Related: we’ve all heard the stories of a time traveler going back to kill Hitler before his rise to power. One common theme in almost all those stories is that the attempt fails, that’s why history is as we remember. This morning has me thinking that maybe time travel was involved in a couple of Trump assassination attempts.
Hitler had one good idea. Right at the end when he decided to shoot himself.
He lost the war, and died committing suicide in a bunker as his capital city was under siege being demolished.
Seems like we could just focus on that fact to show how going Full Hitler ends up.
That’s not fair phrasing and will lead to high numbers.
Hitler wasn’t “all” bad technically, he was just so bad that the good shouldn’t matter at all. Pushing forward technology (VW Beetle, Autobahn) should is no way be justified by genocide (obviously).
A better question would have been something like “do you like Hitler overall?”
The full poll data: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Views_on_Hitler_poll_results.pdf
Do you think of Adolf Hitler as. . . ?
- A completely good person: 1%
- A good person who did some bad things: 4%
- An equally good and bad person: 7%
- A bad person who did some good things: 12%
- A completely bad person : 65%
- Not sure : 12%
So 12% felt he was at least as good as he was bad, 12% fell into the 'well, even a horrible person can do something right, and 12% were somehow not sure…
This is interesting, thank you for sharing.
I personally would tally this up as “12%” rather than “24%”.
Or at least in my opinion, option “D” (bad person that did some good things) is most likely the closest to an objective answer and “E” (completely bad) is a totally acceptable summary. But both D and E both summarize Hitler as bad. The people summarizing him as “balanced” or “good” totaled to 12%.
To be clear, this is still horrific imo.
Yes a question about Hitler being good overall is far better. Attempting to shove him into an all bad category is just dishonest and allows opponents a free win. The good absolutely should matter, because painting people as all one thing isn’t accurate and makes understanding how things happen more difficult.
We’ve got to stop talking about “if” and “when.”
It’s NOW. This is happening. We are watching the rise of the next Hitler, now, live, today. This isn’t hypothetical anymore - yesterday just gave them carte blanche to go full stormtroopers.
At this point, all of our conversations need to be about how we stay safe in the wake.
U.S. opinion on the Nazi dictator remains more negative that it was at the height of World War II, when 25 percent of Americans said his ideas were correct
That’s pretty surprising, you’d think when they were fighting him they’d hate him most
This is what happens when you start to dismantle the education system. We can thank Reagan and the Bushes for that.
This is how hitler came to power.
I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you…It doesn’t walk in saying,
“Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”–Michael Rosen.
It doesn’t walk in saying, “Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”
Yeah but evidently it does, and people still choose it.
American fascism certainly does say those things, but it’s always other peoples’ faces the leopards will be eating.
It’s like watching a horror movie. You know the killer is in the basement, yet people go and have a look while the audience knows what’s going to happen. A classic fuck around and find out.
Well we now know there are truly people stupid enough to do so.
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.
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”.
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”
Pretty sure this election proves it’s way more than one in five.
1 in 5 cant see that far behind them.
Judging by the latest election, the number seams a lot higher, more like three in five
One in five do not think Hitler was all bad. Two in five think he was better than a lady who laughs sometimes.
And the idiots that didn’t bother to vote, accepted this outcome
My thoughts exactly. Wait though, actually that is the fault of Democrats, somehow. I’ll get back to you on how
Fools never see evil until its at their door.
They see the evil but think it will be to their advantage because they aren’t like “those people.”
Point of vampires is to never invite evil in
