Human wickedness & adolf hitler

[Ormond]

Why do you keep calling him a philosopher?

It's fair to debate the definition of philosopher. I don't claim to have the one true way perfect definition.

Leading Christian clerics are often thought of as philosophers, for they reasoned their way to a particular perspective on the nature of reality. Hitler seems a philosopher in this sense, with a very different perspective on the nature of reality.

If we define philosophers as being stuffy old white men who hide in the ivory tower writing obscure books that few read and even fewer understand, then I would agree Hitler was not a philosopher.

What's your definition of a philosopher?

[Steve3007]

Ormond:

Watching a great documentary about Steve Jobs on Amazon right now, best one I've seen. He had enormous self belief too. There seems to come a point where self belief turns one in to a major ass. I get that way on forums myself sometimes. Like with so many things, more is not always better.

Yes. Too much self-belief = an inability to effectively utilize other people's abilities.

Or, to put it another way, maybe they recognized the role that predators play in nature. Apparently nature thinks predators are a necessary part of the system.

I guess that's just a figure of speech, but I wouldn't say that nature thinks anything is necessary. "Necessary" implies a goal or a plan. But I think it's human nature to see agency in the world, if only as a metaphor. The metaphor is often used in other theories of nature. Not just Evolution. We often talk about mindless objects, such as electrons, "wanting" to do various things.

I don't see using a billion year old successful system as a model for the next 1,000 year Reich to be illogical. We typically use this same strong dominate the weak model in our relationship with the entire natural world. The Nazi mistake appears to be in trying to apply such a model within the human species, in our relations with each other.

I think one mistake was in thinking that Evolution is explicitly about the strong dominating the weak. It's not. It's simply about the propagation of whatever characteristics confer the ability to maximize the creation of offspring and the survival of those offspring. Sometimes that might be about the strong dominating the weak. Sometimes not. A large part of the success of human societies appears to rest on our ability, as a social species, to cooperate and create societies with division of labour. Some of our most successful characteristics seem to be the opposite of the strong dominating the weak.

It seems the fittest did triumph over the less fit, so they were correct in their understanding of the theory, just not their place in it as the less fit. I think this is forgivable, philosophically, (not morally obviously) because they did come very close to being right about both the theory and their place in it.

I think that by definition the fittest will survive. "Survival of the fittest", in the context of Evolution, is, in a sense, a tautology, because, in that context, the definition of "fittest" is "those that survive".

I don't think they came particularly close. As societies/ideologies/movements go, they didn't last very long. But, as I said, I think one of their biggest mistakes was thinking that Evolution is prescriptive, that it is an instruction manual, that it tells people what to do and that it entails a goal.

Yes, agreed. You're confusing their understanding of the theory with their understanding of their role as the less fit.

As I say, I think they fundamentally misunderstood the theory. In the same sense that it would be a misunderstanding of the theory of universal gravitation to think that it is ordering objects to fall to the ground and that, if they fail to do so, they must be made to do so by threat of punishment.

Well, this is a bit confused history-wise, as most people didn't know they were killing masses of Jews etc until the end of the war.

True.

...The fittest still dominate, but they now do it more cleverly than Hitler was attempting. Why bother with rolling tanks across borders if you can use vague and mysterious multinational corporations to strip less powerful countries clean of their natural resources in a way that nobody hardly notices?

It depends what you mean by "dominate". If we're talking about success, then success in evolutionary terms means leaving more offspring. In that sense, arguably the most successful people in the world today are among the poorest. Or at least, certainly not the richest.

[Alec Smart]

What's your definition of a philosopher?

I'm sure Hitler had thoughts that could fairly be described as philosophy but so does everybody from time to time.

[Ormond]

I guess that's just a figure of speech, but I wouldn't say that nature thinks anything is necessary. "Necessary" implies a goal or a plan. But I think it's human nature to see agency in the world, if only as a metaphor.

Well, we don't actually have a clue whether nature contains a goal, plan, agency etc. You know, this is just the forever unresolved god debate.

I think one mistake was in thinking that Evolution is explicitly about the strong dominating the weak. It's not.

Ok, we could put it another way then.

Perhaps we could say that Hitler saw a billion year natural old order created by a reality far bigger than ourselves as being a more credible authority than a Judeo-Christian worldview invented by relatively primitive humans only a few thousand years ago. While being personally repulsed by Nazism, I have to admit such reasoning resonates with the nature worshiper part of my brain.

If one discards the Christian worldview in favor of learning from the natural order, then predators are seen in a different light, as a valid, useful, respected part of the system. We see predators this way ourselves, unless they are human. Hitler saw the wolf in himself, and instead of pushing it away and feeling guilty etc, (ie. Christianity) he embraced the essence of his personal nature as being in tune with a far larger reality.

If this was the essence of Hitler's view of reality, and if we approach that view as philosophers instead of as moralists, it seems reasonable to say he had a pretty credible position. I'm not declaring him right, just credible, an argument with some merit to consider.

Is nature "wiser" than we are? Should we model ourselves on the natural order, or on some theories of our own invention? A reasonable debate, yes?

I'm calling Hitler a "philosopher" because I think he saw the world, including the human world, pretty clearly. The fact is that to this day in every economic/political system including our own, the strong do dominate the weak, just as in nature. The primary purpose of every economic/political system is to funnel resources up the social ladder to the upper classes. That's why the upper classes hang on to the status quo so dearly.

What perhaps made Hitler different, and even appealing philosophically speaking, is there was less gap between the cover story and the real story.

In both democratic capitalism and Marxism the cover story is that these systems are going to improve conditions for the working man. Even Soviet Communism claimed it would make the world a better place for all. The real story is that both capitalism and Marxism enrich the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes. The cover story is that these two systems are fundamentally different, when really they do about the same thing.

Hitler did away with the cover story. He didn't tell the Poles that he would make their lives better, he told them they were going to become German farm animals. This is the kind of clarity and honesty that becomes possible when one embraces the value of predators within the natural order, and then includes human beings as part of that natural order.

Let us recall here that Christianity, the dominant philosophy across Europe in Hitler's time, was that human beings are fundamentally different than all other creatures. According to the Christian view, we are "children of God", whereas all other creatures are just blobs of biological matter. Hitler challenged this highly speculative view with the assertion that human beings are instead part of nature, not some heavenly kingdom, and thus should live by the long established rules of the natural order.

Nazism was of course abhorrent beyond description, but as wannabe philosophers perhaps we can appreciate the appeal of dumping the cover story used by other systems, given that these cover stories are largely BS which serve mostly to pollute our minds with delusion and fantasy.

I don't think they came particularly close. As societies/ideologies/movements go, they didn't last very long.

Agreed, but they did come close to lasting long. There were a handful of factors, such as the allies ability to break German codes, that played a huge difference in the outcome. Things could have easily gone the other way. As example, if Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union first, he might have had Europe and America as at least implicit allies, as the capitalist West feared the rise of Marxism in the East.

But, as I said, I think one of their biggest mistakes was thinking that Evolution is prescriptive, that it is an instruction manual, that it tells people what to do and that it entails a goal.

Let's put it a different way then. Is it a mistake to align oneself with reality? Isn't that the whole point of philosophy??

As I say, I think they fundamentally misunderstood the theory. In the same sense that it would be a misunderstanding of the theory of universal gravitation to think that it is ordering objects to fall to the ground and that, if they fail to do so, they must be made to do so by threat of punishment.

Respectfully, you're misunderstanding your ability to know whether or not reality includes agency. You state it does not as if that were a commonly accepted well known fact, when really it is just one of a number of theories built upon a foundation of profound ignorance.

Thanks for the dialog, I enjoy chatting with you!

[Steve3007]

Ormond:

Well, we don't actually have a clue whether nature contains a goal, plan, agency etc. You know, this is just the forever unresolved god debate.

That's true, we don't have a clue. But what we do know is that Nature, as described by the Theory of Evolution, does not have a plan or goal. So I think the point about the Nazis misunderstanding that theory still stands. I'm not being so bold as to claim they're wrong about Nature. I'm just saying that they're wrong about the T of E.

Perhaps we could say that Hitler saw a billion year natural old order created by a reality far bigger than ourselves as being a more credible authority than a Judeo-Christian worldview invented by relatively primitive humans only a few thousand years ago. While being personally repulsed by Nazism, I have to admit such reasoning resonates with the nature worshiper part of my brain...

Yes, I do see your point. I guess it's related to the "noble savage" kind of idea. The idea that "nature" means "all animals except humans" and that there is something honest about it. My point is just that the T of E is supposed to apply to humans just as much as other animals. So that Judeo-Christian worldview invented by relatively primitive humans only a few thousand years ago is, in theory, just as much a part of it as an eagle or a lion.

Agreed, but they did come close to lasting long. There were a handful of factors, such as the allies ability to break German codes, that played a huge difference in the outcome. Things could have easily gone the other way. As example, if Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union first, he might have had Europe and America as at least implicit allies, as the capitalist West feared the rise of Marxism in the East.

Yes, you may have a point there. It's always easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the way history turned out is the way it was always bound to turn out. Perhaps it wouldn't have taken much for us all to be living under a Nazi dictatorship now.

Let's put it a different way then. Is it a mistake to align oneself with reality? Isn't that the whole point of philosophy??

It depends what you mean by "align oneself with reality". On the face of it, to do anything else would be a logical contradiction. The point of descriptive laws of Nature (as opposed to the prescriptive laws of society) such the T of E or Gravity is that they describe how things are. If the world turns out to differ from a descriptive law, it's not the world that's wrong. It's the law. So maybe the idea of ensuring that we align ourselves with the laws of Nature doesn't make much sense.

If the T of E is supposed to be a descriptive law then, at least in principle if not in practice, it should be able to describe all human behaviour, including such things as Christianity and the religious belief that humans are fundamentally different to other animals. Of course, it always starts to get a bit mind-bending and self-referential if we start considering the fact that a descriptive law of the behaviour of living things should, in principle, be able to describe the thoughts of human beings. And that includes the thought of that descriptive law. The Theory of Evolution should, in principle, be able to describe how humans came up with the Theory of Evolution!

[LuckyR]

To my mind the reason Hitler is the kneejerk answer to "really bad historical bad-guy", lies mainly with 1) his success at fulfilling his plans, 2) the collective guilt of those (currently alive) who stood by because 3) the media is dominated by (currently alive) members of the main victim group. Obviously he and his ideas were evil, everyone (?) knows that. The question is: among bad guys of history, were his thoughts and ideas the most evil, more evil than average or pretty routinely evil within that select group?

Well that is a pretty low bar by my estimation. Really hating different groups to the point of killing them is pretty much a dime a dozen, through history. One could almost call it a human norm, up until relatively recently.

Hitler was crazy effective at completing his atrocities, but a lot of that was first oratorical and later technological, not common variables for "wickedness".

Ultimately if you discard his efficiency and the fact of the recentness of his atrocities, he would easily be equaled and likely surpassed by historical evil doers.

[Boots]

It's probably the recency of his deeds and the continuing effects it has on survivors.

There is also the fact that the surviving victims are mostly members of first world countries.

[AceOfBlades]

Mr. Adolph is just as wicked as we remember him to be, no more, no less. Plenty of men and women have existed who are more "wicked" or "evil" than him, yet we gloss over the atrocities committed by our past heroes. Hitler is the perfect scapegoat, a real life supervillain who was in large part responsible for one of the most costly conflicts in human history. He serves as a scapegoat so that we may forget the pride, ego and foolishness of the many, many then world leaders who were responsible for starting and escalating WWI into the disaster that it was. We conveniently forget that the nazi party (in it's early days) and indeed, even Hitler himself, were at least in part motivated by the suffering inflicted upon Germany by the allied powers as punishment for having the misfortune to lose WWI.

Who is more wicked, the misguided one who's actions are considered evil by the ultimately victorious opposing party? Or the wise one who neglects to act for fear or laziness?

[Supine]

Nationalism, socialism, and science were major influences on Adolf Hitler.

Biological determinism was what scientifically influenced his thoughts on race. The vast majority of Protestant Christians in the United States subscribed to biological determinism and the Protestant Lutherans of Germany mostly were supporters of Hitler. And eugenics policies were not only put in place in Germany but in the United States as well. The United States had eugenics policies, court ordering the sterilization of some black girls and poor white women, all the way into the 1960's in some Southern states. If I recall correctly WWII ended by 1945.

The term "fitness" in biology refers to the aggregate amount of (types of) genes in a population and how successful (how many offspring) and organism is at passing its genes on into a population. A "dead beat dad" that has 13 children by 5 different women is more "fit" in the science of biology than a loyal father that has only 1 child but provides well for that child and the child's mother.

Nationalism can be distinguished from patriotism, and in fact in Catholic intellectual thought it is. Nationalism is regarded in Catholic intellectual thought as a vice and patriotism as a virtue. The United States is one of the most nationalistic countries on earth. One could argue per domestic policies that there is very little patriotism in the United States. I chalk this up to the United States not being racially homogeneous enough. And Hitler wanted a racially homogeneous Germany where superior biologically deterministic traits were passed on from parent to child from one generation to the next.

I don't think Hitler was unique intellectually--philosophically--but more a product of his time that possibly achieved some renown as a statesman domestically. Hitler was a warrior too as a highly decorated soldier from WWI.

But Marcus Arelius--the ancient Roman--strikes me as a superior combination of statesman (or king), warrior, and philosopher than Adolf Hitler.

Hitler caused a lot of destruction and death. But so did Ghengis Khan who led his mongols on genocidal level massacres from one place to the next. But the Khan is celebrated heroically by us today and some historians like to glorify the cultural outcomes of the murderous conquests of the Mongolian crusades. The ancient Assyrians committed tortures on conquered peoples--if I recall correctly skinning alive the inhabitants of those towns that did not surrender--that we today would regard as shocking and evil. But even in Hilter's own time the Man of Steel in Russia (meaning of the name Stalin) caused the death of man millions of people but unlike Hitler he was a bona fide thug and former bank robber.

Due to the technology of the 20th century Hitler was pretty dangerous. Fortunately, he never acquired a nuclear bomb.

It's hard to say how evil Hitler was or was not. But Hillary Clinton exists today and once President she may come to rival or surpass him in spreading flames and screams across planet earth. But today the nuclear weaponry is far more powerful and far more prolific.

[Clory]

The fact that Adolf Hitler even got his power shows more about the society then the hitler himself.

[Sy Borg]

The fact that Adolf Hitler even got his power shows more about the society then the Hitler himself.

It seems to me that whole societies can become sick, eg. the Vatican's Inquisition period, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Amin's Uganda, Pol Pot's Cambodia and so on.

[Clory]

The fact that Adolf Hitler even got his power shows more about the society then the Hitler himself.

It seems to me that whole societies can become sick, eg. the Vatican's Inquisition period, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Amin's Uganda, Pol Pot's Cambodia and so on.

But what causes these societys to become sick?

[TSBU]

Have you ever heard about godwin law?

[Clory]

Ye, I know it but does it even matter if topic is relevant?

[TSBU]

Ye, I know it but does it even matter if topic is relevant?

Well, no, but "what is relevant" is up to you. There are many evil people, Hiler is just one more, but he is more famous.