Will Hitler be seen in a more positive way in the far future?

Phrossack said:

I find it awesome that despite centuries of independent linguistic development (with, to be fair, plenty of interaction), English and Dutch are still close enough that most English speakers could probably read that Dutch sentence just fine.

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The 'van' would have thrown me a bit, but yes, it's perfectly serviceable to me.

Arakhor said:

The 'van' would have thrown me a bit, but yes, it's perfectly serviceable to me.

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'van' in Dutch = 'of' or ''s' in English

So, "Wat was de voornaam van Hitler" would be "What was Hitler's first name?"

Oh yes, I guessed it was 'of' in that context. I noted its similarity to the German von.

Arakhor said:

Oh yes, I guessed it was 'of' in that context. I noted its similarity to the German von.

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Yeah. It's fairly obvious (von is fairly common in jokes about German names). My assumption was that if you were a person who had absolutely no knowledge of any Germanic languages aside from English, that would be the only word to really stump you.

Kyriakos said:

Whatever, i don't think germans are dumb enough to elect an adolf again.

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Are the Germans too dumb to tell the difference between, I dunno, Greek and Russian? Two also very similar languages? No doubt due to your inextricable shared history.

^Excellent parallelism there, given that like Dutch and German, everyone knows that Greek and Russian also belong to the same language family. They just always had a different alphabet and not much relation at all.

Although i guess since Cyril was from Thessalonike, you could argue that they all belong to us anyway.

Given the vast gulf between Ancient and Modern Greek, I'm not sure that even you, Kyriakos, fall into "us".

Actually i am "the last of us"

Plotinus said:

I doubt many people see Genghis Khan as a hero. And I doubt all that many people see Caesar as one, although perhaps he's complex.

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Actually, I have a rather positive impression of Genghis Khan. He was way ahead of his time, and only slaughtered millions because because the Mongols couldn't leave heavy garrisons to keep conquered populations in check. OK, it doesn't really sound that good, but I still admire him quite a lot.

I doubt that Hitler's reputation will ever be rehabilitated. This is because, while people may be prepared to forgive the crimes of ancient or medieval warlords on the grounds of historical context, Hitler didn't have such an excuse. Arguably he was no worse a warmonger than Napoleon, but Napoleon didn't attempt to exterminate an entire ethnicity on industrial lines. That is a horror that will retain its power to appall no matter how many generations pass.

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Are you suggesting that genocide is "over?" I think that the modern world, with its anonymous, depersonalized form of warfare, will make it ever easier to kill and wipe out whole peoples. China needs strategic space and defensible boundaries in central Asia? So long, Tibetans! Russia needs to secure Baltic territory permanently? Latvians, say hello to your new home. Auschwitz was made possible partly because of the efficiency and industrialization of killing in gas chambers. To them, eliminating Jews or undesirables wasn't much different than how we regard locking people up in mental hospitals or prisons today- they're brutal but "necessary." People simply don't care. It wouldn't matter even if every last philosopher in the world agreed that fetuses had full human rights; they don't talk, or think, or wake, so they simply aren't human to the vast majority voters. I think that the Holocaust won't be looked upon as too peculiar or out of place in future history textbooks, any more than Caesar's slaughter of the Belgae tribes is today.

As a possible comparison, consider Crassus' crucifixion of six thousand slaves along the Appian Way. That was a very long time ago, in an age when such barbarity was not uncommon, but I think there's still something peculiarly horrible about it even when we learn about it today. Crassus isn't "up there" with Hitler because he's not as well known or as historically significant, but I think it's a good example of an ancient brutality that still appalls us now.

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I agree that Hitler's genocide will always be looked on as uniquely horrific, given that it was not a political struggle. As Muhammad Dajani pointed out, the concept of a "Jewish-Nazi peace process" is piquantly absurd. Most genocide takes place because of political circumstances or as collateral from massive scale-warfare (the Mongols would be a good example- if one man in a village resisted, they all died).

The Holocaust is orders of magnitude worse than that, not to mention far more culturally significant (I mean so widely known and branded into our cultural memories and awareness).

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No, the Holocaust isn't really "branded in our cultural memories" so deeply that it won't ever fade. In the direct post-war era I've gotten the impression that the Holocaust was pretty traumatic for Germany itself. It was, I believe, taboo in public discourse, and Holocaust studies never really got off the ground until the Destruction of the European Jews was published in 1961. Seriously, if the Holocaust is so easily subject to political winds, what makes it distinct from the Armenian genocide, which still isn't universally accepted as fact because of Turkey's importance and prominence in the Middle East?

Mouthwash said:

Actually, I have a rather positive impression of Genghis Khan. He was way ahead of his time, and only slaughtered millions because because the Mongols couldn't leave heavy garrisons to keep conquered populations in check. OK, it doesn't really sound that good, but I still admire him quite a lot.

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"But your honour, I only killed all those people because it was convenient for me to do so!"

Traitorfish said:

"But your honour, I only killed all those people because it was convenient for me to do so!"

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"And as for raping them, I was gong to kill them anyway, so it's not like it was going to hurt!"

Actually, I have a rather positive impression of Adolf Hitler. He was way ahead of his time, and only slaughtered millions because because the British refused to surrender and because the Germans couldn't leave heavy garrisons to keep the Slavs and perfidious Jews in check. OK, it doesn't really sound that good, but I still admire him quite a lot.

Mouthwash said:

Are you suggesting that genocide is "over?"

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No, and I'm puzzled that you should apparently think I am.

Mouthwash said:

It wouldn't matter even if every last philosopher in the world agreed that fetuses had full human rights; they don't talk, or think, or wake, so they simply aren't human to the vast majority voters.

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"Every last philosopher in the world" would never agree such a thing, because it's highly implausible. For every last philosopher in the world to agree it, it would have to be a blindingly obvious fact. And if it were a blindingly obvious fact, the bulk of humanity wouldn't disagree with it. I doubt very much that there's a single claim that every single philosopher in the world agrees is true, and I doubt even more that, if there is one, the bulk of non-philosophical humanity thinks it is false.

Plotinus said:

"Every last philosopher in the world" would never agree such a thing, because it's highly implausible. For every last philosopher in the world to agree it, it would have to be a blindingly obvious fact. And if it were a blindingly obvious fact, the bulk of humanity wouldn't disagree with it. I doubt very much that there's a single claim that every single philosopher in the world agrees is true, and I doubt even more that, if there is one, the bulk of non-philosophical humanity thinks it is false.

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I agree. 'Philosophers' tend to not agree on much anyway, whereas 'the bulk of non-philosophical humanity' may not agree on much either, but seems to be of the view that it does, mostly out of less focus on the definitions and viewing point. A bit like two people arguing if a shade of a color is closer to cyan or deep blue, and a bulk of other people agreeing with them that it is a color.

Mouthwash said:

Auschwitz was made possible partly because of the efficiency and industrialization of killing in gas chambers. To them, eliminating Jews or undesirables wasn't much different than how we regard locking people up in mental hospitals or prisons today- they're brutal but "necessary." People simply don't care.

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Actually, I was reading only yesterday, that gas chambers were introduced in order to depersonalize the experience for the people involved in killing large numbers of people. Sufficient numbers of SS guards who'd personally shot several thousand civilians committed suicide and it worried the authorities.

I don't believe people simply don't care.

Still, my point probably isn't terribly relevant.

^ That had to have played a main part. The economic reason (those germans just felt sad to use all that good ammo to kill what they deemed as subhumans) also played a main role. :/

Himmler spearheaded the switch to gas after vomiting upon witnessing a massacre during his tour of Poland and the Ukraine, from memory. It was common for even hardline SS officers to suffer headaches and nausea after prolonged periods of what we would call "cleansing" activities today. It's perfectly understandable that the Nazis would seek a solution that exposed their men to the unpleasantness of murder as little as possible.

Well they also had severe problems with soldiers refusing to participate in the massacres, or otherwise seeking ways to get out of it: faking being sick, injuring oneself (or another, who would then injure you back so you both could get out of the killing), etc. So the individual executions that characterized the early part of the war were simply becoming infeasible, almost more trouble than they were worth.

Plotinus said:

No, and I'm puzzled that you should apparently think I am.

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Well, if genocide will continue well into the future, I think that it would eventually desensitize us from this one particular genocide.

"Every last philosopher in the world" would never agree such a thing, because it's highly implausible. For every last philosopher in the world to agree it, it would have to be a blindingly obvious fact. And if it were a blindingly obvious fact, the bulk of humanity wouldn't disagree with it. I doubt very much that there's a single claim that every single philosopher in the world agrees is true, and I doubt even more that, if there is one, the bulk of non-philosophical humanity thinks it is false.

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It was an analogy, lol.

Mouthwash said:

Well, if genocide will continue well into the future, I think that it would eventually desensitize us from this one particular genocide.

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No, not necessarily. After all, there have, as people have pointed out, been plenty of genocides since that one, but that hasn't stopped it being regarded as uniquely atrocious. I don't see why, necessarily, that couldn't continue to be the case even if genocides continue, and even if genocides are committed that are in some way even worse. Reality is one thing, and the cultural perception of reality is another. And indeed you said as much yourself when you said that "I agree that Hitler's genocide will always be looked on as uniquely horrific".

Mouthwash said:

It was an analogy, lol.

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Yes, but if your analogy is impossible or absurd, it doesn't provide much support to your claim.