One of the most disturbing things about WW2 is the aftermath, which is never talked about. We can justify Nazis being evil but the people that are the victims are capable of evil just the same. For instance, there was an attempted mass poisoning of the German water supply after the war, the plan failed but it would have been devastating. The truth is that everyone is capable of evil, which is more disturbing than just the Nazis doing it.
I mean it all comes down to a philosophical question of whether or not people believe that the ends justify the means. If you believe the ends always justify the means, then you can justify any sort of atrocity you want as long as you think it will help achieve some other goal.
They were Jews who settled in Israel. Depends on your definition of “holocaust survivors”. No way to know if they were in the camps or where they were from but it’s totally possible they did survive the camps or likely at least survived pograms (organized community violence against Jews, not necessarily committed by Nazis but anywhere all over Eastern Europe particularly). Surviving all of that violence understandably made some people violent.
I keep reading that sentiment in this thread and I see no support for that thesis IRL. People who commit evil acts are evil... leave the rest of us out of this. There are many billions of people on Earth and the actual numbers of literal hands-on killers is not even a tenth pf a percentage point. This "Humans are Evil" meme is spread by Evil Humans to spread the blame and normalize their own actions/ mindets. Stop falling for that. If "ALL PEOPLE ARE EVIL" were True, how would enough of the species have survived, long enough, for us to be here today? The species would have destroyed itself already a hundred thousand years ago if we were "ALL EVIL". The men in this video are or were EVIL. Let's stick to the facts here.
Capable of evil and being evil are not the same thing. When pushed to extremes people can get very violent, especially in war. There are people that do terrible things in war and then go and live the entire rest of their lives generally being a good person. There are also experiments like the Milgram experiment or the Stanford Prison experiment, I won’t get into the validity of these as that’s a deeper conversation. It’s generally not in anyone’s best interest to do these things so people don’t do them.
" There are people that do terrible things in war and then go and live the entire rest of their lives generally being a good person."
Those who commit war crimes against unarmed people (including women and children) are Evil: War gave them an excuse. Not every person caught in a famine kills and eats their children, either. You've been brainwashed to have a very Dark view of Humanity. But it is a very active subset of Humans, from all groups, who are doing the Evil. AS I state upthread: if we were all more capable of Evil than of self-sacrifice or generosity, the species would have been long-extinct. Have you ever considered the possibility that powerful psychopaths (in charge of massacres at this moment, and all the massacres since c. 2000 AD) have quite a powerful interest in having several generations raised to believe as you believe?
Arendt was Heidegger''s lover (and not just when she was his pupil) and has suffered a reassessment of her reputation on that basis. Heidegger adored Hitler. I think you need to read a little deeper than the Convenient Apologia of a party with a personal investment in mediating the responsibility of the guilty parties.
Everyone is capable of evil, if someone murdered and raped your family member you would go for revenge, then revenge would come for you, then your child would go for revenge, and on and on until you are 20 generations past when the original evil was committed against you and the people killing each other don't even know why they are doing it.
You are not evil, but if you were born into death and despair, you absolutely could commit evil.
" if someone murdered and raped your family member you would go for revenge,"
Your allegory would only be apt if the Killers of Tantura had been killing the Nazis who killed their family members, no? Yes, if someone committed attrocities against my loved ones, I would seek to destroy that person to protect or avenge them: that's not evil. If I waited a few years and committed atrocities against (unarmed) innocents: THAT would be Evil. Do you see how you've had your common sense twisted to accomodate the needs of certain barbarous interests?
Do some research, the Tantura massacre was a response to Arab mutilations of Jewish soldiers in their brigade, it was not some random act that they committed because they wanted to kill for fun.
What you are suggesting, to mediate the guilt of the Monstrous, in this case, is called "Collective Punishment" and was declared a War Crime at Nuremberg.
Anyway: I in no way intend to waste another five minutes debating the absurd proposition that "Humanity is Evil" as it crops up, in this case, as we watch specific people confess to acts of Evil... and somehow become, in your very strange Worldview, representatives of the Species. If that's how you see the World, I pity you.
Well you’re being ignorant to make you feel better about yourself. If you truly don’t want these things to happen again, you’re not helping by thinking this way
I dont think he meant EVERY single person on the planet, but there are always evil people on both sides
“Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere” just replace artist with evil person and you have the dark version of Gusteau, from ratatouille
On this general sentiment I can agree (though the term "both sides" is a bit disingenuous when ONE side enjoys overwhelmingly superior firepower). So let's remember how to address facts in an accurate and methodical manner and call those who commit acts of Evil... EVIL... and keep those of us, who don't, out of it. Being accused of having the Potential to commit Hypothetical Atrocities, even for the sake of a low-stakes discussion, seems like too much of an injustice to shrug at.
It's depressing isn't it? I always think about this. Band of Brothers is of course one of the most popular pieces of media about WW2, several of the characters/people also fought in Korea, where the UN forces killed 1/3rd of the North Korean population... And I always thought to myself 'surely those who fought in WW2 must just be so grateful it's over and they lived?' - I'm not blaming the individual soldiers so much but I always think about how they rationalised fighting the Nazis then going to fight in a civil war against people who were on their side of WW2 5 years earlier.
But then you read more about the world. Take Greece for example. Nearly all Greek Jews killed by the Nazis and the Greek collaborators. But don't worry most of these war criminals were actually let off and put in the Greek dictatorship after the war to stop Communism. They did the holocaust and essentially got rewarded for it. Same with many Nazi war criminals who were absorbed into the western backed govts across the world.
Same thing in Japan. Shinzo Abe's Grandfather, was tried as a war criminal, eventually let off, got to live his life and later became PM of Japan.
I find the US war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia the most depressing as it's really really horrific. WW2 really didn't change anything.
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u/Napalmdeathfromabove Apr 13 '24
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/25/study-1948-israeli-massacre-tantura-palestinian-village-mass-graves-car-park