Munich 1938

[monk222]

When Chamberlain met with Hitler on September 15 at the Burghof, Hitler's Berchtesgaden mountain retreat, he came away with a hopelessly mistaken impression of the German leader, writing to one of his sisters that "in spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word."

-- "Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945" by Carlo D'Este

Comments

No to Analysis

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

But I'm not sympatthetic at all with brushing over Hitler's murderous derangement. He was very much the captain of the nazi enterprise, and the man obviously knew no moral bounds in the pursuit of his dark empire. He's not worthy of your philosophical rationalizations.

I don't know man. I have heard many others hold the same view, and honestly, I agree with this girl that it is a cop-out.

``No, let us caricature the bastard.'' As if they were afraid that if other aspects of his human self were studied, it might somehow make him look like less of a demon.

Re: No to Analysis

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Straw man. I'm not saying that we should not study the man to everyone's intellectual contentment and just caricature him. I would say that it is a cop-out to refrain from taking a moral stance, as though afraid to recognize that some values are indeed superior to others. If one cannot identify Hitler as evil, then one's philosphy seems useless and even self-destructive, but I think such thinking is just more symptomatic of living comfortably in liberal, democratic society - too coddled. People need to be able to tell the difference between a bin Laden and a Gandhi. How smart can one be if one cannot tell the difference between night and day?

Re: No to Analysis

[poovanna.livejournal.com]

If one cannot identify Hitler as evil, then one's philosphy seems useless and even self-destructive...

Begging the question.

1. A good philosophical investigation must find some X as evil.
2. Investigation Y does not condemn X as strongly as you want.
3. Y is sub-standard.

Re: No to Analysis

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not begging the question. I didn't just hear about Hitler yesterday. Like all knowledgeable, intelligent people, I came to understand that Hitler is evil. If Y cannot see that Hitler is, say, worse than Gandhi, then, yes, I don't think much of Y, and it is only silly or dangerously confused not to be able to make that moral discrimination.

But I understand that people can reach different conclusions, and I know that there are people today who worhsip the man and still want to carry out his agenda. And I'm just not going to agree with those people. I just hope that you personally won't think much of their aspirations, either, but it's your life.