Black and white thinking is a dangerous path to go down. Not because there is necessarily something wrong with thinking in absolutes, well there is but that's besides the point. I put people who are prone to black and white thinking on a low level on a scale of empathy. Why? Because it shows a distinct lack of the ability to put yourself in other peoples shoes.
The question "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?" has been used by many people as a way to force people who believe murder is always wrong to admit that maybe in rare cases its justified or for the betterment of the world. However they fail to take everything else into consideration. If Hitler had been killed in 1918 or something before he rose to power in the Nazi party and before he took control of Germany, the course of history would have been radically different.
The Cold war came as a direct result of WW2, the growth of the Soviet Union came as a result of WW2. The Hippies, the greasers, even 1980's hairbands came as a result of WW2. Great developments in computer technology, rockets, man on the moon all comes as a result of WW2.
So answering yes and no is making the question way to easy, since every choice has secondary effects. People also underestimate cultural influence, there is little doubt in my mind that if your average Christian had been born in Yemen or Saudi-Arabia they would be a Muslim, just like if a few hardcore Muslims were born in the US they would most likely be Christians.
One needs to be open minded but at the same time look at things in perspective. In the Nuremberg trial following WW2 the former heads of state of Germany were convicted on conspiracy to wage offensive war, take the land, the valuables and people of other nations, in addition to the extermination of the Jews.
Now isn't this roughly what America did with the invasion of Iraq? I mean with Afghanistan there was a reason to enter the country, it was and still is a breeding ground for extremists. In Iraq there really was no justifiable reason to attack the country, and there was no declaration of war, just an invasion.
That strikes me as being very similar to what the German high command were convicted of following WW2, waging war and invading sovereign nations without a declaration of war.
I was for going into Iraq when it was believed they had weapons of mass destruction but they didn't did they?
In addition atrocities like abu-graib comes to light, the behavior of Blackwater towards civilians, the clear exploitation of the situation by Hallie-Burton and countless other American companies, the complicity of Dick Cheney in the exploitation of Iraqi resources and the way the war was waged and I think a Nuremburg trial would have no choice but to convict the republicans in charge of this war.
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ReplyDeleteThere is no way to know what would have happened if Hitler had died before he could become the Fürer, but, with no doubt, that question opens infinite other questions.
ReplyDeleteActually, thinking about all the ways to change the past is quite fun, but history is not a game (tbh even in CoD you can't kill Hitler! ) and people, anyway, couldn't know the consequences at that time.
If I was asked what I think about Nazism I'd reply with a word: Barbarism. Barbarism in the XX century! But, anyway, when Nazism began, there had been more than one totalitarism, Communism for istance. Both of them had their own idol, in order to create a better world than the one they were living in. A war, then, couldn't be avoided. Shall we ask what would have happened if Hitler and Stalin (maybe Lenin too) had never born? I don't think I'm gonna ask myself about it since the communist ideas had already been there since '700 or earlier. And Nazism was new, that's true, but again it came as a result of consequences that couldn't be avoided. Or, for example, should I go back and kill Friedrich Nietzsche too? Probably all the people just needed something to believe on (confidence? ), thanks to their ignorance. Then that belief became a mass extermination. But note that concentration camps had already been there before, against Armenians (or earlier, in the UK). Then URSS used them too, and probably Hitler learnt how to use them from the soviets.
There was a priest in my town, that told us a story, some time ago, which I couldn't forget. He told about Don Gnocchi (and it's not a parent of mine:p ), that, during a war retreat, got into a military base camp; he was wearing the black cross, symbol of the military Chaplain. They made fun of him and started argueing angrily. At some point one of them stood up on his feet, keeping his arm stiff erected on the wall, where the photo of Hitler was and said: "This is our Christ".
And it was true, that was their Christ. Like those who believe in marxism have their Christ in the proletariat of whom the dynamism of supreme expression is the chief of the party.
Ah, If History had been different I might still be in the platonic world.
Cya in Warcraft :>