profound stigma on a family: there must be something wrong with you. Think if people have two or three daughters: they are looking at a mountain of money they can never accumulate.

To add to this, when their daugthers have left and married, they are gone. They will not be there to care for them. It is not about 'who has time and room to care for her parents', it is about 'the son(s) will care for the parents'. If they have not got any, then tough sh*t for them, they do not get cared for. If they do not get a son, they are destitute and poor by the time they have got rid of all their daugthers. Sons compensate for the loss of a daughter, both in terms of presence and money because their bride will bring a dowry both fathers have negotiated.
The daughter who effectually goes to the other family for ever is also the reason why aborting girls in (rural) China is so prevalent: why the government is now allowing two children in certain areas and only if the first one is a girl. Girls are, it is unfortunate, nothing valuable.

The rest may live in a society where a couple's marriage is but a joyous occasion and proof of their love for each other, and that is a relief, but in other societies (and amongst immigrants in the West) it is business like it was for us until the 19th century for everyone but the working classes who had nothing anyway. And the rich still practice this nowadays, though on a smaller scale.

I know it is not personal attack .

I cannot say that I condemn abortion because of personal reasons, although I find it unsettling that you would get rid of a child you actually wanted, but you are disappointed that it is a girl...

[Darcy88]

Look, I would not kill a daughter because she was one nor abort her. However, you need to see that these people have to save dowries of sometimes 300,000 pounds (it depends on their status) or more, plus stage a feast of several days. And don't think this disappears at all with letting your daughter choose her partner (unless he is of another religion maybe and then there is the question whether she wants that or not - but that aside). So you have 18-odd years to get your daughter a dowry of about that amount and otherwise you can't get rid of her. That is a profound stigma on a family: there must be something wrong with you. Think if people have two or three daughters: they are looking at a mountain of money they can never accumulate.

To add to this, when their daugthers have left and married, they are gone. They will not be there to care for them. It is not about 'who has time and room to care for her parents', it is about 'the son(s) will care for the parents'. If they have not got any, then tough sh*t for them, they do not get cared for. If they do not get a son, they are destitute and poor by the time they have got rid of all their daugthers. Sons compensate for the loss of a daughter, both in terms of presence and money because their bride will bring a dowry both fathers have negotiated.
The daughter who effectually goes to the other family for ever is also the reason why aborting girls in (rural) China is so prevalent: why the government is now allowing two children in certain areas and only if the first one is a girl. Girls are, it is unfortunate, nothing valuable.

The rest may live in a society where a couple's marriage is but a joyous occasion and proof of their love for each other, and that is a relief, but in other societies (and amongst immigrants in the West) it is business like it was for us until the 19th century for everyone but the working classes who had nothing anyway. And the rich still practice this nowadays, though on a smaller scale.

I know it is not personal attack .

I cannot say that I condemn abortion because of personal reasons, although I find it unsettling that you would get rid of a child you actually wanted, but you are disappointed that it is a girl...

I think what we should focus on is what many activists in India and other countries focus on, and that is the elimination of the dowry system, a cause made noble and urgent due to the sick practice of gender abortions. By not disapproving of the practice you don't get anywhere. By disapproving of it you put pressure on the culture to do away with dowries.

[Charles Darnay]

J stopped following this thread a few days ago and after taking a quick scan, I am so glad I did. OK, I am gone again - continue.

[kiki1982]

I think what we should focus on is what many activists in India and other countries focus on, and that is the elimination of the dowry system, a cause made noble and urgent due to the sick practice of gender abortions. By not disapproving of the practice you don't get anywhere. By disapproving of it you put pressure on the culture to do away with dowries.

Of course we should! Whether putting pressure on it from the west is feasible is another matter, but you can hope by lobbying and educating people from those countries, that they realise that this is not what they want and that they do away with it. The smaller the group who endorses such a practice of dowries, the less societal pressure there is to do it and the freer a society will be from it.

As with all social change, it takes a few courageous people from that culture to do something inspiring.

You see, we agree

[mona amon]

Look, I would not kill a daughter because she was one nor abort her. However, you need to see that these people have to save dowries of sometimes 300,000 pounds (it depends on their status) or more, plus stage a feast of several days. And don't think this disappears at all with letting your daughter choose her partner (unless he is of another religion maybe and then there is the question whether she wants that or not - but that aside). So you have 18-odd years to get your daughter a dowry of about that amount and otherwise you can't get rid of her. That is a profound stigma on a family: there must be something wrong with you. Think if people have two or three daughters: they are looking at a mountain of money they can never accumulate. - Kiki

Evil does not cease to be evil just because it's institutionalised. Flimsy excuses will get you nowhere. Gender related abortions in India are not because of the dowry system particularly, but because of the tradition that values women much less than men. Unscrupulous people find that technology can give them what they desire (a male child) and they do not hesitate to use it. They are no worse off than the millions who do not make use of selective abortion, so there are no excuses. Most of the abortions are done by people who are well off and can afford to pay their daughters' dowries (300, 000 pounds, cars etc are rare and extreme cases). It's often just a matter of prestige.

They did not consider Jews being human or at least not as worthy of it as the Aryan race. A bit of propaganda did the rest. Clever propaganda.
If you want to learn from history, disaproving or hating is frankly useless. The only thing you can do is try to understand the why and how and then look around you. That will benefit you more than disapproving. Understanding and looking for the why and how you can only properly do if you do not disapprove. Otherwise you ask the wrong questions. - Kiki

This works both ways. You are so bent on proving that the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for the whole mess (or something like that), that you're bending over backwards trying to prove that Hitler and his cohorts were not evil (and therefore not responsible). In the process you're sweeping a bit of history under the carpet, and that will hardly help you in understanding the why and how. There are no right questions and wrong questions. We have to ask all the questions.

I totally disagree with you when you say that "Understanding and looking for the why and how you can only properly do if you do not disapprove." I don't see why you can't disaprove and still understand. In fact the disapproval comes after first understanding.

I know that by calling people or systems evil I am not going to solve the problem of life, the universe and everything. We call something evil because it is evil, just as we call a spade a spade. That's all the justification it needs.

[kiki1982]

Evil does not cease to be evil just because it's institutionalised. Flimsy excuses will get you nowhere. Gender related abortions in India are not because of the dowry system particularly, but because of the tradition that values women much less than men. Unscrupulous people find that technology can give them what they desire (a male child) and they do not hesitate to use it. They are no worse off than the millions who do not make use of selective abortion, so there are no excuses. Most of the abortions are done by people who are well off and can afford to pay their daughters' dowries (300, 000 pounds, cars etc are rare and extreme cases). It's often just a matter of prestige.

Well, I thought this discussion was finished, but apparently it is not. I did not say evil stopped being evil I said people are not evil. I do dispair at people's reading skills sometimes...
I know houses and cars are in extreme cases, however, can you personally save up enough to buy your daughter furniture as well as all the cooking things plus bed clothes, towels, and all of the things she needs to be able to get married? And it must be the best you can afford, mind. Apart from the prestige, which goes hand in hand with the dowry system (son = gaining money, daugter = losing money), you get such vile practices as well as practices like men marrying and then killing their wives or parents-in-law doing it for them. Purely for the money. Prestige does not come on its own. It has mostly got other things attached.

This works both ways. You are so bent on proving that the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for the whole mess (or something like that), that you're bending over backwards trying to prove that Hitler and his cohorts were not evil (and therefore not responsible). In the process you're sweeping a bit of history under the carpet, and that will hardly help you in understanding the why and how. There are no right questions and wrong questions. We have to ask all the questions.

I totally disagree with you when you say that "Understanding and looking for the why and how you can only properly do if you do not disapprove." I don't see why you can't disaprove and still understand. In fact the disapproval comes after first understanding.

I know that by calling people or systems evil I am not going to solve the problem of life, the universe and everything. We call something evil because it is evil, just as we call a spade a spade. That's all the justification it needs.

It is not because most people consider this person to be evil and almost satan come to earth that things are like that. There are many more reasons than Hitler himself for this whole system. The scary and if you will 'evil' thing is not Hitler himself, it was the whole collection of circumstances that brought Germany and its culture to what it became. The French were maybe more anti-semitic, but that alone does not make sure you kill those people en masse (as they have proven). It was the whole of it: their sad economic situation, the cleverness of the NSDAP's propaganda, the weakness of the Weimar Republik as well as the Diktat of Versailles (as the Germans called it), the profoundly twisted nature of people like Himmler (a failed chicken farmer) the readiness of the German population to fully participate in such a mess by denouncing people who did not agree (heard that on a documentary by a former Gestapo secretary) and one brilliant orator who made the whole thing the sad pinnacle of a brilliant culture. In the face of that, Hitler is a speck. I say it again, had he been in the UK, he had been lynched on the streets in the East End, but he was not in the UK. Sure, brand Hitler evil, but that way he becomes the whole constructor of this machine, which was not only made by him.

It is not because his regime killed 6 million people and that he is ultimately responsible that he is solely responsible. Other people were as much involved in the very design of the machine as he himself. He was their inspiration, indeed, as he was for Goebbels - I don't know what he promised the man, but Goebbels abandoned his reaching out to the socialists in one night after meeting Hitler and stayed loyal to the very end -, but it is impossible to state that he was the sole creator of it. Indeed, you could not even argue that he was the sole designer of it. Had he not been supported through thick and thin by literally the vast vast majority, none of it would have happened. Military admittedly found his plans ridiculous, but like Goering (who tried to disuade him from attacking Russia I think it was) I would argue they all embraced the campaigns when they saw it was no use, as military men do. After a while some in the military got frustrated but assasination attempts went wrong (would we dare to say because of other more loyal and zealous Nazis?).

So, for you I might seem to go out of my way and bend over backwards to brush things under the carpet, but in fact if you have a little look at the context of it all, the responsibility of one man fades away in the face of the glaring responsibility of everyone who let him get on with it. I say it again, he is responsible, by all means, but by branding him evil, he gets the largest blame where in fact the whole of German society was to blame from the late 19th century onwards. They were aggravated by their WWI defeat, brought on because Germany was on the edge of civil war at that point and the war ended prematurely, although they were set to lose and not to win as the stab in the back myth declared. Do you suppose Hitler stands alone amongst all these facts? 'He was just an evil man'. I will say it again, the world trauma of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany was not that a man like Hitler came to power (which is not unbelievable in itself seeing the prevailance of dictators all through history), the trauma was that the German people let him and supported him all through the war. And even that some of them like the SS knew about what they were doing mainly in Poland (another mark of their disdain for Poland and its people) and that they either did not believe them or did not care. That the human race is capable of actually entertaining the thought of exterminating a race of 'other' people is disturbing. Not the dictator by himself. And it was not a dictator who designed the system of extermination it was the vile system that allowed and endorsed it. Sure, he delivered the ideas for it, which he took from others, but by calling Hitler evil, you take away from that glaring responsibility in favour of a simplistic denomination that endorses to forget how it happened. Only by acknowledging how this happened can we resolve this in the future and it is all too evident we have not done that yet.

[Darcy88]

Well, I thought this discussion was finished, but apparently it is not. I did not say evil stopped being evil I said people are not evil. I do dispair at people's reading skills sometimes...
I know houses and cars are in extreme cases, however, can you personally save up enough to buy your daughter furniture as well as all the cooking things plus bed clothes, towels, and all of the things she needs to be able to get married? And it must be the best you can afford, mind. Apart from the prestige, which goes hand in hand with the dowry system (son = gaining money, daugter = losing money), you get such vile practices as well as practices like men marrying and then killing their wives or parents-in-law doing it for them. Purely for the money. Prestige does not come on its own. It has mostly got other things attached.



It is not because most people consider this person to be evil and almost satan come to earth that things are like that. There are many more reasons than Hitler himself for this whole system. The scary and if you will 'evil' thing is not Hitler himself, it was the whole collection of circumstances that brought Germany and its culture to what it became. The French were maybe more anti-semitic, but that alone does not make sure you kill those people en masse (as they have proven). It was the whole of it: their sad economic situation, the cleverness of the NSDAP's propaganda, the weakness of the Weimar Republik as well as the Diktat of Versailles (as the Germans called it), the profoundly twisted nature of people like Himmler (a failed chicken farmer) the readiness of the German population to fully participate in such a mess by denouncing people who did not agree (heard that on a documentary by a former Gestapo secretary) and one brilliant orator who made the whole thing the sad pinnacle of a brilliant culture. In the face of that, Hitler is a speck. I say it again, had he been in the UK, he had been lynched on the streets in the East End, but he was not in the UK. Sure, brand Hitler evil, but that way he becomes the whole constructor of this machine, which was not only made by him.

It is not because his regime killed 6 million people and that he is ultimately responsible that he is solely responsible. Other people were as much involved in the very design of the machine as he himself. He was their inspiration, indeed, as he was for Goebbels - I don't know what he promised the man, but Goebbels abandoned his reaching out to the socialists in one night after meeting Hitler and stayed loyal to the very end -, but it is impossible to state that he was the sole creator of it. Indeed, you could not even argue that he was the sole designer of it. Had he not been supported through thick and thin by literally the vast vast majority, none of it would have happened. Military admittedly found his plans ridiculous, but like Goering (who tried to disuade him from attacking Russia I think it was) I would argue they all embraced the campaigns when they saw it was no use, as military men do. After a while some in the military got frustrated but assasination attempts went wrong (would we dare to say because of other more loyal and zealous Nazis?).

So, for you I might seem to go out of my way and bend over backwards to brush things under the carpet, but in fact if you have a little look at the context of it all, the responsibility of one man fades away in the face of the glaring responsibility of everyone who let him get on with it. I say it again, he is responsible, by all means, but by branding him evil, he gets the largest blame where in fact the whole of German society was to blame from the late 19th century onwards. They were aggravated by their WWI defeat, brought on because Germany was on the edge of civil war at that point and the war ended prematurely, although they were set to lose and not to win as the stab in the back myth declared. Do you suppose Hitler stands alone amongst all these facts? 'He was just an evil man'. I will say it again, the world trauma of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany was not that a man like Hitler came to power (which is not unbelievable in itself seeing the prevailance of dictators all through history), the trauma was that the German people let him and supported him all through the war. And even that some of them like the SS knew about what they were doing mainly in Poland (another mark of their disdain for Poland and its people) and that they either did not believe them or did not care. That the human race is capable of actually entertaining the thought of exterminating a race of 'other' people is disturbing. Not the dictator by himself. And it was not a dictator who designed the system of extermination it was the vile system that allowed and endorsed it. Sure, he delivered the ideas for it, which he took from others, but by calling Hitler evil, you take away from that glaring responsibility in favour of a simplistic denomination that endorses to forget how it happened. Only by acknowledging how this happened can we resolve this in the future and it is all too evident we have not done that yet.

This whole post is riddled with straw men and logical blunders. I asked a world war 2 expert yesterday whether the holocaust would have happened if Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels had never existed and he said that yes it would have nonetheless taken place. But that doesn't make those men not evil. You have a weak and warped grasp of morality and of the concept of evil. It doesn't matter that they were not solely responsible. They were largely responsible for occurrences of a starkly evil nature. This whole post would have come in handy for those Nazis tried at Nuremburg. You'd make a good defense lawyer in the international criminal court. And you simply ignore the hard questions I pose to you, such as whether you'd try to convince a Jew doing a walk of death into the gas-chamber that the men who ordered him or her there weren't evil, or whether someone who slowly tortured and raped and then killed your own mother over the course of a week would not be an evil person.

You say "Hitler was a speck." No he wasn't! He was the fuhrer. All swore an oath to him. He had full dictatorial powers for over ten years. On his order and against the stern misgivings on the part of the military he ordered the invasion of France. A saner fuhrer may not have ordered six million innocents put to death, may not have invaded western europe, may have surrendered before letting his country and his people get blown to smithereens. There is a false historical perspective which accounts for the tide of history in the great pull of great men, the Alexanders and Caesars and Napoleons. Then there is one no less false which attributes causation solely to circumstances, divesting generals and statesmen and thinkers and artists of their rightfully warranted responsibility and glory. You adhere to the latter error.

[cafolini]

This whole post is riddled with straw men and logical blunders. I asked a world war 2 expert yesterday whether the holocaust would have happened if Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels had never existed and he said that yes it would have nonetheless taken place. But that doesn't make those men not evil. You have a weak and warped grasp of morality and of the concept of evil. It doesn't matter that they were not solely responsible. They were largely responsible for occurrences of a starkly evil nature. This whole post would have come in handy for those Nazis tried at Nuremburg. You'd make a good defense lawyer in the international criminal court. And you simply ignore the hard questions I pose to you, such as whether you'd try to convince a Jew doing a walk of death into the gas-chamber that the men who ordered him or her there weren't evil, or whether someone who slowly tortured and raped and then killed your own mother over the course of a week would not be an evil person.

You say "Hitler was a speck." No he wasn't! He was the fuhrer. All swore an oath to him. He had full dictatorial powers for over ten years. On his order and against the stern misgivings on the part of the military he ordered the invasion of France. A saner fuhrer may not have ordered six million innocents put to death, may not have invaded western europe, may have surrendered before letting his country and his people get blown to smithereens. There is a false historical perspective which accounts for the tide of history in the great pull of great men, the Alexanders and Caesars and Napoleons. Then there is one no less false which attributes causation solely to circumstances, divesting generals and statesmen and thinkers and artists of their rightfully warranted responsibility and glory. You adhere to the latter error.

I agree with this one. Very well put. I also often say that events are strictly circumstantial, but part of the circumstances are definitely those generals and statesmen that must judge and execute according to circumstances. Good points.

[kiki1982]

This whole post is riddled with straw men and logical blunders. I asked a world war 2 expert yesterday whether the holocaust would have happened if Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels had never existed and he said that yes it would have nonetheless taken place. But that doesn't make those men not evil. You have a weak and warped grasp of morality and of the concept of evil. It doesn't matter that they were not solely responsible. They were largely responsible for occurrences of a starkly evil nature. This whole post would have come in handy for those Nazis tried at Nuremburg. You'd make a good defense lawyer in the international criminal court. And you simply ignore the hard questions I pose to you, such as whether you'd try to convince a Jew doing a walk of death into the gas-chamber that the men who ordered him or her there weren't evil, or whether someone who slowly tortured and raped and then killed your own mother over the course of a week would not be an evil person.

You say "Hitler was a speck." No he wasn't! He was the fuhrer. All swore an oath to him. He had full dictatorial powers for over ten years. On his order and against the stern misgivings on the part of the military he ordered the invasion of France. A saner fuhrer may not have ordered six million innocents put to death, may not have invaded western europe, may have surrendered before letting his country and his people get blown to smithereens. There is a false historical perspective which accounts for the tide of history in the great pull of great men, the Alexanders and Caesars and Napoleons. Then there is one no less false which attributes causation solely to circumstances, divesting generals and statesmen and thinkers and artists of their rightfully warranted responsibility and glory. You adhere to the latter error.

If you want to continue this, then fine by me, but you still don't seem to get what I am trying to say.
I never ever in this thread, nor anywhere else, have dared to claim that they were not respnsible and should not have been punished or did not deserve their lots (in Hitler's and Goebbels's cases). Where you and anyone else gets it from that I have at all defended these people, I have ceased to try and find. The only thing I have tried to do, but which people deliberately misunderstand (apart from a few), is to put it in context AND to add a context to the Holocaust. It does not make it less bad, it only provides you with more than 'Hitler ordered it and he is evil, nah.' The constructing of that process was not a goal from the start, although it was the inevitabe result of the process up till then. That is ackowledged by historians: the idea to exterminate the Jews developed gradually and was not the idea of one man on his own, not even only of the trinity I could call them. Indeed, it was delegated down from Hitler to Goering round about 1940 and then from him to Rheinhardt (?) and then to Eichmann who organised the thing. Eichmann was asked simply because of his good organisational skills. Goering never admitted he actually knew about it and claimed the letter he wrote to Reinhardt (which I have read and which indeed does not mention 'killing' or 'extermination' in any way) was relative to 'emigration' and deportation to further away areas. A bit like the Russians dd with the Tatars. Atlhough it is hard to believe he could not have known. Although what should he have done to stop it if he knew? Be it as it may, ultimately he was responsible so he was punished and committed suice before they could hang him.
You fail to see what is staring you in the face: that these people were maybe made of bad and mad ideas, but that they were in no way the same as your average murderer or serial killer.

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.

As the Führer, 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.

I do not put everything down to history, however, I regard branding these people 'evil' simplistic and totally void of any pragmatism. and before you go off on one, no, not pragmatism as to their ideas, pragmatism as to how one could get such mad ideas in one's head in the first place.

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. Again, the US military told the small band of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto who were resisting
its evacuation out of fear for what might happen next, that surely what they were saying about camps where people got killed by hundred or thousands a day, that surely that was cowboys and indians. If they did not believe it until they actually saw it, the piles and wagons of bodies stacked on top of each other outside the crematoria, what was the chance that anyone else did? Did all those people at the conference in 1942 actually believe it themselves, I wonder? The two women who were filmed in the museum in Nuremberg said they heard of a man who drove trucks in Chelmno (I believe), where they essentially crammed people in the back of a truck and then pumped CO2 in it until they were all dead, I believe. That method was abandoned because it ws not efficient enough and I think too expensive. The man was so troubled that he talked of bodies in the back of trucks and people screaming behind him. They said they thought he was surely mad and none of those stories were true. That is how people thought.

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.

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.

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.

If he were solely responsible, he was surely a man of his time.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

How is this still going?