What Makes Hitler Evil?

[Willamena]

What makes Hitler evil? If you don't like the term evil, then what makes Hitler bad? That is to ask, on what grounds do you determine that someone or their actions are evil or bad?

"Good" is beneficial to life, life-forms, or the quality of life. "Bad" is detrimental to same.

Cookies are "good" as the taste is pleasing, which improves the quality of life. Brussel sprouts are "good" for you as they provide nutrition, which maintains the life-form. A man is a "good" person when he does things for his fellow man that benefits him, and subsequently both of them.

Hitler did things that were bad.

Do you judge them by the consequences of their actions? If so, how do you determine those consequences are evil or bad?

See above.

Do you judge them by some absolute standard of morality? If so, how do you know that absolute standard of morality? Is your notion that that standard is absolute based on reason or faith?

I don't know what an "absolute standard of morality" means to you, so I can't say.

Something that is absolute is complete, whole unto itself. That means that if it is right, it is wholly right. I don't think that describes morality. Morality is distinguishing between the right and the wrong in things, sorting through the chaff so it can be weighed.

Given that Hitler did somethings which can be considered evil and somethings which can be considered good, what does it mean to say Hitler was evil or bad? Is that not a shallow judgement?

I don't employ the phrase "evil" in judgement, except in jest. To say Hitler was a bad man is simply to say that he was a man who did bad things.

What is the use or purpose of calling someone evil or bad? What, if anything, does it serve to illuminate?

It has a use as insult, and if done well, it can have a use in psychological warfare. It also has uses in linguistic terrorism, verbal abuse, and the more exotic sexual games. Other than that, I can't think of much use for it.

Is there a better way of looking at Hitler (and others) than to see them as either good or as evil or bad? Do we learn more about people (and how to prevent people from doing evil or bad things) when we pay more attention to what they did, and how they did it, than to the morality of what they did?

No one is inherently good or bad, they just do good or bad things and are judged accordingly.

Morality is a study of "what they did and how they did it" in terms of right and wrong.

 

[McBell]

Oh believe me....there was plenty of knowledge about the killings back then.

Yes there was.
However, there was not very many who knew that Hitler ordered his own troops to attack their own food stores and weapon piles in an attempt to get the public to back laws to "protect" such facilities.

This is only one of hundreds of things that few people back then knew.
Sorry that an honest answer seems to not be what you wanted to hear. :sorry1:

 

[Buttercup]

Sorry that an honest answer seems to not be what you wanted to hear. :sorry1:

Uh, yeah right.

 

[McBell]

Uh, yeah right.

the fact is that I know many things about the holocaust that would be nigh impossible for the vast majority of persons to know back then.

So any answer I would give youwould be based upon said information I would not have had had I been alive then and in such a position.

Thus I do not understand the relevance of your comment: "Oh believe me....there was plenty of knowledge about the killings back then."

 

[Sunstone]

The notion that recognizing Hitler was sick is equivalent to denying his actions were evil is nonsense, unless you believe the absurdity that being mentally or emotionally sick is a justification for doing evil.

 

[doppelganger]

The notion that recognizing Hitler was sick is equivalent to denying his actions were evil is nonsense, unless you believe the absurdity that being mentally or emotionally sick is a justification for doing evil.

And you also have to deal with what was wrong with the millions of people who went along with him. Can a culture be sick? If so, what was the nature of the sickness?

 

[Valjean]

Hitler wasn't sick, and he wasn't evil in the conventional sense. He was an ordinary person who'd picked up some anti-semitic attitudes during his vagabond days in Vienna and some and a militaristic attitude from his service in the Great War.

There were -- and are -- thousands of people with much more radical and hateful ideas than Hitler, real sociopaths and even sadists who would revel in the suffering and destruction of those who vex them.
Hitler was more a strategist, than a tactician. His notions of Aryan superiority, military glory and anti-semitism were philosophical positions. It was his lieutenants who translated his abstract ideas into the shocking and unimaginable acts the 3rd reich is infamous for.
Hitler was a wuss. He was shocked by violence -- though quite proficient at suppression and denial. Being in the same room with a real monster like Heydrich could leave him shaken.

The so called "banality of evil" should be a warning to us all. We are, for the most part, blissfully in denial of our essential Natures. Almost all of us are potential Hitlers, but for the lack of fertile ground. There is no essential difference between the german Werhmacht and the American army, for instance. Human Nature is the same everywhere, as is the conditioning necessary to produce a good soldier. Both will follow orders unquestioningly. Both dehumanize the enemy. Both are religious yet able to justify the most barbaric and hateful acts (or worse -- indifferent acts) as righteous and approved of God.

The Milgram experiments ('Eichmann experiments' -- Allport) at Yale and Zimbardo's prison experiments at Stanford should be drilled into every human being from infancy to senescence.
One cannot curb those Natural, innate psychological flaws our species is heir to if we do not recognize them. They should be thrust in our faces so that the atrocities they so easily generate could be recognized in their infancy by those at risk of committing them.

 

[FatMan]

Hitler was far from "an ordinary person". He is the one who developed the plan to promote propoganda, he was the one who developed the tactics that were carried out.

His works reflect that very keenly.

 

[Buttercup]

Hitler wasn't sick, and he wasn't evil in the conventional sense. He was an ordinary person who'd picked up some anti-semitic attitudes during his vagabond days in Vienna and some and a militaristic attitude from his service in the Great War.

I sincerely don't know how you could label Hitler as an ordinary person. If he's an ordinary person, we are in great peril from our neighbors and should run for our lives.

Hitler was thought to have at least one personality disorder, that of Narcissistic Personality Disorder....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
Diagnostic criteria At least five of the following are necessary for a diagnosis:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people
4. requires excessive admiration
5. strong sense of entitlement
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
9. arrogant affect.

Another theory is that Hitler had the symptoms of the advanced stages of syphilis:

"Fritz Redlich, retired Dean of the Yale Department of Psychiatry published "Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet" in 1998. In it, he describes the final stages of general neurosyphilitic paresis:

"... (S)igns and symptoms (include) rapid mental deterioration, psychotic and usually absurdly grandiose behavior..." (p. 231)"

 

[doppelganger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
Diagnostic criteria At least five of the following are necessary for a diagnosis:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people
4. requires excessive admiration
5. strong sense of entitlement
6. takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her
9. arrogant affect.

That describes pretty much every professional politician (and most of the trial lawyers, too).

 

[Buttercup]

That describes pretty much every professional politician (and most of the trial lawyers, too).

Why do you think lawyers have such a negative public image?

For Hitler....you also need to throw in two or three other theorized disorders such as Antisocial, Histrionic and Paranoid Disorders along with his sadistic tendencies, and voila....a monster in the making.

My point is that obviously Hilter was not some normal guy. He may not have been clinically insane, but he certainly had some psychological imbalances.

 

[doppelganger]

Why do you think lawyers have such a negative public image?

And the politicians are usually lawyers as well, so you get a two-fer.

 

[Scuba Pete]

What makes Hitler evil?

Lack of Feathers! But really, the man had lost touch with reality... can you imagine what the right friend or leader could have done in his life? My Scout Master made a huge difference in my life. It's a shame that more people won't share their life and experiences with the youth of today.

 

[Buttercup]

My Scout Master made a huge difference in my life. It's a shame that more people won't share their life and experiences with the youth of today.

Yes, and it's completely obvious the difference he made in your life.

​

 

[logician]

"His motives were purely political and sociological, not religious."

Hitler certainly had religious heroes, however, particularly Martin Luther, a strong anti-semite.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Was Luther an anti-semite? Can you substantiate this? I am quite interested.

 

[robtex]

Was Luther an anti-semite? Can you substantiate this? I am quite interested.

Luther wrote a book called "On the Jews and their lies" links below. Hitler was a fan of Luther seeing him as a fellow man in Christ and qouted Martin Luther's work often in citing the need for Jewish suppression and Christianty as an architect for a modern society.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

these two links talk about Hitler's affinity for Martin Luther's world view:

http://www.tentmaker.org/books/MartinLuther-HitlersSpiritualAncestor.html
http://www.nobeliefs.com/luther.htm

 

[!Fluffy!]

Yes, and it's completely obvious the difference he made in your life.

LMAO :biglaugh:

 

[Scuba Pete]

Luther wrote a book called "On the Jews and their lies" links below. http://www.nobeliefs.com/luther.htm

Wow... I am amazed that I had never heard of this before. Thanks for sharing.

 

[robtex]

Wow... I am amazed that I had never heard of this before. Thanks for sharing.

But i would be quick to point out that Hitler is not the archtype for what Christianty is or even a reasonable representative of the faith. It is more that was his chosen belief system than a belief system that fit his personality and beliefs.