it's almost as if pure evil caricatures are extremely rare in history. That everyone that has ever done something great, good or bad, has done it for a multitude of nuanced reasons. it's almost as if looking at history through the lens of purely good or evil is pointless; that the real lessons are in understanding the true reasons why people did what they did, from every angle, and judging them after you know the facts.
Luckily the facts on Hitler are insurmountable and obvious. Turns out, like with Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Ivan The Terrible, and others; he was absolutely one of those pure evil characters that are rare in history.
"But you don't understand. Mao didn't know about the killings! Overall, he did more good than bad! His ideas were good, but things just didn't work out!" Nope, fuck all of those shithead apologetics.
Hitler was a dumbass, and the war he initiated combined with his brutally authoritarian policies in the homeland definitely makes him one of the great assholes and losers of History, but I think you missed the point of my comment.
it's very important to focus on the "why" of History. In the case of Hitler, he was voted into power by a populace that was tired of being absolutely fucked by the politics of the Great War aftermath, fucked by the banks inflating their currency into oblivion, and fucked by rampant degeneracy in their major cities (sound familiar?). To my knowledge, his initial actions improved Germany immensely, enough for him to be praised by foreign leaders and propaganda rags like Time Magazine. But he got too zealous. where he was initially trying to catch the economic saboteurs and kid fuckers, he was soon catching all dissidents to the state, all jews, and all gays. 99.9% of the people he rounded up were not a threat to Germany or the German populace. Combine that with him making military enemies out of Europe and Russia simultaneously, and he ended up fucking Germany worse than when he had inherited it.
The narrow-minded view of good versus evil really only exists in Hollywood and Religion. people who view history in this lens are very prone to the crusader's fallacy, where they will be the ones committing the atrocities while believing that they are the good guys this time.
it's almost as if pure evil caricatures are extremely rare in history. That everyone that has ever done something great, good or bad, has done it for a multitude of nuanced reasons. it's almost as if looking at history through the lens of purely good or evil is pointless; that the real lessons are in understanding the true reasons why people did what they did, from every angle, and judging them after you know the facts.
Luckily the facts on Hitler are insurmountable and obvious. Turns out, like with Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Ivan The Terrible, and others; he was absolutely one of those pure evil characters that are rare in history.
"But you don't understand. Mao didn't know about the killings! Overall, he did more good than bad! His ideas were good, but things just didn't work out!" Nope, fuck all of those shithead apologetics.
Hitler was a dumbass, and the war he initiated combined with his brutally authoritarian policies in the homeland definitely makes him one of the great assholes and losers of History, but I think you missed the point of my comment.
it's very important to focus on the "why" of History. In the case of Hitler, he was voted into power by a populace that was tired of being absolutely fucked by the politics of the Great War aftermath, fucked by the banks inflating their currency into oblivion, and fucked by rampant degeneracy in their major cities (sound familiar?). To my knowledge, his initial actions improved Germany immensely, enough for him to be praised by foreign leaders and propaganda rags like Time Magazine. But he got too zealous. where he was initially trying to catch the economic saboteurs and kid fuckers, he was soon catching all dissidents to the state, all jews, and all gays. 99.9% of the people he rounded up were not a threat to Germany or the German populace. Combine that with him making military enemies out of Europe and Russia simultaneously, and he ended up fucking Germany worse than when he had inherited it.
The narrow-minded view of good versus evil really only exists in Hollywood and Religion. people who view history in this lens are very prone to the crusader's fallacy, where they will be the ones committing the atrocities while believing that they are the good guys this time.
Understatement of the year.