I've been thinking about why the Nazi's seem to be used everytime we want to associate an idea with evil.
Are the Nazi's used because we cannot come up with another or perhaps better example of evil? Or is it that they are so well documented and exhibited so many evil practices they are easier to use?
Is there no better force of evil, or evil event that we can use to ridicule an opponents point of view?
What could fit the bill? The crusades comes to mind, but thats used quite a bit as well.
posted
I think it's because A) almost everybody can agree that they were evil and B) it happened only 60 years ago.
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10) Terrorist 9) French 8) Liberal 7) Microsoft 6) Fox TV Network (mainly for all the good shows they cancelled) 5) Disney 4) Ted Turner (can you say Colorization) 3) Ted Bundy 2) Al Bundy 1) The most evil of them all
posted
I think it's because WWII is the last major conflict of good vs. evil that seems so clear in hindsight that people are at least passingly familiar with. It seems like a vast majority of people agree that what the Nazi's did was terrible. Finding this level of mass agreement on an event that can be used for an analogy can be just about impossible on the Internet. As such, it gets so overused and stretched that it makes people roll their eyes when they see it.
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posted
Also, while the Nazi's were evil in result, and in practice, they emerged from a descent and respectable people.
The Nazi label is about the fall of an ideal into evil, more than labeling the idea as Evil to start.
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posted
I agree with BQT. I cringed when you used the Crusades as another possible example of evil because I've been in countless debates on that very subject (mostly with uninformed people). I've never been involved in a debate as to whether Hitler or the Nazi's were evil. Think about it ... Communism certainly isn't an option. Look at Blayne. And 3 of the 4 things mph mentioned (rapists, murderers, and child molesters) inevitably tend to strike too close to home someone. Because the people affected by the Nazi's "evil" are largely either dead or not surfing the internet, it is a "safe" description. Rape, on the other hand, seems to be a rather contentious word. You're almost sure to offend someone when you use it among a large group of people, regardless of the context.
So of course "Nazi" and "Hitler" are going to be overused. They fit all the criteria: People know about them, people are not speaking from personal experience or likely speaking to someone who has had personal experience with Nazi's or Hitler, and it is politically correct. I really can't think of anything else that meets those conditions.
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posted
Well that indeed is a good question. I've never noticed it as overused myself, I'm just going from the original post.
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posted
I don't know what the original intent of Goodwin's Law was, but it sure seems to be used at times to keep people from Germans in WWII as an example.
I don't think that's a good thing.
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posted
But it prevents people from invoking the evil of Germans in WWII to describe, say, Wal-mart or teachers who flunk you for using a comma splice.
Where genocide is suspected, no one is afraid to say genocide. Where someone is trying to say unfair labor practices are tantamount to genocide, they will go for something suggesting genocide like "nazi" and "hitler" and "German before WWII".
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And if we're so quick to use evils done during the second world war, why don't we hear more use of condemnation by comparison with regards to the Japanese? or the Russians?
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posted
I actually agree with Lyrhawn that the Crusades were not evil . They simply don't meet my definition. I'm not saying they were right or that they did not have evil aspects, but to label the entire outfit as "evil" is a generalization I'm not willing to make.
I was reading 1984 recently and there's the part (near the beginning I believe) where there is the "minute of hate". IIRC (which is not by any means a sure thing) they showed a video of the bad guy going on a diatribe, yelling and screaming and incorporating large amounts of emotion into the video. This, in turn, got everyone else really worked up. Perhaps that contributes to the difference in the public's perception of WWII. Video's of Hitler, which are ingrained into most of ours consciousness, bring a lot of negative emotion to the table in the context of evil. All we see of Stalin is that picture of the Yalta conference where he and Roosevelt and Churchill are chummin it up. And the Japanese are usually relegated to planes dive bombing ships. Neither really invokes much emotion for me because it's quite impersonal. On the other hand, Hitler screaming, spittle flying, moustache quivering .... well, yeah. I think for me at least, that may be why I assosciate Hitler and by relation, the Nazi's to evil before other things. It's not that I don't think Stalin's purges or Japan's POW camps were not evil, they just don't evoke the same kind of irrational emotion that Hitler and the Nazi's do.
Edit: I'm in a historic/literary introspective mood, so I apologize for my musings which don't really address any issues.
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posted
"Not even the Fourth? Or the Children's Crusade?"
Which is why I stated that Ratzinger's comments were neither accidental nor contrary to his purpose. You will note that the Vatican Secretary of State who tried to issue an apology has been fired and replaced.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: And if we're so quick to use evils done during the second world war, why don't we hear more use of condemnation by comparison with regards to the Japanese? or the Russians?
Very few people know about the Japanese atrocities. And while people know about the Russian (and I would say Chinese) atrocities, they don't have the same type of emotional impact.
quote: But it prevents people from invoking the evil of Germans in WWII to describe, say, Wal-mart or teachers who flunk you for using a comma splice.
Where genocide is suspected, no one is afraid to say genocide. Where someone is trying to say unfair labor practices are tantamount to genocide, they will go for something suggesting genocide like "nazi" and "hitler" and "German before WWII".
I think the reason the Nazi's an Hitler are a good example is because they apply to so many situations other than genocide. They serve to remind people what a slippery slope all of their actions are on.
I almost never use Nazi's or Hitler to suggest genocide. I use them to remind people that normal people, just like them, can support and do horrific things.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: [qb] And if we're so quick to use evils done during the second world war, why don't we hear more use of condemnation by comparison with regards to the Japanese? or the Russians?
Very few people know about the Japanese atrocities. And while people know about the Russian (and I would say Chinese) atrocities, they don't have the same type of emotional impact.
Here's my theory:
Yes, the Japanese did some horrible things during WWII. In general, it would be much better to be held in a Nazi POW camp than a Japanese one.
But except for the POWs, the atrocities done by the Japanese were done to other Asians. The atrocities done by the Nazis were done to Europeans. They were people like us, while the people who suffered from the Japanese were most certainly not "us", they were "them".
I'm not saying it's good or right, but human beings in general find it much more difficult to care about the sufferings of "them".
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posted
Humans often assign symbolic significance to things. Ghandi or Mother Teresa are often used to represent good. Hitler represents evil. The fact that there are many other good or evil things in the world is irrelevent because the symbols take prescedence in mainstream culture- everyone recognises what they mean.
If you say "Stalin", many fewer people are familiar with exactly what he did.
quote:Nazi's
Everyone's writing it like this. Is 'Nazis' wrong?
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posted
It looks like this is just me, but whenever I call someone a 'Nazi', it is more to indicate their single mindedness than their evilness. Take, for example, the terms 'Soup Nazi' or 'Grammar Nazi'; they do not indicate evil, merely single mindedness to the point of fanatasism.
If I want to call someone evil with a historical metaphor, I prefer calling them 'Nero' or a Hun.
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posted
Hrm. "Nero," to me, suggests decadence and incompetence more than evil. And "Hun" suggests uncivilized barbarism. What would you use for shorthand for civilized, effective evil?
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posted
Tom - Capitalism. j/k, kinda. I don't know, I tend to think that if a society is civilized, it can't be evil. I also then to think that evil is a nearly impossible status to reach, and can't think of any examples of it off of the top of my head. But that is more soul searching than I have time for right now.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: The Crusades were NOT evil.
And if we're so quick to use evils done during the second world war, why don't we hear more use of condemnation by comparison with regards to the Japanese? or the Russians?
Still think the crusades were absolutely devoid of any positive goal to say nothing of results. Therefore they were either an incredible blunder that everyone was aware of, or it was an evil idea executed through the willingness of people both good and evil.
But I imagine most Christians would rather use the Nazi's as an example of evil, rather than something alittle closer to home.
I've yet to hear a Mormon reference the Mountain Meadows Massacre as an example of evil.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: We're gonna need a bucket.
I read somebody's comment in your thread about THIS thread making their eyes bleed. Figured I'd make a post and kill off a kitten at the same time.
I'm pleased you caught it
PS: Conversely does using an apostrophe correctly cause a cat to become pregnant with kittens?
Edit: Read a comment in THIS thread about their eyes bleeding. Man I am losing track of what thread I am posting in, I must be going crazy.
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I should've said the Crusades as a whole were not evil. I wouldn't call the Children's Crusade itself evil, though the outcome was certainly unfavorable.
The Fourth...I wouldn't call evil, but I would describe as one of the most stupid, idiotic, douchebaggish things I've ever seen the Western World do. It was a vast military blunder, maybe the biggest of the Crusades, next to not giving up Damietta for the Levant, imho.
I never said there weren't individual evils during the war, but would you describe WW2 as evil because of the bombing of Dresden? Or the firebombing/nuking of Japanese cities? Was the Civil War evil because of Sherman's March to the Sea?
The Crusades as a whole were a long postponed response to Muslim aggression in North Africa, the Levant, Anatolia and Spain. That they were gone about rather stupidly from time to time doesn't make them evil. Some of what went on during them was wrong, and could be construed as evil, but I think it's also fair to say, that if you're going to call Crusader atrocities evil, you pretty much have to label every war before 1800 as evil. Because at some point, they were all the same.
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posted
I know, but it's mostly fiction/legend anyway, so I spiced it up, like any good toga-blurb writer would.
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: I know, but it's mostly fiction/legend anyway, so I spiced it up, like any good toga-blurb writer would.
You might be surprised how much of it is true. Not necessarily that anyone had any visions, but historians have really been fighting about this issue a lot lately (and forever really). Some things we thought were legend are really true, and some things we thought were true are really just fiction.
I stick to the view that the Children's Crusade did have a great many children, many of him either starved or were sold into slavery, but the majority of the crusade was probably the old and sick. All three groups of which were forbidden to Cruade by the Pople.
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. They simply don't meet my definition. I'm not saying they were right or that they did not have evil aspects, but to label the entire outfit as "evil" is a generalization I'm not willing to make. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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