“Therefore, leaving matters of psychopathology, one seems left with the old
belief that good behavior is a result of good teaching and bad behavior the
result of bad.” If only world was this simple 😊
What we are left with is the massive contribution of philosophers defining
ethical values independent of religious doctrines.
Mashhood
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf
Of Lawrence Helm
Sent: 8. april 2019 18:24
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] The reasons for Hitler
Someone a while back advanced the theory that no debate about anything could
continue very long without someone introducing Hitler as an example of
something or other. Presumably those who mentioned Hitler after this were for
a time scoffed at because of this theory, but I disagree. Hitler really did
live and he really did do all those things, and it behooves us to learn from
his bad example.
Therefore, leaving matters of psychopathology, one seems left with the old
belief that good behavior is a result of good teaching and bad behavior the
result of bad. I read Ian Kershaw’s Hitler, 1889-1936 Hubris back in 2004.
Kershaw writes on page 29, “’I owe it to that period that I grew hard.’ Hitler
was referring to the years he spent in Vienna between February 1908 and May
1913, when he left the Austrian capital for Munich and the beginning of a new
life in Germany. The ‘mother’s darling’ had lost his ‘soft downy bed’ and the
carefree existence he had enjoyed in Linz. Instead of ‘the hollowness of
comfortable life’, he was now thrown into a world of misery and poverty’, with
‘Dame Care’ as his new mother. Even as he dictated Mein Kampf, during his
internment in Landsberg in 1924, Vienna aroused in Hitler only ‘dismal
thoughts’ of ‘the saddest period’ of his life.”
With Hitler in mind then, let’s turn to an experiment some scientist did years
ago on an island with Howler monkeys. The scientists built platforms
throughout the island so they could look down at all the monkeys without being
a distraction or an interference. They classified these monkeys in many ways,
one of which was “dominance factor.” Dominance was rated in terms of who led a
particular pack to water, who decided it was time to turn back, who intimidated
whom, who led the pack against rival packs. [I don’t remember the exact
dominance numbers involved, but my assumptions should convey the intent] A
dominance number of three might make decisions a lot of the time. A number
five, might be a pack leader. It was noted that packs regularly met at their
borders, had some fights with the neighboring pack and then returned home.
And then the scientists were amazed by a strange phenomenon. One pack suddenly
began moving around the entire island. No other pack interfered with it. The
scientist after studying this pack more closely discovered that one monkey had
a dominance factor off their charts. No other monkey on the island had a
dominance factor even close this one’s. Let us give him the dominance factor
50. All the other monkeys gave way. It may have been the confrontations with
other monkey-packs that enabled the discovery by this monkey that no other
monkey or pack of monkeys could stand up against him.
Hitler was a corporal and not a leader in Germany’s confrontation with its
enemies, but he did very well. After the war when many Germans were outraged
over being ‘tricked into surrendering,’ Hitler came into his own. People
listened to him. He said what they believed. He influenced and inspired them.
His great dominance factor was at last seen by all in all its glory.
If any of the above is true and applicable, individuals with potentially very
high dominance factors are potentially in many primate genetic population
clusters. Perhaps Churchill and Roosevelt had genetic potentials for
dominance as high as Hitler’s, but his had been tested and honed in ways that
theirs were not.
Critics of the Second World War assert that if Britain, France, and the U.S.
had insisted on unconditional surrender at the conclusion of World War One,
World War Two would never have occurred. Believing that they learned their
lesson, Britain, the U.S. and the USSR occupied Germany for quite a long time.
Presumably few Germans this time have argued that Germany was tricked into
surrendering after World War Two.
Lawrence
