Nazis and the Nature of Evil

[Darth Wedgius]

That says more about the limitations of your imagination than it does about anything else.

I still don't see it. how can someone like me who has empathy, put myself in the shoes of someone who does not?

I bet most concentration camp guards had empathy for their fellow workers. Did Josef twist his back dragging dead children into mass graves? Poor Josef! Did someone maintaining the crematoria lose a child to disease? That poor man...

To the people in the extermination machine, the people in the camps were "Them," not "Us." I'm not preaching vegetarianism or trying to derail the thread, but do you eat meat? Sure, that's different. But that's the point. Nowadays I think most people are taught that all humans are "Us." But that's not what the Nazis believed. And there's no criteria to objectively decide whom to have empathy for.

Maybe someone 500 years from now will look at what we do to cows and chickens and decide we didn't have empathy. Or they might wonder why right-handers could treat left-handers as people instead of eating them, who knows?

[Yukaphile]

Yeah, it's true. Same with every other evil empire that's existed. Individuals did disgusting, awful things, but they could be kind to a select few. Look at my own father, who just died today. He's a pet killer, rapist, domestic abuser. And yet, I remember him hugging me and being affectionate, very vaguely, so... he wasn't 100% evil. To claim any human is would be a fallacy. I do think at some point your acts carry you over the line, so to speak. Where is no returning, is no redemption, at least not in this life.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I've already said I refuse to believe the notion of selective empathy, you either empathize with all living things or none at all. I eat meat but for various reasons, I see the only thing I can do about the treatment of most livestock is fell bad about it.

and I already talked about H.H. Homes, who was "born with the devil in him" and Jane Topan who was the real life Bad Seed.

[Yukaphile]

To a degree, that's sort of true, but you got men who alongside their buddies would take turns brutalizing civilians just for the sheer fun of it, who'd then pet their horses and coo to them as if they were their babies. I dunno... you just gotta accept one basic tenet of the human race, if you're ever gonna make it on this rollercoaster world of ours - WE ARE ALL FUCKING INSANE. We're messed up psychologically in some form or another, human beings are crazy, and unlike other animals, only we alone can comprehend this. I guess it's why we like to "pretend" we're better than we are.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

To a degree, that's sort of true, but you got men who alongside their buddies would take turns brutalizing civilians just for the sheer fun of it, who'd then pet their horses and coo to them as if they were their babies. I dunno... you just gotta accept one basic tenet of the human race, if you're ever gonna make it on this rollercoaster world of ours - WE ARE ALL FUCKING INSANE. We're messed up psychologically in some form or another, human beings are crazy, and unlike other animals, only we alone can comprehend this. I guess it's why we like to "pretend" we're better than we are.

maybe I have the exact opposite problem as a sociopath, I have far to much empathy but other then that possibility, I still can't see it.

[Yukaphile]

I feel the same. When I see people calling victims monsters, trying to insist those who hurt them are equal victims, in the rare times it's a clearly one-sided black and white morality, well, I just have to wonder what the hell is wrong with people. My heart goes to the VICTIM, not the victimizer.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Well, I can do it easily. Of course, it's probably not very true to the actual reality of a non-empathetic sociopath.

that's exactly my point, I just cannot understand the mindset of a sociopath. someone who hurts others for a perceived greater good but also does not like that he has to hurt others, I can understand but someone who gets off on hurting people like Hitler, I refuse to even call a human being, or even a non-human animal, they are monsters.

The scary thing is that he didn't get off on it. He wasn't a sadist. He was somebody reshaping the world to conform to what he thought it should be. I doubt he took any actual joy in the death of the people he tried to wipe off the face of the earth.

Saying he's not a human, not an animal, just a monster...that's an easy way to distance yourself from him, and his motives.

he may not have enjoyed it but he did not regret his actions either, so, there is little, if any difference.

[Yukaphile]

What about the inverse? A man who sinks to such depraved lows, then feels a twinge of conscience in later life, so he anonymously confesses his tale? This is "crossing the line, you can't come back from this" type stuff. I mean, he's refusing to own up and face judgment, likely because then he'd be publicly branded and reviled for his heinous crimes. In my mind, a real man wouldn't care, and would accept the public backlash as his due. No good ever came from confessing depths of barbarism in an anonymous book.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Well, I can do it easily. Of course, it's probably not very true to the actual reality of a non-empathetic sociopath.

that's exactly my point, I just cannot understand the mindset of a sociopath. someone who hurts others for a perceived greater good but also does not like that he has to hurt others, I can understand but someone who gets off on hurting people like Hitler, I refuse to even call a human being, or even a non-human animal, they are monsters.

The scary thing is that he didn't get off on it. He wasn't a sadist. He was somebody reshaping the world to conform to what he thought it should be. I doubt he took any actual joy in the death of the people he tried to wipe off the face of the earth.

Saying he's not a human, not an animal, just a monster...that's an easy way to distance yourself from him, and his motives.

he may not have enjoyed it but he did not regret his actions either, so, there is little, if any difference.

There is a huge difference between sadism and lack of regret when it comes to understanding why people do bad things and how likely you are to do a bad thing and call it good.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Well, I can do it easily. Of course, it's probably not very true to the actual reality of a non-empathetic sociopath.

that's exactly my point, I just cannot understand the mindset of a sociopath. someone who hurts others for a perceived greater good but also does not like that he has to hurt others, I can understand but someone who gets off on hurting people like Hitler, I refuse to even call a human being, or even a non-human animal, they are monsters.

The scary thing is that he didn't get off on it. He wasn't a sadist. He was somebody reshaping the world to conform to what he thought it should be. I doubt he took any actual joy in the death of the people he tried to wipe off the face of the earth.

Saying he's not a human, not an animal, just a monster...that's an easy way to distance yourself from him, and his motives.

he may not have enjoyed it but he did not regret his actions either, so, there is little, if any difference.

There is a huge difference between sadism and lack of regret when it comes to understanding why people do bad things and how likely you are to do a bad thing and call it good.

still not buying it, I would never, under any circumstances, regard an entire group of people, as evil and deserving of death or torture. so, yes, I cannot have even the tiniest thing in common with Hitler, I'm a human and he, as an individual, was a monster.