Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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Madner Kami
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

Post by Madner Kami »

Dragon Ball Fan wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:53 pmmost people may not have much problem killing household pests but they still have empathy to all other humans and maybe most other living things. the only way Hitler's actions make any sense to me is that he was a sociopath who completely lacked empathy, empathy doesn't care about ideology, so if he had empathy, his ideology saying the Jewish weren't people wouldn't matter.
Your failing is looking at it from your own perspective. He had a different one. It is obvious that arguing that a group of people should be killed is easier than doing it. However, when does the later stop being a concern? I'd argue that for your average non-psychopathic human being, it is a question of degrees of seperation. You do care for your family, your neighbours and co-workers and friends, but what about the person two cities away, that just got run over by a car the moment you finished reading this sentence? Or the thousands of other people that just died to a traffic accident somewhere in your country? Does that phase you at all? Statistically, someone dies to a traffic accident roughly every 13 minutes in the US (for Germany that number is one death every 2h 37m, for the UK it is 1 death every 4h 20m). Now that I pointed your concious thought onto them, you certainly feel a vague sorryness for them, but I needed to take away a degree of seperation in order for you to have any feeling about them at all in the first place.

Now think about a group of people you hate. Some islamic terrorist in Nowherestan. I just pointed your conciousness to him dying, but do you even care in this instance? Despite his terrible ideology, he's the son of a loving mother, who now sits in her run-down house, alone, crying, not being able to comprehend how he died for something truely stupid despite her having done what she thought would be the best for him? How does that make you feel?

Do you see what I mean? Hitler never killed anyone. Even in World War I, where he was a soldier, he never killed anyone to our knowledge, thanks to him being a regimental dispatch runner. He never interacted with the people he wanted dead and we know for fact that even in cases where he knew the person being killed, like Ernst Röhm (head of the SA), he relegated as far away from him as possible. Hitler hated jews, hated communists, hated slavs and in his mind, those are the people who actively tried to destroy what he thought of as one of, if not the most important things in his life, his nation. This distance made it easy for him, allowed him to sleep at night and i have absolutely no doubt that, if you had just a normal conversation with Hitler (which did not go into anything he had any strong negative feelings about), you'd get along with him just fine. From all we know, he was a very personable chap in his private life, who loved his dogs to the max. Declaring him to be mentally unsound or sick, makes it easy to dismiss the case that evil creeps in bit by bit.
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Yukaphile
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

Post by Yukaphile »

Maybe evil is the wrong word, but cruel, heartless, joyless, sadistic monsters? That's still relevant today, and I see people act as if they're not. Look at how they defended that YouTube HQ shooter by claiming she was mentally ill? I've SEEN my close friends do this!
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Mecha82
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: Fri May 31, 2019 12:13 am
Dragon Ball Fan wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:53 pm
BridgeConsoleMasher wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:31 pm
Dragon Ball Fan wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 9:29 pm
Riedquat wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 8:37 pm
Dragon Ball Fan wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 6:53 pm and to clarify more, I can also see how someone can be molded by circumstance into being something like a psychopath but not really, like a horrible life or indoctrination into a bad ideology but those individuals' sense of empathy would still show in some form and I still don't buy that those like Hiter, who were at the top and couldn't even make an argument of just doing what he had to, had any good in them.
No-one is that one-dimensional. It's tempting to claim that the most unpleasant people can't have anything in common with us but I very much doubt it's ever true. For example, you seem to have a very negative view towards Hitler (I'd be rather worried about anyone who didn't!) So you've got some of the emotions he must've had, just applied to a different person...
I still don't believe that, my sense of empathy is so strong, I do not even want to kill flies, how would it ever be possible I could do anything remotely like what Hitler did?
But that's a peculiar bar to set. Normal people kill flies and we don't necessarily start having considerations of "bad" at that point. Maybe if they're like Sid from Toy Story, but what does not killing flies have to do with Hitler?
most people may not have much problem killing household pests but they still have empathy to all other humans and maybe most other living things. the only way Hitler's actions make any sense to me is that he was a sociopath who completely lacked empathy, empathy doesn't care about ideology, so if he had empathy, his ideology saying the Jewish weren't people wouldn't matter.
Well I think I see your picture a little better now.

Lack of empathy isn't really a bizarre condition in my opinion. I wouldn't say you're necessarily wrong about Hitler being a person that was devoid of it, but assessment of empathy isn't a very good lens to gauge where someone like that goes wrong.
I agree. Lot of people lack empathy and at least seem to lack it these days with more and more people being horrible towards other humans and being selfish and it's being easier to notice during this modern age of technology.

There are lot of people that are horrible to others thanks to being able to hide behind anonymity on internet when they wouldn't dare to say or do those things IRL while thinking that it's they right because most of time they get away from it. If they happen to be punished from it they then cry about it and think they are victims while using free speech as shield when free speech doesn't give them right to say or do what ever they want to others.
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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And you can't even treat victims as victims anymore, or monsters as monsters. I get it, they're human beings, they're no different than you or I, they came from the same womb, but... there is a limit to how far you can take this!
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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Yukaphile wrote: Fri May 31, 2019 12:39 am And you can't even treat victims as victims anymore, or monsters as monsters. I get it, they're human beings, they're no different than you or I, they came from the same womb, but... there is a limit to how far you can take this!
Way I see it those people are still responsible from they own actions because while they might have some condition they are still making those choices so instead ones that you should feel sorry for are they families and loved ones as well as victims and they families and loved ones. Of course some times they act based on some one else's influence and in that case that person who made them do that is also responsible. Some times even more so when talking about people like terrorist leaders or cult leaders that are using those people for they own ends. But I am not expert on this matter or anything so this is just my opinion.
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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I'm talking more direct evils. The deliberate unarmed killing of an innocent, sexual abuse, torture, etc... the REALLY hardcore crimes.
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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Well to be honest I don't see why it wouldn't apply to those cases as well. After all no matter what is case those people are still responsible from they horrible actions regardless to they have some condition or not while those that told them to do it are also responsible from it. I might not know much about Nazi war crime trials after WWII but I am sure they used that same principle when going after Nazi war criminals with both people that gave orders and people that executed those orders were on trial.
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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Too bad they didn't extend that to all the Nazis that were convenient to help us fight the Soviets, or the men under their own command who saw it as an opportunity to exploit the conflict for personal gain.
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

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The Nuremburg trials were a joke. A "feel-good" gesture, that's ALL. Too many who were guilty got away scot-free. There were millions of them.
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Re: Nazis and the Nature of Evil

Post by BridgeConsoleMasher »

Yukaphile wrote: Fri May 31, 2019 12:39 am And you can't even treat victims as victims anymore, or monsters as monsters. I get it, they're human beings, they're no different than you or I, they came from the same womb, but... there is a limit to how far you can take this!
Can you elaborate on this please?

What are you meaning by, for instance, me or anyone, being unable to treat someone as a victim or a monster?
..What mirror universe?
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