
A Historian Who Fled the Nazis and Still Wants Us to Read Hitler - lermontov
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-historian-who-fled-the-nazis-and-still-wants-us-to-read-hitler
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madaxe_again
I read Mein Kampf a few times as a kid. It's worthwhile - I ended up seeing
hitler as a tragic, broken figure, tormented by his demons, skewed by his
misplaced rage at the Weimar Republic, which lead to a path of destruction for
millions.

Until you understand that anyone can be Hitler, you don't understand.

~~~
afarrell
I started reading Mein Kampf in 8th grade, but I just found the speaker so
whiney and irritating that I lost patience before WWI. I should perhaps go
back to it sometime.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Can't be worse that The Catcher in Rye... Can it?

~~~
sitkack
Mein Kampf mit Jugendlich Alters Angst

~~~
ChristianBundy
Translated: "My battle with Teen Angst"

~~~
zo1
Sorry, down-voted you by accident.

------
imh
> In his introduction to the “Second Book,” which was finally published
> officially in 2003, Weinberg wrote, “Germany and the rest of the world have
> not yet come close to coming to terms with Hitler as a person, as leader of
> a great nation, and as a symbol.”

After each of the recent mass shootings, I've been wondering more and more
about whether we aren't doing anything about it because it's so easy to just
label the shooters as evil, as if they aren't people. It's tough to accept
that real people, with identities and feelings just like you and me, can do
terrible things. Understanding tragedy and history is key to not repeating it.

~~~
madaxe_again
I'll probably maintain for all my days that there is no good or evil, just
acts. Yes, cry "moral relativism!", but morals are social constructs, whether
you like it or not - there is no universal law of morality, even if your name
is Kant.

Hitler thought he was good. Those who followed him thought he was good. In the
narrative and perceptive reality of nazi Germany he _was_ good. My grandmother
waxes lyrical about the wonderful and charismatic Herr Hitler (she's Austrian,
was a hitlerjugendherberge), and listening to her makes oh so clear the dreams
and glory that hitler successfully sold to the very disillusioned masses.

He wasn't evil. He just served a moral code so alien and repulsive to us today
that we write it off as "evil". In fact, at the time, his politics were
aligned with those of the US, UK, and other allied powers - eugenics, fascism,
and antisemitism were rife in all - but it was their expansionist policy which
ultimately led to the branding as evil and ww2.

Don't get me wrong - I'm no apologist - but I do try to understand events from
a contemporaneous and empathic perspective.

~~~
bsder
> I'll probably maintain for all my days that there is no good or evil, just
> acts. Yes, cry "moral relativism!", but morals are social constructs,
> whether you like it or not - there is no universal law of morality, even if
> your name is Kant.

Actually, "do unto others as you would have done unto you" is a pretty damn
near universal law of morality. It doesn't encompass things like when to
punish bad actors, but it covers a huge range of situations that we encounter
every day.

However, what most people never recognize is that _apathy_ is the mechanism
that allows small evils to persist long enough to turn into great evils. Often
even a few individuals standing up at the beginning can thwart a rising tide
that will be impossible to resist once it gets going.

~~~
madaxe_again
It's a reasonable seeming law, yes, just as the categorical imperative is -
but what if your culture says that the more skulls you collect, the better a
person you are? It's easy to define a law in isolation from social pressures
which defy that law. Take the inquisition - by burning hereticks you saved
their souls, and this was therefore good - so do as you would be done by
applies, even if it comprises an auto da fé.

With re: apathy - "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men
do nothing" \- sure, but this still relies on a fixed idea of good and evil,
and that you can recognise "evil" at its inception. The issue there is that
tragic consequences tend to only become apparent in hindsight.

I do personally agree with "do as you would be done by", but you can't apply
it as a universal law without the complete homogenisation of global culture -
and even then folks will develop their own ideas of what constitutes good and
evil.

Ultimately, it's all about societal consensus, which these days (since bernays
in particular) is media led.

~~~
thaw13579
> It's a reasonable seeming law, yes, just as the categorical imperative is -
> but what if your culture says that the more skulls you collect, the better a
> person you are? It's easy to define a law in isolation from social pressures
> which defy that law. Take the inquisition - by burning hereticks you saved
> their souls, and this was therefore good - so do as you would be done by
> applies, even if it comprises an auto da fé.

I think the point is this--if the skull collector became the source of a
skull, or the burner became a heretic, they would probably stop thinking those
were "good" practices (due to the suffering and death and such), so those acts
wouldn't satisfy the "do as you would be done by" rule. Even when those deemed
heretics were part of the culture at the time, it's doubtful they thought "oh
well, I guess this is the right thing to do".

------
Marcomasino
Not another Newyorker article, sorry I can't take anymore, Dave, my mind is
going, I can feel it .. I can feel it .. my mind is going .. there is no
question about it :)

~~~
Marcomasino
And apparently at least one commentator on Hacker News has no sense of humour
:)

And if they don't agree with you, so rather than respond with a refutation
they'll just downvote you instead.

