Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 5,578 - 5,589 of 6,170
hits you the wrong way That's what I love about the Forge, folks are very nice. I don't think I have ever been rubbed the wrong way.
someone is simple enough to pop up and be pure evil I think the Hitlers, Pappa Doc's, and the Pol Pots fit the "pure evil" label quite nicely.
Posts 5,578 - 5,589 of 6,170
Prob "I think the Hitlers, Pappa Doc's, and the Pol Pots fit the "pure evil" label quite nicely."
Maybe. I think it was Simone deBeavoir who wondered if Ava ever saw Hitler sleeping and thought how child like and sweet he really was. Also I am sure Hilter's Mom had memories of a time he was kind, a time he helped out--something she really loved him for (though most mothers do not need reasons). If you look hard enough, there is something human in everyone. It doesn't excuse the evil done or tolerated, it just muddies the water a bit.
Consider the story of a struggling 18 year old artist who is devastated to find out his mother has breast cancer. She is operated on, but it is too late. They keep trying to treat the cancer, but it does not go well. The torn artist forces himself to leave his dying mother to take entrance exams for Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but he fails. He hides his failure from his mother to stay by her side as she dies, cooking for her, washing her and even cleaning the house while she slowly rots away despite his best efforts. That Christmas she dies and he is inconsolable. After he settles her bills he can no longer cope and he eventually wanders the streets and sleeps on park benches. He is saved not by human kindness, but by forming a political ideology that later manifests as "pure evil".
Does the love of a son for his mother make Hitler less of a monster? Hell no. But he was human. He loved as much as you and I. As you said, if some killed baby Hitler, it's possible someone else would have done the same things or worse. I hate the evil acts, and in my smallness, those who do them. However, I know the acts are not the full essence of the person doing them, and if circumstances were otherwise, it is possible I would be as evil in my own way.
Maybe. I think it was Simone deBeavoir who wondered if Ava ever saw Hitler sleeping and thought how child like and sweet he really was. Also I am sure Hilter's Mom had memories of a time he was kind, a time he helped out--something she really loved him for (though most mothers do not need reasons). If you look hard enough, there is something human in everyone. It doesn't excuse the evil done or tolerated, it just muddies the water a bit.
Consider the story of a struggling 18 year old artist who is devastated to find out his mother has breast cancer. She is operated on, but it is too late. They keep trying to treat the cancer, but it does not go well. The torn artist forces himself to leave his dying mother to take entrance exams for Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but he fails. He hides his failure from his mother to stay by her side as she dies, cooking for her, washing her and even cleaning the house while she slowly rots away despite his best efforts. That Christmas she dies and he is inconsolable. After he settles her bills he can no longer cope and he eventually wanders the streets and sleeps on park benches. He is saved not by human kindness, but by forming a political ideology that later manifests as "pure evil".
Does the love of a son for his mother make Hitler less of a monster? Hell no. But he was human. He loved as much as you and I. As you said, if some killed baby Hitler, it's possible someone else would have done the same things or worse. I hate the evil acts, and in my smallness, those who do them. However, I know the acts are not the full essence of the person doing them, and if circumstances were otherwise, it is possible I would be as evil in my own way.
Interzone, I can see how nationality or ethnicity would be a bigger issue in the EU. However, there are certainly also cases of historical patterns of discrimination against certain religious groups (especially with Muslims in Croatia, no?). How would you gather data on how many Muslims, Christians, Jews or whatever there are in a a given area, school, or career path without making people identify a religion?
Bev:
No doubt Hitler was not entirely evil; it is even possible, that he was a good person who was radically misguided.
Perhaps it is not people who are fundamentally evil, but actions. For a person in full possession of his faculties to torture a baby just for the fun of it would be evil, I should think.
People might be more or less evil insofar as they tend to commit evil actions.
No doubt Hitler was not entirely evil; it is even possible, that he was a good person who was radically misguided.
Perhaps it is not people who are fundamentally evil, but actions. For a person in full possession of his faculties to torture a baby just for the fun of it would be evil, I should think.
People might be more or less evil insofar as they tend to commit evil actions.
So one who commits great good and great evil in equal measures is not better or worse than the average Joe? And what role does intent and outcome play in the analysis?
Great evil tends to negate any good. The fact that Hitler gave us the Volkswagen doesn't make up for the dead millions.
That reminds me of an old joke about a Scottish sheep herder that is inappropriate here, but it involves building a bridge and not being called "The bridge builder" and but after one questionable act, being named that for life.
So Prob, are you one to judge by net results then?
So Prob, are you one to judge by net results then?
Not net results, but anything like millions of innocent lives makes me discount a few nice words here and there. A person like Hitler, Pol Pot, and Poppa Doc were capable of such horrors makes me discount any warm fuzzies and insincere. There is a point where deeds are so horrendous that nothing can blot them away.
I look at it more like I'm glad I wasn't Hitler. Maybe I'm a Presbyterian after all . . .
It's just, no, I haven't done anything close to the evil of the Holocaust. But I've done some pretty bad things in my time. I feel sorry for Hitler's victims, but that doesn't keep me from feeling sorry for him. What was eating his soul alive to make him mastermind such a thing?
It's just, no, I haven't done anything close to the evil of the Holocaust. But I've done some pretty bad things in my time. I feel sorry for Hitler's victims, but that doesn't keep me from feeling sorry for him. What was eating his soul alive to make him mastermind such a thing?
Actually there are a few theories. One is that watching his mother die of cancer unhinge what little grasp he had on things for a while, and he emerged not only finding a target to blame, but in his odd way twisting it into a way to try to save his mother substitute (Germany) from what he saw ans a cancer (jews and inferior peoples eating her away and destroying her). By itself a bit of a stretch, but maybe part of the picture.
Yeah, who knows. On a lighter, tangential note, I've always pulled for Hannibal Lecter in those books/movies -- I suspect most people do (my mother doesn't, which shores up my suspicion).
Hannibal never spoke to me, but I fall for vampires and mad scientists in a heartbeat. I guess I was never a food person. Restaurants do nothing for me either.
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