I disagree.
Was Hitler actually evil?
- Thread starter crookeddy
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I disagree.
I disagree.
Name one person.
Mother Teresa?
I question Slate's objectivity. 
I disagree.
This is why labeling people as "good" and "evil" is a tremendous waste of time. It might make some of us feel morally superior or comfortable, but it accomplishes nothing.
There is nothing objective about concepts like "good" and "evil," and it dumbs down arguments to approach them that way.
Hitler did a lot of things that the vast majority of human beings consider objectionable--he ordered the deaths of millions of people, he instigated wars of aggression, he plundered from within his own population. By all accounts, he is no kind of role model and not someone anybody should endeavor to emulate. We should never forget what he did and why, or the consequences of his actions. To simply apply a label to him, to call him "evil," only diminishes the scale of his crimes, and assigns his actions to some external, mystical force.
Once you do that, it's easy to look at yourself and say, "I could never do anything like that, because I'm not an evil person." Well, anyone could do those things. We're all human. We need to be aware of history and aware of our own thoughts and not simply assume ourselves immune to such influences.
I question Slate's objectivity.
They're hardly the first or only to question her near-deification.
^ I meant in general.
Hitler was evil but so was Stalin.
See; this is where my utterly shit knowledge of history comes into play, since I didn't know he did that (I was aware of concentration camps for Jews and people wit birth defects, but that was about it). I was just taking a cheap shot at Jehovah's Witnesses. Sorry.
But as we keep pointing out, such casual acceptance and dismissal gets us nowhere. Without an attempt to understand the complexities of the situation, there's nothing to stop such unfortunate events from occurring again. It's a refusal to accept social responsibility- a quick "well, they're evil, the end" that sees us wiping our hands of any responsibility to police our own societies. We all share a responsibility to our societies- if we insist we don't, why are we in those societies taking advantage of them?
I disagree.
That's a good way to deny that person any responsibility, and is very dangerous. "This person is good, entirely, in eveything they do" is one of the biggest evils imaginable.
No one is completely good.
I disagree.
This is why labeling people as "good" and "evil" is a tremendous waste of time. It might make some of us feel morally superior or comfortable, but it accomplishes nothing.
There is nothing objective about concepts like "good" and "evil," and it dumbs down arguments to approach them that way.
Hitler did a lot of things that the vast majority of human beings consider objectionable--he ordered the deaths of millions of people, he instigated wars of aggression, he plundered from within his own population. By all accounts, he is no kind of role model and not someone anybody should endeavor to emulate. We should never forget what he did and why, or the consequences of his actions.
Indeed. As I said in my first post, we can label actions as "evil" or "good", and people through those actions, but not actual people due to the subjectivity of it all. There are many things I consider "evil" that a great many of my peers are fine with, and probably vice versa. That's why in my first post I called Hitler "a man of evil" rather than "an evil man"; a man whose actions are, in my mind, evil to the point where it cloaks him and he must be related to on those terms.
"In general" does not equal "completely."
How could you possibly know if she was completely good? I mean, I have issues with even what is generally known of her, but what about the rest? Everyone has a dark side.
One group of people Hitler really, really hated was pacifists in general. And the Jehovah's Witnesses firmly refused to fight in his war and also to pledge allegiance to him, and often also to greet with "heil hitler".
The behaviour of the German Jehovah's Witnesses during the Nazi regime is actually really remarkable and admirable, regardless of what you might think of them otherwise. You could almost describe them as a resistance group, and they paid a heavy price for their principles.
[they were also the only group of political prisoners in the KZs that was marked with a special colour]
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