Does everything that's interesting in life merit discussion?

[Kaj]

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I wouldn't characterize Hitler as any of those things you call him. If you haven't read Mein Kampf, you'll find it interesting, thoughtful, quite rigorous, and not at all the work of a madman. And from the accounts of his life he seemed quite sane and rational to me, compared to your average person from that time.

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That's sort of the point.

[Kaj]

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I think that's an easy excuse out. Do we really need history to tell us that someone like Hitler is a sicko?

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Hitler wasn't just a sicko, and there are real lessons regarding his rise to power.

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Should we stop people from rejecting all people applying to art school? We need to do better than that.

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We DO do better than that. Have you ever read ANYTHING from ANYONE at ANYTIME make that suggestion based on studying Hitler? No.

If you're not interested in how a modern democratic state devolved into a totalitarian regime which dragged the entire civilized world into full-scale war and led to the extermination of millions, so be it. But pretending it wasn't a period worthy of examination is nothing short of asinine.

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think that's an easy excuse out. Do we really need history to tell us that someone like Hitler is a sicko?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hitler wasn't just a sicko, and there are real lessons regarding his rise to power.

[/ QUOTE ]
What real, actual lessons have we learnt in the 60 years since he died, and where have these lessons been practically applied? Specifically:

- What lessons have we learnt and applied from his love of art, or his stint as a poor person?
- What lessons have we learnt and applied from a knowledge of his schooling?
- What lessons have we learnt and applied from his personal rise to power (not the apparatus of the socialist state)
- What lessons have we learnt and applied from the nuances of his oratory skills, his mistresses, and so on?

It's very easy to *claim* there are real lessons, but in reality this stuff teaches us just about nothing about anything. Even the stuff related to the rise of a totalitarian state - it hasn't stopped Bush destroying Habeas Corpus, issuing arbitrary gag orders, and starting unprovoked invasions. It hasn't caused the US populace to rise up, because of Hitler's example (which most people are aware of).

So what lessons are there to be learnt and applied? At the least you have to admit that the personality and life history stuff provides little insight into anything existing now, is no better than useless for any practical ends. It's a glorification of a warlord. Which is all the OP is discussing.

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think that's an easy excuse out. Do we really need history to tell us that someone like Hitler is a sicko?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hitler wasn't just a sicko, and there are real lessons regarding his rise to power.

[/ QUOTE ]
What real, actual lessons have we learnt in the 60 years since he died, and where have these lessons been practically applied? Specifically:

- What lessons have we learnt and applied from his love of art, or his stint as a poor person?
- What lessons have we learnt and applied from a knowledge of his schooling?
- What lessons have we learnt and applied from his personal rise to power (not the apparatus of the socialist state)
- What lessons have we learnt and applied from the nuances of his oratory skills, his mistresses, and so on?

It's very easy to *claim* there are real lessons, but in reality this stuff teaches us just about nothing about anything. Even the stuff related to the rise of a totalitarian state - it hasn't stopped Bush destroying Habeas Corpus, issuing arbitrary gag orders, and starting unprovoked invasions. It hasn't caused the US populace to rise up, because of Hitler's example (which most people are aware of).

So what lessons are there to be learnt and applied? At the least you have to admit that the personality and life history stuff is no better than useless for any practical ends. It's a glorification of a warlord. Which is all the OP is discussing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Every historical figure has a context. If you're not interested in that context, so be it. What do you want, a law against having interests or curiosities that conflict with those of Phil123?

By the way, what historical lessons are you learning and applying at this very moment by reading a poker forum?

[Phil153]

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Every historical figure has a context. If you're not interested in that context, so be it. What do you want, a law against having interests or curiosities that conflict with those of Phil123?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not sure why you made that comment. This is specifically a thread about the merits of discussing Hitler. I don't care if people do or don't.

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, what historical lessons are you learning and applying at this very moment by reading a poker forum?

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I'm not the one claiming that historical lessons can be learnt. Note this quote above:

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We should study people like Hitler so that we can understand what he was all about. History always repeats itself because we never learn from our mistakes. The more educated we are as a whole, the better the chance we have of not letting another person like him get into power.

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I ask again, what lessons have we actually learnt from studying his personality and the nuances of his life?

If you want to claim that discussing Hitler is fun or interesting or scratches some itch, ok. But let's not pretend it has some value that it doesn't.

------

From your comments to tbach:

[ QUOTE ]
If you're not interested in how a modern democratic state devolved into a totalitarian regime which dragged the entire civilized world into full-scale war and led to the extermination of millions, so be it. But pretending it wasn't a period worthy of examination is nothing short of asinine.

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Germany Post WWI wasn't a modern democratic state.

And once again, what do Hitler's schooling, art skills and the like have to do with this? If you really care about learning lessons on the halt of totalitarianism, studying the internals and politics of the League of Nations is a far more instructive and useful exercise in my opinion. Probably even more useful than examining how the Nazi party grew in power. There are real lessons to be learnt from the actions of League of Nations member states that have direct practical applications today.

But that's not as sexy as reading about the sexual habits and formative experiences of the most evil man in history.

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Every historical figure has a context. If you're not interested in that context, so be it. What do you want, a law against having interests or curiosities that conflict with those of Phil123?

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not sure why you made that comment. This is specifically a thread about the merits of discussing Hitler. I don't care if people do or don't.

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, what historical lessons are you learning and applying at this very moment by reading a poker forum?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not the one claiming that historical lessons can be learnt. Note this quote above:

[ QUOTE ]
We should study people like Hitler so that we can understand what he was all about. History always repeats itself because we never learn from our mistakes. The more educated we are as a whole, the better the chance we have of not letting another person like him get into power.

[/ QUOTE ]
I ask again, what lessons have we actually learnt from studying his personality and the nuances of his life?

If you want to claim that discussing Hitler is fun or interesting or scratches some itch, ok. But let's not pretend it has some value that it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Knowing the details of Hitler's life helps humanize him as opposed to the cartoonish monster that history paints him as. By humanizing him, I think it allows greater understanding of the conditions, policies, and events which surrounded his reign of power. If we rely on a cartoonish picture of him, the nuances of how a man of his background could rise to power and institute such hateful acts is somewhat lost -- "he's evil" isn't a very useful analysis. Whether every tidbit of his life adds much value is not material, the point is that studying historical figures as multi-dimensional persons rather than one-dimensional caricatures has value in better understanding history and learning from it. Not every bit of knowledge has immediate reward -- but then again, if you didn't dig deeper, you wouldn't know if there was more to find or not and whether it would be of value or not. You've made your point that you disagree. Fine. Nobody is forcing you to study him or learn anything from him. But others may look at him and gain a better understanding of history compared to what they learned in school or movies. Your condescension of this study seems a bit over reactionary and I wonder what your true motives really are -- to be on a crusade against people studying historical figures seems an odd choice for one's efforts.

[Conspire]

[ QUOTE ]
Knowing the details of Hitler's life helps humanize him as opposed to the cartoonish monster that history paints him as. By humanizing him, I think it allows greater understanding of the conditions, policies, and events which surrounded his reign of power. If we rely on a cartoonish picture of him, the nuances of how a man of his background could rise to power and institute such hateful acts is somewhat lost -- "he's evil" isn't a very useful analysis. Whether every tidbit of his life adds much value is not material, the point is that studying historical figures as multi-dimensional persons rather than one-dimensional caricatures has value in better understanding history and learning from it. Not every bit of knowledge has immediate reward -- but then again, if you didn't dig deeper, you wouldn't know if there was more to find or not and whether it would be of value or not. You've made your point that you disagree. Fine. Nobody is forcing you to study him or learn anything from him. But others may look at him and gain a better understanding of history compared to what they learned in school or movies. Your condescension of this study seems a bit over reactionary and I wonder what your true motives really are -- to be on a crusade against people studying historical figures seems an odd choice for one's efforts.

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I would have to agree with everything u said, very well written.

[BigPoppa]

If we think of Hitler as some supernatural evil being, then it's easier to think his rise to power was a one-of-a-kind event that can't be repeated. If we think of him as a man (a particularly power-hungry and evil man, but still a man) then it reminds us that history can repeat itself.

Hell, I'm not even interested in the guy. The events that led to the Nazi seizure of power are more interesting than any of the individuals involved. I just don't have a problem with people who want to know what made him tick.

[TheDudeAbides]

OP - I spent two weeks in Poland visiting various Holocaust sites (Auschwitz, Majdanek, Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka, etc). Do you think I wasted my time? Would I have been better off trying to gain insight into my history by watching Mel Brooks movies?

[dizong]

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In response to this OOT thread Ask me about Adolf Hitler I made this thread On trying to understand Hitler. It got 3 responses that offered no insight and then was locked. I PM'd and IM'd the moderator who locked it and offered him the main concept of my thread which is the title of this post. He said "yes, without a doubt." but I'm not sure I agree.

To use the example of Adolf Hitler (or anything else you might like): Should we study Hitler because he is interesting, although it leads to the detriment of our minds as shown by A_C Slater's admittance (without any feeling of negativity about it) that he "understands Hitler."

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I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate Hitler scholars who would disagree with you. Studying Hitler (or any other taboo subject) does not automatically lead to personal immorality or blossoming of evil, and I think that's what you are getting at in your statement unless I am misinterpreting it. I don't know what AC Slater's personal motivation for studying Hitler or how solid his scholarly approach is, but the act of study itself should not be to blame. To simply close our eyes to past events or any bit knowledge for that matter is to close our minds to understanding how the world works.

Look in an academic library at a bunch of Ph.D theses and you'll wonder what the hell these people are wasting so much time on? It's knowledge, whether practical or not. That's why we send off monkeys into space, study pedophilia, and climb Mt. Everest. Not to waste time or money but to gain more knowledge. And that's part of the reason we should study Hitler, to attain knowledge about a man who did the unconscionable and somehow try to derive something positive out of it which I'm guessing is the goal of most people. If Hitler were forgotten a thousand years for now because people were "scared" to study such a taboo figure, then that would be a major shame for all of us.