How can you blame Hitler?

[MozartLink]

I would like to talk about people who have no empathy at all for others whatsoever (narcissist sociopaths). Some would say that you can still be a good person even if you are one and help out others anyway, but I find this to be an unrealistic expectation because doing such deeds presupposes empathy in the first place which the narcissist sociopath does not have.

Really, it would be no different than going up to someone and harming him/her when you were just fine and happy with that individual. There had to be a reason for you doing that. You must of had some anger or resentment towards that person, otherwise there would be no reason for you harming him/her. Same thing applies to the situation of a narcissist sociopath.

In other words, if the narcissist sociopath is going to help others, make the world a better place, etc. then there had to be a reason for him/her doing that. He/she must of had some empathy in doing these deeds, otherwise there would be no reason for him/her doing these deeds at all. Or he/she could just be doing it for his/her own personal gain.

So how can you blame people like Hitler if these types of people truly had no empathy at all? To expect him to change, not harm the Jews, and do good in the world presupposes empathy which he does not have. So really, he did not have the choice in the matter and if he did do so anyway, then he would either be doing it for no reason at all or he would just be doing it for his own personal gain.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Actually the movement was bigger than the man. He was probably no more a psychopath then the average Joe. A rather pathetic figure by all accounts. Germany was full of nasty, average-joe psychopaths who lacked the imagination or intelligence to see the movement for what it was, and were only too happy to have someone to pick on.
How many Americans really give a shit about all the innocent dead in the ME? I mean REALLY? Do you think Bush, Clinton and Obama lose sleep over it? Psychopathy isn't exactly a rarity.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/se ... ny-1336922

Solely blaming Hitler is a cop-out. These people were enjoying themselves immensely. Ordinary villagers as well.

'' What he learned disturbed him. The killings were spectacles; they took place in broad daylight, in front of entire villages.

Father Desbois: They were fighting to have a good place like for circus.

Lara Logan: There's no way they couldn't have known.

Father Desbois: Not only that, but they were running when they heard when they were killing Jews, to see, to try to catch a coin, to check out your clothes, to take a picture. They wanted to be there.''

[TSBU]

Actually the movement was bigger than the man. He was probably no more a psychopath then the average Joe. A rather pathetic figure by all accounts. Germany was full of nasty, average-joe psychopaths who lacked the imagination or intelligence to see the movement for what it was, and were only too happy to have someone to pick on.
How many Americans really give a shit about all the innocent dead in the ME? I mean REALLY? Do you think Bush, Clinton and Obama lose sleep over it? Psychopathy isn't exactly a rarity.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/se ... ny-1336922

Blaming Hitler is a cop-out. These people were enjoying themselves immensely. Ordinary villagers as well.

'' What he learned disturbed him. The killings were spectacles; they took place in broad daylight, in front of entire villages.

Father Desbois: They were fighting to have a good place like for circus.

Lara Logan: There's no way they couldn't have known.

Father Desbois: Not only that, but they were running when they heard when they were killing Jews, to see, to try to catch a coin, to check out your clothes, to take a picture. They wanted to be there.''

I didn't expect to agree so much. Thanks, it's always welcome to hear some thoughts.

[osgart]

making excuses for evil. Purely this is where evil hangs out.

[Dalek Prime]

Whether a person is an empath or sociopath, intellectually we know right from wrong. Responsibility lies solely with Hitler.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Whether a person is an empath or sociopath, intellectually we know right from wrong. Responsibility lies solely with Hitler.

And with everyone involved, and everyone who followed the ideology. As I said, it's a cop-out to depict him as some kind of omnipotent personification of ultimate evil, when he had millions of willing followers (more than willing).

[Dalek Prime]

Whether a person is an empath or sociopath, intellectually we know right from wrong. Responsibility lies solely with Hitler.

And with everyone involved, and everyone who followed the ideology. As I said, it's a cop-out to depict him as some kind of omnipotent personification of ultimate evil, when he had millions of willing followers (more than willing).

I agree Veg. I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility. I was just clarifying that sociopaths know the difference, on an intellectual level.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Whether a person is an empath or sociopath, intellectually we know right from wrong. Responsibility lies solely with Hitler.

And with everyone involved, and everyone who followed the ideology. As I said, it's a cop-out to depict him as some kind of omnipotent personification of ultimate evil, when he had millions of willing followers (more than willing).

I agree Veg. I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility. I was just clarifying that sociopaths know the difference, on an intellectual level.

And the fact that they know is really what makes them 'socio/psychopathic'. Is he worse than those who taunted the people in the gas chambers before dropping the canister? If they were 'just following orders' then why take such delight in it?
An ideology/religion like nazism can create a collective insanity that blinds people to reason. And people who have a tendency towards cruelty are going to express it when given a free rein to.
Any fanatic is impossible to reason with. Just look at Im Can's assertions about 'atheists' being the personification of 'evil'. Imagine him with a bit of power.

[Londoner]

I don't think Hitler was particularly unbalanced; he seemed able to control himself, to moderate his actions when it was prudent. Besides, so many others went along with him.

But I don't think that makes the philosophical problem in the OP go away. If Hitler wasn't mentally unbalanced, then it must be that he was made the way he was by what happened to him. He was also in such a position and at such a time that he could express himself in such a destructive way. How many Hitlers must just get diverted into ordinary activities? If Hitler had got into art school, if WW1 had not taken place, if he had not been in Bavaria in 1918, he might have lived his life in harmless obscurity.

I understand this as the idea of 'moral luck'. You could sum it up as 'not judging someone unless you have walked a mile in their shoes'.

[Pluto]

Hitler is the personification of power's will stripped bare without the polish of PR - in our time we have Hitlers times 10 but they aren't as visible. The US and UK are much more of a killing machine than any Nazi system was. In fact the Nazi system grew out of the eugenics project of USA. The US and UK are the biggest killers on earth right now, yet they do it, they say, as an act of good will. Power, to date, has to be totally murderous and unjust. This is its weakness. We are the good Germans who keep quiet and reap the fading prosperous stability.

[TSBU]

Hitler is the personification of power's will stripped bare without the polish of PR - in our time we have Hitlers times 10 but they aren't as visible. The US and UK are much more of a killing machine than any Nazi system was. In fact the Nazi system grew out of the eugenics project of USA. The US and UK are the biggest killers on earth right now, yet they do it, they say, as an act of good will. Power, to date, has to be totally murderous and unjust. This is its weakness. We are the good Germans who keep quiet and reap the fading prosperous stability.

Now we change from one evil person to one evil... not even a person, a country.

[Pluto]

Seeing a film out of the US the other night, about a wind that makes people want to kill themselves (with mark Walberg) I thought this place (the US) is totally sick and evil actually, to make such a thing, along with a whole line of other stuff. It is truly anti-life, anti-man and anti-creativity. And the problem is that all the other maniac countries see this one, or are forced (blinded) to see it - as a shining light. It isn't at all. It's actually anti-life and expresses this on the many people of the world, including its own people, it is a tyrannical mess hurtling through time.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Seeing a film out of the US the other night, about a wind that makes people want to kill themselves (with mark Walberg) I thought this place (the US) is totally sick and evil actually, to make such a thing, along with a whole line of other stuff. It is truly anti-life, anti-man and anti-creativity. And the problem is that all the other maniac countries see this one, or are forced (blinded) to see it - as a shining light. It isn't at all. It's actually anti-life and expresses this on the many people of the world, including its own people, it is a tyrannical mess hurtling through time.

It made 'heroes' out of those who created and used the Atom bomb.

[TSBU]

[Greta]

Reality consists of growth and entropy. Some people generate more of one or the other (not always the usual suspects either). Someone has to be an extreme outlier - be they Gandhi or Hitler. A dirty job but, if the niche is there, someone is going to fill it.