Nazis and the Nature of Evil

[Yukaphile]

I have a very clear moral line. I'm not saint, I'm no angel, I'm not even probably a "good" human being, but at the same time, there are limits, lines I won't cross, that others do. Probably why when poparena kicked me out, despite the immense feeling of loss, the intense blow I suffered, I didn't spam him with hate comments or try to sue him. And I care for people left broken by others, by their greed, thoughtlessness, cruelty, and apathy. I care so much, I wish I didn't sometimes. It would make life easier.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think I consider morality with concern more based on what people don't do more often or what not than what they do do. There's obviously concerns each way, but judging regular random people is cumbersome, especially just considered as a task for regular people such as us in a regular happenstance.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

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.

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.

there's a difference between not knowing a dead individual personally who died in an unrelated situation and being responsible, if only indirectly, for someone's death. the latter, is still unfathomably to me.

and I might feel sorry for the terrorist, it depends, was he just a follower indoctrinated into his extreme ideology or was he the leader of the terrorists who was almost certainly a monster using religion as an excuse to kill?

and why does everyone still talk about ideologies and different points of view, there are, in fact, those who do horrible things for no reason other then their own amusement or gain, that's what a sociopath is.

As far as what Madner seemed to be getting at, I do think it's easy to give conviction to Hitler's actions as monstrous. I mean at least as far as your concerns of empathy, there's a difference between pushing a button for $10 million that will execute an unknown person and the vast level of organization that Hitler carried out.

Though the separation aspect isn't for nothing, as it does start to show the limits of empathy as we exhibit it; you can have empathy in one direction without it being applied elsewhere. I think he did touch upon that with a breath. But it's just to assert that empathy isn't an overarching biological programming that informs all our decisions to much the same protocol.

I'm pretty sure empathy is an overarching biological programming, I can't choose to empathize with all other living things, I just do.

[Yukaphile]

Empathy might have layers of degrees. For example, I've heard of serial killers or rapists who still love their pets. Really, psychology can't explain it all, thus people try to put a political slant into all this. I'm much more morally simplistic, and getting tired of human beings making things more complicated than they really are.

[Riedquat]

Not comfortable saying what, but I will tell you this: Political correctness forces people to try and make the criminal side seem to have legitimate reasons.

That's not really political correctness.

Don't confuse understanding the reasons with legitimate reasons. But to understand something you always need to work out why people do what they do. One mistake people often make is to equate an explanation with a justification - I've been accused of trying to justify something someone else has done when all I was actually doing is attempt to explain it. There are lots of people who take a very over-simplified black and white view of the world and get stuck on that.

Another mistake is to criticise without understanding. Certainly on far less serious matters I've had people try to tell me I'm somehow objectively wrong about something and that their position is the rational one. The problem is that it's only rational in the context of their personal values; it usually becomes clear pretty quickly that those people are mentally incapable of grasping that others have a different view of things. Yet without understanding where someone else is coming from, what really matters to them, how can you possibly be so arrogant as to claim absolutely you're right and they're wrong? So I'd say you can't even condemn the truly vile without trying to do that first. Understanding someone else's perspective doesn't mean agreeing with it.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I'm pretty sure empathy is an overarching biological programming, I can't choose to empathize with all other living things, I just do.

That'll be your prerogative, but your own observed experience with yourself isn't necessarily indicative of how empathy works with humans/animals in general.

As Madner (I believe) and I were pointing out, for instance, there are perceived limits to its overall grip on circumstances.

[Jonathan101]

Okay guys- I think we need to clear up some terminology here. You all seem to be confused about what certain terms mean. I actually study all of this stuff so it's getting a bit irksome seeing people argue over subjects I know inside out.

Firstly, there are different types of empathy, which leads to confusion as people define empathy in different ways. There is Cognitive Empathy, Emotional Empathy, Somatic Empathy, Imaginative Empathy etc.

Secondly, empathy is not compassion or sympathy. You can be empathic but uncaring, and you can care without empathising.

Thirdly, some people are naturally more empathic than others, although environment obviously plays a role too.

Fourthly, everyone naturally prefers or is inclined towards particular types of empathy, although empathy can be trained, which leads to more confusion between people.

Fifthly, lacking empathy alone does not make you a sociopath or a psychopath or whatever.

And sixthly, sociopath and psychopath also have multiple different meanings and definitions, depending on which system you are using or which psychologists you are listening to, which in turn means that whether or not either is capable of empathy or to what degree varys a lot. The terms are not just synonymous with evil and being evil doesn't automatically mean you are either one of them or vice-versa.

As far as Nazism specifically goes, their psychology has been studied for decades and you'd really be looking at things like paranoia as much as psychopathy to get a proper understanding of it, as well as the history and culture of Germany of course. Most mass movements have paranoid features mind.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Okay guys- I think we need to clear up some terminology here. You all seem to be confused about what certain terms mean. I actually study all of this stuff so it's getting a bit irksome seeing people argue over subjects I know inside out.

I know you were addressing the overall conversation involving several or more people, but this is more or less consistent with what I was getting at; the variable, circumstantial, and highly context-specific nature of it that departs it from a more monolithic biological -- or seemingly enlightened/divine -- programming influencing each and all actions by someone that's considered to have it.

And not to kinda whine or preach to the choir with this, though if there was an overt oversight of mine on the subject then I'm curious. When I looked at the wikipedia before you posted, I didn't feel I was misleading really.

As far as Nazism specifically goes, their psychology has been studied for decades and you'd really be looking at things like paranoia as much as psychopathy to get a proper understanding of it, as well as the history and culture of Germany of course. Most mass movements have paranoid features mind.

It is two sides of the same coin on this, but what about Hitler specifically? I guess you could extend that to other people in power with a certain amount of reigning influence and nefarious directive.

[Jonathan101]

Okay guys- I think we need to clear up some terminology here. You all seem to be confused about what certain terms mean. I actually study all of this stuff so it's getting a bit irksome seeing people argue over subjects I know inside out.

I know you were addressing the overall conversation involving several or more people, but this is more or less consistent with what I was getting at; the variable, circumstantial, and highly context-specific nature of it that departs it from a more monolithic biological -- and seemingly enlightened/divine -- programming influencing each and all actions by someone that's considered to have it.

And not to kinda whine or preach to the choir with this, though if there was an overt oversight of mine on the subject then I'm curious. When I looked at the wikipedia before you posted, I didn't feel I was misleading really.

As far as Nazism specifically goes, their psychology has been studied for decades and you'd really be looking at things like paranoia as much as psychopathy to get a proper understanding of it, as well as the history and culture of Germany of course. Most mass movements have paranoid features mind.

It is two sides of the same coin on this, but what about Hitler specifically? I guess you could extend that to other people in power with a certain amount of reigning influence and nefarious directives.

Hitlers' psychology has been debated, but he probably had Paranoid Personality Disorder with Anti-Social and Depressive features.

I'm defining Personality Disorder in a particular way here- everyone can be said to have two or three personality "styles", which you are more or less born with, and those styles exist on a spectrum of healthy to neurotic to psychotic, with personality disorders being in the "highly neurotic to psychotic" end of said spectrum. The styles are sometimes given different names when it comes to the healthier side of things to distinguish them though.

Other people would define PD in a more "prescriptive" way, i.e. "here is a list of criteria- if they meet this, they have it, and if they don't they don't have it", but that sits at odds with what neuroscience and genetics say, and regardless Hitler easily fits PPD and ASPD prescriptively anyway.

In other words, obviously his crappy childhood played a big part in who he became, but it's not like anyone who had his experiences would turn into Hitler.

I would also say that there are plenty of die-hard Anti-Nazis who share the same or similar personality to Hitler himself; in fact this sort of personality is drawn to extremism in general because they are emotionally intense and like to express themselves, and dislike moderation. Hitler also wrote up the Nazi programme and defined it's direction, so that is part of the explanation as well...but yeah, aside from his artistic side, there were probably lots of Nazi thugs who had similar personalities to him.

Goring, Stalin, Mussolini and others were more straight-up sociopaths, although that isn't quite the same as psychopath and it doesn't mean they didn't have ideological beliefs per say. You can see the differences in, for example, they way they dealt with anger- Hitler easily got himself angry, both because he was very reactive but also sometimes for affect, and he could fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, shout and scream at you, and sometimes really mean it...and sometimes he'd go into the next room and laugh about it because he was just acting; he did this to generals and foreign dignitaries.


Sociopaths are comfortable with anger, but they don't like to lose their temper easily, and like to stay in control- contrast Stalin who, if you made him angry, said things like "you shouldn't have said that", and then signed your death warrant...although, that was as much due to the environment he operated in / created as much as his personality.

Another difference is that sociopaths don't like to subordinate themselves to anyone and tend to regard themselves as at the very least the equal of whoever they are in the room with, while Hitler- like a true Paranoid- had more of a love / hate relationship with authority and was more ready to subordinate himself to people he thought deserved it, such as treating Mussolini as his Fascist "big brother" of sorts when he came to visit.

Guys like Himmler and Goebbels seemed to be more Compulsive-Paranoids, meaning more rule-oriented and obedient to authority.

Rambling a bit, but that's a starting point. The stuff I'm talking about is also more like "aspects" of your personality rather than the whole picture too- traits like paranoia and sociopaths are more to do with motivation and emotion, while the different styles of empathy are more about cognition- the way your heart works vs the way your brain works, to be poetic.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Sociopaths are comfortable with anger, but they don't like to lose their temper easily, and like to stay in control- contrast Stalin who, if you made him angry, said things like "you shouldn't have said that", and then signed your death warrant...although, that was as much due to the environment he operated in / created as much as his personality.

Well it is pretty cold in Russia, as far as I'm aware.

Other people would define PD in a more "perspective" way, i.e. "here is a list of criteria- if they meet this, they have it, and if they don't they don't have it", but that sits at odds with what neuroscience and genetics say, and regardless Hitler easily fits PPD and ASPD prescriptively anyway.

Well in that case, I will defer to the hard sciences on the matter if I may until further notice, thank you very much.

Just kidding. Really great read. Thank you.