While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think 1 in 5 thought : “well, he’s kind with his dog and an OK painter, I can’t in good faith say he’s completely bad”
12% had the rather less ambiguous responses of ‘he was at least as good as he was bad’. While 12% of folks were of the maybe defensible technicality of ‘well, even the worst person occasionally will do the right thing’, another 12% responded as ‘unsure’, which I would suspect would lean toward “I don’t want to admit a socially unacceptable answer”.
another 12% responded as ‘unsure’, which I would suspect would lean toward “I don’t want to admit a socially unacceptable answer”.
i’d lean towards “i don’t know enough about the facts to make a definitive statement”
public education isn’t great and even good public education rarely dives deeply in the life of Adolf Hitler beyond the obvious “he was a megalomaniac dictator who killed Jews and wanted to take over the world”
Hitler became Hitler because of his life experiences. He served in the German military during WW1, he was homeless in Vienna, he grew up poor with a sick mother. These events, along with the movements of the then-current cultural zietgiest, radicalized him in certain directions. It’s a complex story that is hard to break down into simplistic moral platitudes of “good person” or “bad person”
I understand there’s generally nuance and all for various folks villified through history, but given the last decade of his life, his story became one of the easiest in history to break down into “bad person” without oversimplification or any vaguely acceptable case of moral relativism. More context is informative as a key part of learning of history, but it doesn’t ultimately impact ability to simplify it to “bad person”
i dont want to sound like a moral relativist and i’m hesitant to respond because i also don’t want to be a hitler apologist
but I think it’s really hard to categorize a person into a “totally bad” position. for example, Hitler had a big ego but he probably genuinely wanted the best for Germany. He cared for animals, was a vegetarian (for the most part, especially in later years of life) and advocated for animal cruelty laws.
if he genuinely believed that eliminating the jews was necessary in order to secure the autonomy of the German people, does that make him a bad person? To a Nazi, the Jew is an evil parasite on society that needs to be eliminated for the good of the entire population.
now please understand I’m speaking from their perspective not saying it is correct
but this type of anti-semitic ideology did not spring up spontaneously in the 1930s but was something deep that developed over the course of hundreds of years and ultimately culminated in the genocide we saw
but if for example, we took everyone in this thread and raised them in 1890s Germany- how many of them would believe in tolerance and racial equality? I’d honestly be surprised if there was a single person
I don’t know. I understand there are good things and bad things. but the difference between good and bad people is more complicated. bad people i typically relegate to those individuals that get pleasure of out cruelty or suffering
I’m completely against his policies and actions for obvious reasons. I hate Nazis.
Still, I could probably be convinced to say that he wasn’t 100% bad in every possible way.
Even the most evil people are complex human beings. There may be something good inside them at some point to some person, etc.
“All” is a very powerful word.
While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think 1 in 5 thought : “well, he’s kind with his dog and an OK painter, I can’t in good faith say he’s completely bad”
I definitely agree with you on that.
I do
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Views_on_Hitler_poll_results.pdf
12% had the rather less ambiguous responses of ‘he was at least as good as he was bad’. While 12% of folks were of the maybe defensible technicality of ‘well, even the worst person occasionally will do the right thing’, another 12% responded as ‘unsure’, which I would suspect would lean toward “I don’t want to admit a socially unacceptable answer”.
i’d lean towards “i don’t know enough about the facts to make a definitive statement”
public education isn’t great and even good public education rarely dives deeply in the life of Adolf Hitler beyond the obvious “he was a megalomaniac dictator who killed Jews and wanted to take over the world”
Hitler became Hitler because of his life experiences. He served in the German military during WW1, he was homeless in Vienna, he grew up poor with a sick mother. These events, along with the movements of the then-current cultural zietgiest, radicalized him in certain directions. It’s a complex story that is hard to break down into simplistic moral platitudes of “good person” or “bad person”
Or ignorance
I understand there’s generally nuance and all for various folks villified through history, but given the last decade of his life, his story became one of the easiest in history to break down into “bad person” without oversimplification or any vaguely acceptable case of moral relativism. More context is informative as a key part of learning of history, but it doesn’t ultimately impact ability to simplify it to “bad person”
i dont want to sound like a moral relativist and i’m hesitant to respond because i also don’t want to be a hitler apologist
but I think it’s really hard to categorize a person into a “totally bad” position. for example, Hitler had a big ego but he probably genuinely wanted the best for Germany. He cared for animals, was a vegetarian (for the most part, especially in later years of life) and advocated for animal cruelty laws.
if he genuinely believed that eliminating the jews was necessary in order to secure the autonomy of the German people, does that make him a bad person? To a Nazi, the Jew is an evil parasite on society that needs to be eliminated for the good of the entire population.
now please understand I’m speaking from their perspective not saying it is correct
but this type of anti-semitic ideology did not spring up spontaneously in the 1930s but was something deep that developed over the course of hundreds of years and ultimately culminated in the genocide we saw
but if for example, we took everyone in this thread and raised them in 1890s Germany- how many of them would believe in tolerance and racial equality? I’d honestly be surprised if there was a single person
I don’t know. I understand there are good things and bad things. but the difference between good and bad people is more complicated. bad people i typically relegate to those individuals that get pleasure of out cruelty or suffering
I completely agree. This poll was terrible.