what is evil?

[LadyBarbara]

Evil could be construed as anything that is morally bad or wrong, but there are so many gray areas in morality itself, that I find a better definition of the word "evil" is anything (or anyone) malicious and wicked, or a person who puts such an evil interpretation on even innocent things.

[Master of Ossus]

Well, whether you like it or not, Germany was a fucked up place to be at that time.

I agree. That is a big part of the reason why Hitler was able to gain so many followers so quickly--desperate people will do desperate things, but I don't think that should make them evil.

[Coyote]

Evil is a lack of sympathy; it is a callous disregard for the suffering of other human beings. It's that simple....

By that definition, nearly every German citizen during WWII was evil. I find that difficult to swallow. I think evil should be reserved for people who go out of their ways to make other people suffer.

Hannah Arendt: "The Banality of Evil" (and to a lesser extent, "Hitler's Willing Executioners").

How ordinary, workaday German citizens of the Reich quietly went to work and closed their eyes and ears to the tyranny around them-- the empty houses, the boxcars of people, the chimney smoke, the screams in the night, the Aktions... and did nothing bcause it didn't affect them directly. That is a societal, pervasive, head-in-the-sand passive evil that has no excuse. It is purely selfish.

The Reich backed down from public pressure-- the Wives Riot (when the Jewish husbands of 'Aryan' women were rounded up), the exposure of the Reich policy to euthanize people with cerebral palsy. But where were the riots and demonstrations when it came time for the Jews to go?

Nada.

So then-- try this one: If you see a group of armed men burst into the house of your neighbor... and you hear the screams, the body-'gainst-the-wall thump, the terrified shouts and the gunshots... and you stand there and let it happen because it doesn't affect you... is that not callous, selfish disregard? Especially if you've seen that government back down from social pressure before?

Yes, a society can be guilty.

Sh'ma Yisrael...

"ha'Ze'ev-Ereva b'Tseva Aretzot-ha'Brit (miluim)" which is another way to say:

[Lusankya]

How do you know they didn't think "well, what can I do?"

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

Let's get one thing straight here.
There is no such person as society, so society can never be at fault.

Society is a group of individuals, with no more rights, or responsibilities than they have when they are alone.

Some of the individuals in Nazi Germany were evil nasty bastards. Some of the individuals were in a state of denial. Physical courage, in defying a small mob, is easy to talk about, but harder to do. If this sort of thing happened to one of MY neighbors, I would start shooting, and sort things out later. (Jury nulification) Mobs are cowards, and shooting tends to scatter them. On the other hand, most people don't have the firepower I have do unleash. (If I can't stop it with the 300 rounds I have loaded in magazines, it was WAY too big for me anyhow!)With no firearms, I don't think I would confront a mob. At least without taking my sword off the wall.

Die well. Take as many as possible with you.

I also have the luxery of not having to worry about wife and children when I'm gone. Many don't. If you choose to keep your family safe, can you be said to have made the wrong choice?

[Coyote]

I am saying that the Reich was an evil society, a society based on evil and accepted despite its evil-- by the very citizens that made it up. Again, this is not the active evil of the SS triggerman that gleefully guns people down-- this is the passive evil of the people who did nothing to stop what was going on despite(1) Knowing what was happening, and (2) Knowing that the government of the Reich had backed down before in the face of social pressure.

The ideology of the Reich to come was outlined vividly by Hitler in Mein Kampf. He outlined the need to exterminate the Jews and the need to expand Germany's borders eastward and to ethnically cleanse the Slavic peoples living there. Tens of thousands of troops were involved in the Final Solution-- of coure they're going to talk about what happened. Trains full of war materiel were diverted-- while the soldiers desperately needing those supplied were being bled white on the Russian Front-- because the trains full of 'undesireables' going to the camps had priority. No attempts was made to keep it secret because they had the compliance and passive aceptance of the population.

So, are 'Germans' evil? No. This is not a racial trait but a trait that came about because of the society of the time. The Germans (indeed many European nations) had been convinced for centuries (by gov't's, kings and churches) that Jews, Gypsies, gays and others were filthy and unclean elements endangering the moral fabric of society. We've seen it before-- Yugoslavia, Soviet Russia, the Indian Wars in the US... and even today, in Israel, I see these hardening of hearts and applications of hatred taking over. It can happen anywhere.

But my feeling is that while this EXPLAINS the actions, it does not EXCUSE the actions. Remember, in the good ol' USA, we once thought that slavery was legal, moral, justified by God and it was taught in schools that a Black was "three-fifths of a human being". Misguided? Unfortunate? Yes. Also evil.

Just a thought...

[IRG CommandoJoe]

"First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me."

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

I agree fully.

[Tsyroc]

"First they came for the Communists,
and I didn?t speak up,
because I wasn?t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn?t speak up,
because I wasn?t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn?t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me."

by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

I agree fully.

I have a T-shirt with that on it.
I think it is a good reminder to have courage and stand up for what you
know to be right because sometime later it could be too late.

[Coyote]

See, I don't think that is is right to say that since a 'society' is not an individual with its own sapient identity, that anything done by a society cannot be classified as anything.

IMHO, if a society is without blame, then that allows a person to commit whatever acts s/he pleases, and then hide like a lemming among the masses and justify it with 'everybody does it'. Still don't make it right...

If we're supposed to 'think globally and act locally' to make the world a better place, that means that in our local actions, we must be responsible for our conduct as individuals-- only someone without hope (or their own sense of identity/self-worth) stoops to the justification of the faceless masses to perform evil. Its that interface that carries up through society and makes a mass, a society, good or evil...

But then we're getting into social psychology and stuff...