Let the Nazis die.

[TheTaco007]

Honestly, I'm very tired of people comparing everything to the Nazis. Yeah, we get it they were bad people (understatement of the century?), and the entire world fucked up and let them get too far, hence WW2, but come on. Nazis are neither the epitome of human evil, nor should anyone think they can prove beyond a doubt that something is evil, simply because they found a way to compare it to the Nazis.

For example: I've heard people try to call vegetarians evil because Hitler was a vegetarian.

I realize that they are a very good example of one of the darkest parts of humanity (Nazis, not vegetarians), but does every debate/argument have to devolve into someone trying to prove the other idea is "evil" because it's the same as the Nazis.

I guess, what I'm really getting at is that there is seldom true "evil" in this world. People are allowed to have opinions, even if you think they're completely wrong. If you wish to argue your point, think in terms of logic. In terms of true and false, never good and evil. If we delve into those concepts, we bring up more differences of opinion. "Good" and "evil" mean VERY different things to different people of different cultures. The concept of "evil" is arguably even more abstract than that of "good", mostly because of political or religious beliefs. Abortion, the death penalty, racism, homosexuality, etc. These are often described with the term "evil," and while I don't agree with this in a lot of cases, (Please don't turn this into a flame war about any of those subjects) I recognize that it is mostly because they ARE matters of opinion. If you are calling something "evil," you have to understand that you are stating an opinion. You cannot call anything evil, and state it as a fact. You, and whoever you're debating with need to understand this. When you call something evil, you are saying that "to someone with your exact same background and beliefs, this seems wrong." As you might realize, this is not a very convincing argument. So please, don't involve "good", "evil", moral "right" and "wrong", or the Nazis in your debates of anything, otherwise you move entirely into the realm of opinion, and your debate/argument becomes entirely pointless.

I realize that there is nothing specific to discuss in this thread, but I felt it needed to be said. If you agree or disagree with anything I said, please feel free to post your opinion. Try not to flame.

EDIT: The Nazis were quite clearly one of the worst things to happen to this world, but this thread is less about them, and more about their role (and the role of "evil") in a civilized debate. How discussion about these things tends to render the conversation a pointless opinion fight, that doesn't get any participant anywhere.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Thank god. For a minute there, I thought this would be another "Is it just me, or are there a lot of WWII games out there?" topics.

OT: I would agree with you, but I really haven't observed this "Comparing things to nazis" phenomenon you describe. I mean, you make many good points, don't get me wrong, it's just I haven't experienced it as much as you have.

 

[emeraldrafael]

But if we dont have nazis, what do we compare things to? Its just easy cause they are so well known and everyone gets what they did. There's no real fight about whether they were right or wrong, cause even the German public didnt care much for them after a while.

What would you have us compare things to to take the place of Nazis?

 

[TheTaco007]

Thank god. For a minute there, I thought this would be another "Is it just me, or are there a lot of WWII games out there?" topics.

OT: I would agree with you, but I really haven't observed this "Comparing things to nazis" phenomenon you describe. I mean, you make many good points, don't get me wrong, it's just I haven't experienced it as much as you have.

One of these arguments popped up in a different thread, and I'd seen it so many times that I just decided to post this. It went from religion to nazis to different religions, and I got fed up with it.

 

[TheTaco007]

But if we dont have nazis, what do we compare things to? Its just easy cause they are so well known and everyone gets what they did. There's no real fight about whether they were right or wrong, cause even the German public didnt care much for them after a while.

What would you have us compare things to to take the place of Nazis?

I'd tell you not to compare things to anything but themselves. As I said, stick to true and false. If we start using metaphors, the point of an argument gets lost. Use the facts, and don't try to rope different arguments into your discussion.

Though, to clarify, if you are legitimately having a discussion about the Nazis, go ahead and talk about them.

 

[Kollega]

Nazis may not be the epitome of human evil, but they come pretty darn close, don't they? Killing six twelve million of defenseless people just because of their ethnicity seems pretty "taboo" to me regardless of culture or opinion. They were bad, really bad.

More importantly, they are recent: you're asking people to stop using something really huge - no, worldwide - that has happened only 70 years ago. It's like asking people in the 1920s to forget about the British Empire and the Queen Victoria. Nazi references will eventually stop, i believe, but it will take more than 70 years for them to be more or less confined to historical debates.

 

[voetballeeuw]

This reminded me of Lewis Black's rant on the Daily Show, "Glenn Beck has Nazi tourettes."

OT: I completely agree with you.

 

[TheTaco007]

Nazis may not be the epitome of human evil, but they come pretty darn close, don't they? Killing six million of defenseless people just because of their ethnicity seems pretty "taboo" to me regardless of culture or opinion. They were bad, really bad.

More importantly, they are recent: you're asking people to forget something really huge - no, worldwide - that has happened only 70 years ago. It's like asking people in the 1920s to forget about the British Empire and the Queen Victoria. Nazi references will eventually stop, i believe, but it will take more than 70 years for them to be more or less confined to historical debates.

I'm not saying to forget about them. I get that they were some of the "worst" human beings ever to exist, but I can imagine worse things.

I'm putting a small note onto the end of the opening post just to clarify.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Why? You certainly can describe evil. It's not an objective "the world itself considers this bad" evil, but that's totally irrelevant when human culture is based mostly on subjectivity anyway (even those parts inspired by objective fact).

To be honest, the thing that annoys me more is people comparing others to Nazis for things the Nazis aren't the ideal comparison. Sure, compare eugenics ambitions based on "genetic perfection," or misattributing a race or religion as the source of all evil in the world with them. Those were major planks in their ideas, and they're a good comparison to such logical extremes. Hell, you could even use them to point out the inefficiency of military government control...sort of, since Nazi Germany grossly inefficient system were pretty much entirely Hitler's fault.

On the other hand, you want to complain about anti-intellectualism? Don't bring up Nazis, they were firmly in line with intellectuals who were willing to devote themselves entirely to Germany (same with Stalinist Russia, actually). That's when you bring Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Want to complain about brainwashing and total government control? Not all Germans were Nazis, and a significant amount only went along with the national socialists out of misguided fear over Communists. No, that's when you point out that, you know...North Korea is right there.

Stuff like that. No, the Nazis will not and should not die. They're too good of examples. It's just their status as generic evil that needs to die.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[manic_depressive13]

You said that the Nazis were bad, even saying this is an understatement, then went on to contradict yourself by claiming there can be no objective good or bad. The majority of your post has little to do with the title or the first paragraph.

Society needs to believe in an objective morality to some extent otherwise it will collapse. While the lines are blurred in some places, it is usually due to details such as "killing people is bad, but is a foetus really a person?" or "a murderer has denied someone the right to live, therefore should he be entitled to it?" If people were to decide that murder in general isn't bad after all, we'd be pretty screwed.

I agree with your claim that people need to stop comparing things to the Nazis, but where I've seen these comments they seemed to have been mostly facetious.

 

[Agayek]

OT: I would agree with you, but I really haven't observed this "Comparing things to nazis" phenomenon you describe. I mean, you make many good points, don't get me wrong, it's just I haven't experienced it as much as you have.

It's frequent enough that there's a law about it. Godwin's Law states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Nazis may not be the epitome of human evil, but they come pretty darn close, don't they? Killing six million of defenseless people just because of their ethnicity seems pretty "taboo" to me regardless of culture or opinion. They were bad, really bad.

More importantly, they are recent: you're asking people to stop using something really huge - no, worldwide - that has happened only 70 years ago. It's like asking people in the 1920s to forget about the British Empire and the Queen Victoria. Nazi references will eventually stop, i believe, but it will take more than 70 years for them to be more or less confined to historical debates.

Actually, they killed 12 million through of the course of the Holocaust. Six million Jews, three million gays, two million gypsies and one million political prisoners were the rough estimates last I checked.

Also, there's a lot worse examples, that happened more recently than the Holocaust. For example, Stalin ended up killing approximately 30,000,000 people during his reign. Then there's the Rwandan genocide which while smaller in scale was just as vicious and systematic.

 

[TheTaco007]

Why? You certainly can describe evil. It's not an objective "the world itself considers this bad" evil, but that's totally irrelevant when human culture is based mostly on subjectivity anyway (even those parts inspired by objective fact).

To be honest, the thing that annoys me more is people comparing others to Nazis for things the Nazis aren't the ideal comparison. Sure, compare eugenics ambitions based on "genetic perfection," or misattributing a race or religion as the source of all evil in the world with them. Those were major planks in their ideas, and they're a good comparison to such logical extremes. Hell, you could even use them to point out the inefficiency of military government control...sort of, since Nazi Germany grossly inefficient system were pretty much entirely Hitler's fault.

On the other hand, you want to complain about anti-intellectualism? Don't bring up Nazis, they were firmly in line with intellectuals who were willing to devote themselves entirely to Germany (same with Stalinist Russia, actually). That's when you bring Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Want to complain about brainwashing and total government control? Not all Germans were Nazis, and a significant amount only went along with the national socialists out of misguided fear over Communists. No, that's when you point out that, you know...North Korea is right there.

Stuff like that. No, the Nazis will not and should not die. They're too good of examples. It's just their status as generic evil that needs to die.

Very true. Especially the last 2 paragraphs.

Society needs to believe in an objective morality to some extent otherwise it will collapse. While the lines are blurred in some places, it is usually due to details such as "killing people is bad, but is a foetus really a person?" or "a murderer has denied someone the right to live, therefore should he be entitled to it?" If people were to decide that murder in general isn't bad after all, we'd be pretty screwed.

I'm not saying we should stop being humane. I'm saying that everyone has different morals, and we need to respect this in each other. I'm certainly not recommending the abolition of all morality, just the acceptance that we are all a bit different.

 

[Kollega]

Actually, they killed 12 million through of the course of the Holocaust. Six million Jews, three million gays, two million gypsies and one million political prisoners were the rough estimates last I checked.

Oh, sorry, fixed that. My memory is far from perfect, you see.

Also, there's a lot worse examples, that happened more recently than the Holocaust. For example, Stalin ended up killing approximately 30,000,000 people during his reign. Then there's the Rwandan genocide which while smaller in scale was just as vicious and systematic.

I know that Stalin has killed 20 million or even more. Talk about "history being written by the winners". It still dosen't make Hitler any better, though. As for Rwandan genocide, there's a bit of a problem with that. It's not as widely publicized as Nazi atrocities because they didn't declare a war on the whole world in the process. Plus, it's very recent, right? Realizing how bad the Nazis were took some time.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Why? You certainly can describe evil. It's not an objective "the world itself considers this bad" evil, but that's totally irrelevant when human culture is based mostly on subjectivity anyway (even those parts inspired by objective fact).

To be honest, the thing that annoys me more is people comparing others to Nazis for things the Nazis aren't the ideal comparison. Sure, compare eugenics ambitions based on "genetic perfection," or misattributing a race or religion as the source of all evil in the world with them. Those were major planks in their ideas, and they're a good comparison to such logical extremes. Hell, you could even use them to point out the inefficiency of military government control...sort of, since Nazi Germany grossly inefficient system were pretty much entirely Hitler's fault.

On the other hand, you want to complain about anti-intellectualism? Don't bring up Nazis, they were firmly in line with intellectuals who were willing to devote themselves entirely to Germany (same with Stalinist Russia, actually). That's when you bring Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Want to complain about brainwashing and total government control? Not all Germans were Nazis, and a significant amount only went along with the national socialists out of misguided fear over Communists. No, that's when you point out that, you know...North Korea is right there.

Stuff like that. No, the Nazis will not and should not die. They're too good of examples. It's just their status as generic evil that needs to die.

Very true. Especially the last 2 paragraphs.

Society needs to believe in an objective morality to some extent otherwise it will collapse. While the lines are blurred in some places, it is usually due to details such as "killing people is bad, but is a foetus really a person?" or "a murderer has denied someone the right to live, therefore should he be entitled to it?" If people were to decide that murder in general isn't bad after all, we'd be pretty screwed.

I'm not saying we should stop being humane. I'm saying that everyone has different morals, and we need to respect this in each other. I'm certainly not recommending the abolition of all morality, just the acceptance that we are all a bit different.

'Kay, fair enough. I'll throw in that I also agree very much with NeutralDrow.

 

[Enkidu88]

Well I agree that everyone should stop comparing every figure they don't like, from Obama to Bobby Kotick, to Hitler and Nazis cause they don't like them, I don't think we should just forget the events of the past. That's stupid, and self-destructive. Also I don't really have a problem considering some of them evil, sure it's a subjective opinion but then what besides science and mathematics isn't a subjective opinion?

The Nazis were more than just 'a bit different' in their morality. This wasn't a debate over arranged child marriages, abortion or the death penalty. This was the systematic slaughter of millions of people. So most people know Hitler best for being evil, so what? That doesn't make Stalin or the Rwandan genocide any less horrible. Is it really so horrible that everyone considers the Nazi's evil? What harm does it do?

 

[GrimTuesday]

But they have such snazzy looking uniforms. I personally love SS uniforms, it's too bad it carries such a bad connotation.

 

[RicoADF]

OT: I would agree with you, but I really haven't observed this "Comparing things to nazis" phenomenon you describe. I mean, you make many good points, don't get me wrong, it's just I haven't experienced it as much as you have.

It's frequent enough that there's a law about it. Godwin's Law states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Nazis may not be the epitome of human evil, but they come pretty darn close, don't they? Killing six million of defenseless people just because of their ethnicity seems pretty "taboo" to me regardless of culture or opinion. They were bad, really bad.

More importantly, they are recent: you're asking people to stop using something really huge - no, worldwide - that has happened only 70 years ago. It's like asking people in the 1920s to forget about the British Empire and the Queen Victoria. Nazi references will eventually stop, i believe, but it will take more than 70 years for them to be more or less confined to historical debates.

Actually, they killed 12 million through of the course of the Holocaust. Six million Jews, three million gays, two million gypsies and one million political prisoners were the rough estimates last I checked.

Also, there's a lot worse examples, that happened more recently than the Holocaust. For example, Stalin ended up killing approximately 30,000,000 people during his reign. Then there's the Rwandan genocide which while smaller in scale was just as vicious and systematic.

I'd say Rwanda was potentially more vicious, some of the stuff I read about that......

 

[emeraldrafael]

But if we dont have nazis, what do we compare things to? Its just easy cause they are so well known and everyone gets what they did. There's no real fight about whether they were right or wrong, cause even the German public didnt care much for them after a while.

What would you have us compare things to to take the place of Nazis?

I'd tell you not to compare things to anything but themselves. As I said, stick to true and false. If we start using metaphors, the point of an argument gets lost. Use the facts, and don't try to rope different arguments into your discussion.

Though, to clarify, if you are legitimately having a discussion about the Nazis, go ahead and talk about them.

BUt everyone uses metaphors. Its one of the easiest ways to teach. What do you tell a kid when somethings hot? Oh its hot?
Kid: but how hot?
Well... its like when you touch black roads on a hot day, thats what the stove is like.
K: oh oka.
And hten the kid runs off to do whatever. The world is full of metaphors. Its a way of explaination and connection when talking to somoene who has no idea what you're talking about. you cant sit there and lecture them for hours on the fine points of a subject all the time, but its easy to just say "Oh the man was big, how big? Well.. he was big as a bear."

 

[TheTaco007]

But if we dont have nazis, what do we compare things to? Its just easy cause they are so well known and everyone gets what they did. There's no real fight about whether they were right or wrong, cause even the German public didnt care much for them after a while.

What would you have us compare things to to take the place of Nazis?

I'd tell you not to compare things to anything but themselves. As I said, stick to true and false. If we start using metaphors, the point of an argument gets lost. Use the facts, and don't try to rope different arguments into your discussion.

Though, to clarify, if you are legitimately having a discussion about the Nazis, go ahead and talk about them.

BUt everyone uses metaphors. Its one of the easiest ways to teach. What do you tell a kid when somethings hot? Oh its hot?
Kid: but how hot?
Well... its like when you touch black roads on a hot day, thats what the stove is like.
K: oh oka.
And hten the kid runs off to do whatever. The world is full of metaphors. Its a way of explaination and connection when talking to somoene who has no idea what you're talking about. you cant sit there and lecture them for hours on the fine points of a subject all the time, but its easy to just say "Oh the man was big, how big? Well.. he was big as a bear."

Or you can say that "it's hot enough to burn you when you touch it."