Nazis and the Nature of Evil

[Dragon Ball Fan]

@Dragon Ball Fan Did you know, again, I'll cite this to you specifically, the Soviet soldiers, when they weren't drinking, taking turns in trains raping women and girls, and just generally stealing whatever they could, would pet their horses, coo to them, and showed them a lot more respect than they did to the lives they left permanently ruined? Serial rapists/killers in today's society have pets they adore to death, yet treat humans like trash, or meat, or slime, or shit. It's not uncommon, dude, for evil people, even sickeningly evil people who have crossed the line so far they've gone into another galaxy, to have redeeming qualities. That's human nature.

no, I'm sorry but even after everything you guys have said, I just cannot accept that. the idea of selective kindness or not showing other humans/living things respect is alien to me.

[Yukaphile]

Human beings have that kind of an alien disconnect from one another, from the individual level to the collective level to how we treat other species.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

Human beings have that kind of an alien disconnect from one another, from the individual level to the collective level to how we treat other species.

not how I or those close to me do it.

[Yukaphile]

If it helps, certain schools of psychology agree with you, thinking our society in recent times has been slowly being divided between the psychopath human and the normal people. Or something like that.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Again, this is the most low of hanging fruit subject for the topic of immorality.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I just still can't wrap my head around it. but also, I take back describing the Albert Fish murder in cartoon villain ways, I should have said something like he described the murder in sickening detail and appeared to be both proud and aroused by it.

[Yukaphile]

Well, there is something similar on TV Tropes. "Good Cannot Comprehend Evil" and "Evil Cannot Comprehend Good." SF Debris has discussed this at length as to the disconnect of human brain functions. He brought up vore, how much it disgusts him, and how he could never understand that mindset. He doesn't pass judgment on it, but he doesn't understand it. And I can relate, and this is a voraphile saying that. In that instance, true empathy is impossible. He said "you might as well be from different planets." I think it's less "good versus evil" and more having a hard time understanding radically opposed mindsets past the similarities we all share. Also, it's been said for criminal investigations to catch a criminal, you gotta get inside his head, think like him, and thus you need to have a little larceny in you. Maybe it's just harder for you because you're a lot nicer than I am. See, I can get into a criminal's head because I've been tempted to do evil, even for the right reasons, but I never do. Does that help?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I just still can't wrap my head around it. but also, I take back describing the Albert Fish murder in cartoon villain ways, I should have said something like he described the murder in sickening detail and appeared to be both proud and aroused by it.

You're fixating on the morality of it quite a bit (not to come down on you really, just continuing my issue with this topic)... but to me it's just a matter of objectification. Very widespread and common and downright pathological with a lot of people. It's more rare to be someone that emphasizes sympathy than to be a normal person that has a history of objectifying someone to a considerable degree. The sadism aside, Hitler is historically the worst person we consider on that spectrum, albeit with a lot of respect to the context. We don't measure his actions indiscriminately though, we look at him with the lens of oppression as it applies to all known socially dynamic landscapes.

[Yukaphile]

I dunno, a lot of people like to sympathize with these past monsters, and demonize their victims. It still happens today. That's mostly political, sure, but at the same time, I've seen it happen.

[Mecha82]

I just still can't wrap my head around it. but also, I take back describing the Albert Fish murder in cartoon villain ways, I should have said something like he described the murder in sickening detail and appeared to be both proud and aroused by it.

You're fixating on the morality of it quite a bit (not to come down on you really, just continuing my issue with this topic)... but to me it's just a matter of objectification. Very widespread and common and downright pathological with a lot of people. It's more rare to be someone that emphasizes sympathy than to be a normal person that has a history of objectifying someone to a considerable degree. The sadism aside, Hitler is historically the worst person we consider on that spectrum, albeit with a lot of respect to the context. We don't measure his actions indiscriminately though, we look at him with the lens of oppression as it applies to all known socially dynamic landscapes.

It's really interesting that we consider Hitler to be worst person in history over every other historical person who is also considered "evil". Maybe it's because Hitler lived during 20th century and during his reign he and other Nazis were horrible people as well as had started WWII. So that it's still relatively recent with there still being some people alive that were already around back then as well that time being well known to even those of us that had been born decades later and even to Americans that usually only care about they own country's history thanks to them having had major part to play and Hollywood still making movies about that time. Then again Stalin was also equally bad but we don't regard him as bad as Hitler because he was on side of winners with his Soviet Union having had played major part in ending WWII destroying Hitler's Third Reich.