scumble on 18/5/2006 at 11:15
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
All I said originally was that any site which attempted to show Hitler in a positive light is going to be of a dubious nature. I don't think I'm making that big a stretch in saying that.
I think you would have been better off saying that sites attempting to show Hitler in a positive light are
highly likely to be of a dubious nature. It
is possible to separate evil actions from good ones. Men
can do evil things and turn themselves around. In any case, Hitler need not take the entirety of the blame - he had an efficient team of psychopaths to help him. He was even elected into office in a relatively ordinary election.
Consider the dropping of atomic bombs in Japanese cities. To my mind that's an evil act, and killing thousands of people isn't suddenly good because the Allies won, and even if it was considered "necessary". Truman certainly wasn't held to account for it, and he was known to have claimed it was entirely his responsibility.
I suppose the thing is, when it comes to WW2, the focus on Hitler seems to eclipse the somewhat dubious things done by the Allies. Churchill, for example, was in many ways more interested in just destorying Germany and restoring the empire than defending Britain, hence the unnecessary flattening of various tactically inconsequential German cities. When you look at it more objectively, it wasn't good v.s. evil, it was all the old nationalistic rivalries surfacing again, even if the Nazis kicked it off that time.
Anyway, perhaps not a very well organised post, and talking about the Japansese is a bit out of context, but I often feel that the "Hitler was the most evil being in the universe" thing hinders an objective view of WW2, almost like the winners get absolved of various considerable acts of unnecessary slaughter because they were on the "right" side, as in, relatively less undesirable.
Oli G on 18/5/2006 at 11:48
Now I remember why I don't post much anymore; too many people here think that they can disguise the fact that they're behaving like children by infusing their posts with either a liberal dose of pseudo-intellectual pomposity or an attitude moral outrage. It's really quite dull.
Scots Taffer on 18/5/2006 at 12:20
I am genuinely interested, Oli G. Is that directed at anyone in particular (not that I'm asking you to mudsling) or a general consensus of twattery? And at what side of the debate are you angling?
Rogue Keeper on 18/5/2006 at 12:28
Can't speak for the others, but regarding my little self, I'm quite good in disguising my pseudo-intellectual pomposity with childish behavior. :cheeky:
Paz on 18/5/2006 at 13:57
Quote Posted by scumble
He was even elected into office in a relatively ordinary election.
This isn't really correct, unless you mean "ordinary election" for the period - because by todays standards the violence and intimidation were pretty epic.
Also, Hitler may not have made chancellor were it not for Von Papen's grievence with Schleicher, Papen's arrogant belief that he could control Hitler as some kind of puppet figurehead and Hindenburg's age and relative weakness.
It certainly wasn't a simple "ooh, the Nazis have won a high vote share in a fair and open election - I guess that makes Hitler chancellor!" process.
Oh yeah, and his artwork is utterly pish.
Koba on 18/5/2006 at 14:01
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
And I don't buy this retrospective softening of Hitler's image at all. I appreciate that his art has a curiosity value, but that's as far as it goes. As art, it's really poor, and I'd be wary of the motives of anyone that found much merit in it.
Beauty is in the eye of beholder! :o
There should be a test where half the people are shown Hitler's art without revealing the artist and half would know who made them and then compare how the pictures were rated.
Rug Burn Junky on 18/5/2006 at 15:26
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
All I said originally was that any site which attempted to show Hitler in
a positive light is going to be of a dubious nature.
Quote:
What Stronts said originallyany site which shows Hitler
in anything other than a uniformly negative light is going to at least be of a dubious nature.
This is why you fail so spectacularly at logic. There is a fundamental difference between "anything other than uniformly negative" and "positive." It is entirely possible that a man be something other than uniformly bad, without ever approaching a net good.
This isn't just a matter of semantics. What you
actually said originally is what people took issue with, and that is what they are patiently trying to explain to you. The fact that you changed the phrasing shows that either you recognize that what you originally said truly was wrong, or that your stubbornness renders you utterly incapable of perceiving the difference.
SD on 18/5/2006 at 15:34
I refined my phrasing because I now recognise that too many people on here are nit-picking arseholes who will take things at their most literal, instead of taking things as they are meant to be taken.
Nobody is entirely bad or entirely good, it's just not possible, so I don't know why people would think for one second that I would hold that opinion. That's not what I meant by "uniformly negative" anyway.
Rug Burn Junky on 18/5/2006 at 15:39
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
I don't know why people would think for one second that I would hold that opinion.
Because you've long since proven to everyone here that it is impossible to overestimate the twattishness of the opinions you are capable of holding.
Oli G on 18/5/2006 at 16:00
Quote Posted by Scots_Taffer
I am genuinely interested, Oli G. Is that directed at anyone in particular (not that I'm asking you to mudsling) or a general consensus of twattery? And at what side of the debate are you angling?
It's just a general view of the direction a lot of potentially interesting threads take - although of course there are particular individuals who tend to be to blame, and just by reading through this thread it isn't exactly hard to see who they are. Some people seem incapable of looking at any controversial topic in a rational and objective way. A lot of posts effectively boil down to 'I'm right and you're wrong' - which is childish - but they're dressed up either as being academically informed or morally untouchable.
As for the Hitler debate that emerged in this thread, I honestly don't understand how any controversy arose: Hitler was human, for most of his life he wasn't a dictator, not everything he did was bad. I agree with you entirely in saying that being aware of his humanity makes his crimes even more disturbing. But there seems to be a complete inability or unwillingness on the part of some people here to acknowledge that Hitler the dictator was the same person as Hitler the human. Or to put it another way, there seems to be a complete inability on the part of these people to understand or acknowledge the realities of human nature. An extreme way of putting this might be to say that the holocaust denier is the same as someone who refuses to acknowledge that Hitler was a capable artist because he was also an evil dictator. Ultimately both positions are denying the truth because the truth happens to destabilise their own preconceptions and prejudices.
