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Indeed, he was a man that understood what it took to create and maintain a far reaching empire during that time that would last beyond the battlefield victories. None of that disputes what I said however, but thanks for the mini-bio. :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
Please show me where you feel I justified Hitler.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
...is the phrase that stood out the most. It's as if you're defending Hitler's goals by saying that people like Mao and Staling were worse. Let alone that your posts leave it ambiguous whether you oppose Hitlers goal of extermination of Jews while making clear you disagree with his approach thereof.Quote:
Originally Posted by PanzerJager
'None of that disputes what I said'? You explicitely stated that he aimed to create a world order with the Greek culture dominating other peoples, while the things I listed clearly show that not only was that not his goal, but that in many cases he considered the Persians and their culture at the very least equal to Greeks and in certain cases as superior. That certainly does dispute what you said.Quote:
Originally Posted by PanzerJager
I'm going to jump in and defend PanzerJager. What I have gotten from his statements isn't that Hitler was a good guy or anything of the sort. It appears to me that he is saying that Hitler's actions were on par with those of other historical leaders. This I have to agree with.
When it comes down to it, your reason for killing people doesn't really matter. All people have reasons for doing so. Few leaders are called murders for killing enemy combatants during wartime. The critical weight tends to come in when civilian non-combatants are intentionally targeted. The killing of one Jew in the Holocaust is no worse than the killing of one Native American by the Conquistadors or the US Army. Nor is it worse than any single death committed by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Napoleon, Bomber Harris, Harry Truman, Genghis Khan, the Crusaders, Scipio Aemilianus, Darius, Ramesses II, Boadicea, etc. Nor is Hitler even the worst when it comes to the elimination of a certain percentage of the population. Pol Pot killed a far greater percentage of the population than Hitler did. You simply cannot say that 12 million deaths are worse than 10 million deaths are worse than 6 million deaths are worse than 2 million deaths. They are all 'morally' wrong.
In fact, I believe it is an active disservice to history to try and 'rank' any of these killings above or below one another. I personally believe that the killing of any innocent civilian is wrong. Your reasons for doing so are unimportant.
Whether Stalin said it or not, the quote attributed to him is still valid. "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." Once mass killings become an institution of government and authority, they are all evil, regardless of the number, regardless of the reason.
Sorry if this is Backroom talk, but it's the only way I know of to address the topic.
Tincow: PanzerJager did not state it explicitly, but his opposition to my and other's point -- that Alexander the Great was not worse and in fact probably better than Hitler -- implies that he disagree with this point.
It is my opinion that the different ways which each historical figure treat the world around them shows a discrepancy that favors Alexander, not Hitler. We are not comparing Hitler to Stalin, but Hitler to Alexander.
Moreover, it is in my opinion to attribute a greater evil to intentional genocide than to a motive which allow the victims even a slightly better chance of surviving. Which is why I'm saying "killing Jews because they are Jews" is worse than killing an enemy or even the innocents because they oppose you.
Are those actions cruel? Evil? Yes. Different degrees of them? In my opinion.
Those are questions of morality and best left to philosophers. Historians should not be saying something was good or bad, only how it occurred and why.Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
There is a significant problem with teaching the history of Hitler specifically because of this point. He is viewed as so evil, so monstrous, that for the majority of people he is made into something of a myth and legend. His evil transcends the acts of man and becomes something otherworldly. This removes him from the understanding of the common person who then simply discounts him as a freak of nature.
By doing this, the world has stopped thinking of Hitler as a real person. This diminishes his historical impact and completely negates the lessons that humanity can learn from his existence. Hitler's own beliefs and actions, as well as his rise to power, are based in real world cause and effect. In order to prevent such things from happening again we have to specifically remember that he was just a man and attempt to understand fully why events occurred as they did. Putting Hitler on a pedestal, even to accentuate his evil, simply serves to dehumanize him and thus makes understanding him harder.
Sorry that this goes off-topic, but I've got strong feelings about the way Hitler is taught, particularly in Germany. As it's going now, we're setting ourselves up to repeat the same mistakes.
As for Alexander, I am not knowledgeable about any mass killings he committed, so I will leave that discussion to those who know better.
I agree. The implication was that Alexander was just as bad as, or worse than, Hitler. I strongly disagree with that view: my posts are aimed at showing that the two are entirely different, and I believe posts viewing Alexander as equivalent to Hitler at the least are incorrect and at worst aim to marginalise Hitlers crimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiochusIII
TinCow, I agree with your views on Hitler and the way he is viewed today and the approach of comparing other mass-murderers with him/each other as if it's some kind of scoreboard. In the last century alone there have been leaders clearly as despicable as him in many ways, but for some reason Hitler remains a subject on which little balanced debate is held, certainly in popular circles. That is a major blow to actually learning from mistakes in the past.
Tincow: I agree with the gist of your post, that history should not be used to judge, but to study from, analyze, and perhaps learn something from the past. It isn't wise to simply read The Secret History of the Mongols and declare one's judgement on Genghis Khan, but rather to learn about Genghis without judging him.
Even with Hitler -- which as far as history goes was involved in a recent event, survivors of that time still walking around alive -- it should be the same. I'm not exactly sure how Germany teaches about Hitler but let's just say (before it gets too Backroom-y) that I disagree with the blanket Nazi ban in its Constitution. It used to be a necessity but isn't anymore.
But the question posed in the OP is a moral question and that's why I gave my answer from a moral perspective: one has to compare what Alexander did and what Hitler did and the standards of their time, then make judgment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Destroyer of Hope
Well, I heard the podcast, and I dont think that the host is even trying to make a case about Alexander. His case is about Hitler, and how will we be viewing Hitler 2500 years from now. Will we be viewing him like we do alexander the great or differently.
That is it that is all.
And I think it's a good question to ask yourself, although I doubt we will see him as an Alexander, unless times change radically, and I think they will, so I have to change me oppinion, I think not much will change in the way we will view hitler, some people see and will see him as some kind of Alexander (A great leader) and some see and will see him as some kind of monster.
As someone already said before, in many regions in the east Alexander is considered evil, so its not that Alexander is unanimously considered a good guy...
To answer the question of the thread, I don't see Alexander as a worse person than Hitler, he might have been though. But I definitly don't think that his legacy to the world is a worse one than that of Hitler. His actions were definitly cruel at times, be it normal in that time or not. for I doubt, the people he did it to, would be thinking, hey this is normal, what is Iksander a good guy...
And I also agree with the people that say that Hitler was a man of his time, they were all brilliant (in the way they managed to arouse the people) nutcases. Hitler became a lunatic, Stalin became a lunatic, Mao became a lunatic, Churchill might not have done something compareble evil, but he wasn't the most sane person... I could continue that list till it becomes a mile long... There is a easy explanation, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It not only corrupts your judgement but also you entirely.
Ugh: it was terrible to listen to. I planned to check it but I just stopped it after some minutes. The way the guy talks is not so... well, how should one call it? You know what I mean.Quote:
Originally Posted by Destroyer of Hope
if indeed Alexander killed many many people, in his mind's eye he may have had a better case for racial extermination (even though all fingers point to the opposite intention) than Hitler ever had. The Persians wanted Greece to be gone...period...done. I'm sure the Greeks felt quite the same about the Persians. Hitler was racially motivated because he was well... insane; There was surely already a rising nationalistic sentiment against Jews in Austria and Germany before Hitler gave rise to the 3rd Reich, Jews were already distrusted before Hitler was born, and the fact that his step father was no fan (and beat him constantly... and since he didn't know why exactly he came to believe it may have been because his "Real" father may have been a Jew), he came to loathe the thought that his mother may have conceived him with a Jewish man. His loathe turned to Hatred, His Hatred for himself gave way to Hatred For all Jews, and well the rest is History...
Hitler was not evil (believe me this is no way supportive of his actions) as much of my Family is Jewish and I lament the torture and ultimate death of much of my unknown relatives and ancestors at his vile hands). But Hitler was as much a product of himself as the Society around him, he was the hand that launched a thousand ships, but not the man who held the gun, or pulled the lever releasing a plume of Arsenic Gas, or the man who shoveled the living, crying, dead, or dying into the Kilns that fed the Monstrous War Machine. Hitler wasn't a man apart, Hitler was Germany at that time, and he fed the frustrated masses a manifesto that was tangible; Hope. As Misguided as it was. It was still Hope to many, and the few who refused to believe this was the answer were too few and eerily too silent.
So going back to the original question: Was Alexander worse than Hitler?
The Answer is obvious no; not now... not ever.
Was Hitler more evil than Alexander? No. They are incomparable; separated too far in time and in thought. Yet the situations both men faced were surprisingly similar; except Hitler was no Alexander.
Wakizashi.
I suppose it depends which End of the gun (or spear) your looking down and your definition of Evil, but I think in the league tables of evil that Hitler is the greater evil, Im sure Alexander did bad things or had bad things done in his name, but on the whole Hitlers attempts to wipe out whole races of people and sections of society is in my opinion far worse, than anything Alexander Did. I dont think theres much comparison really two very different Characters
Well, in my opinion, Hitler was worse. As already been said by others, Alexander didn't kill people just for being who they were. Hitler, on the other hand, was bent on extirmination of the 'unclean' folks. Honestly, though, I have to say that he wasn't ultimately evil. He was bitter, angry, and twisted. In this reference, twisted is not meant to indicate evil, but that he took a path that he thought was moral. It is my personal opinion that the extermination of innocents, including women, children, and the elderly, is among the most inhumane things a person can order done.
One thing I think should also be pointed out: concentration camps weren't just death camps. They were also used for science, for experimentation on humans, against their wills, when German scientist were more often than not unsure of the consequences of their actions. To me, that is the sort of testing that should be done on animals, not humans. And what's really sad is that the German authority likely held a similar viewpoint: they just felt that all those in concentration camps weren't human.
Methinks there are a number of ways to look at and consider this topic.
Personally, I think Hitler was far worse because he caused certain people to die in the concentration and death camps based on their ethnicity and/or some other kind of 'undesirable' trait. Alexander to my knowledge had nothing like death camps. If anything, Alexander seemed to have been something of a xenophile, as evidence of contemporary and near-contemporary surviving works about his life. I just read earlier that he had created a will which was in the process of being executed after his death by Craterus, in which large populations of people were to be transplanted throughout his empire in order to facilitate "oneness" and culture integration and exchange.
In terms of empire building, it's plainly obvious they both wanted to do so. Hitler believed that the Germans were a superior people and destined to carve out a large empire of their own, Alexander seemed to have thought the same, though it has not been clear to me that he personally believed in the 'supremacy' of the Greek people.
In short, Alexander did indeed cause the slaughter of thousands, but it was done on those who resisted his rule, or attempts to rule. It wasn't directed at any individuals based on their ethnicity, background, or individual characteristics. Hitler is of course the opposite. Further, and I do not have any data to support this, it would seem that the number of deaths Alexander caused were far, far less than Hitler, both absolutely and relatively. Not that I approve of wholesale slaughter of anyone, but in answer to the OP "Was Alexander the Great worse than Hitler?", my answer is a definite No.
:balloon2:
Edit - I would also like add this, for the sake of argument. :grin: I think Stalin was just as bad as, if not worse than Hitler, in terms of being a tyrannical genocidal maniac.
I would say any dictator is as bad as any other, you can't judge them by their actions as their actions are merely the product of the underlying ego that determined their initial self-belief. Cromwell for example masssacred thousands of Catholic's in Ireland. Does that make him any better or worse than Hilter, of course not, its a matter of opportunity that determines the difference between them not their underlying mental state.
dictators arent neccesarily bad...
That must surely be a matter of personal judgement.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Stranger
No dictator is 'bad' for everyone, but by implication every dictator will be bad for someone. Hitler was certainly not 'bad' for every German, and was in fact much loved by the majority of the population. Cromwell is still considered to be a great English hero, and Napoleon a French one.
However, dictatorship by implication is going to be bad for someone simply because one person having total power and no accountability is bound to result in egocentric policies based upon that persons bigotry. It is the most efficient form of government but also the most likely to be abused.
Interesting topic and while i'm not usually posting in such a "dangerous theme" i think you can not compare two leaders of different time era.
I know not enough of Alexander and his campaigns (or should we say total conquests) but let's take a look at Caesar himself (good old Julius).
Just an example:
He attacked and exterminated whole tribes for political and financial reasons -while not at war with them. (think of the germanic Usipi and Tencteri for example)
He enslaved and tortured thousands of people. (numerous gallic tribes)
BUT...
he won those battles and the wars - so for his time he was definately not a leader who was "evil".
Naturally he didn't do this by himself, but he was the man in command.
If we look today at his campaigns we should definately agree he was a cold-hearted mass murderer, but it seems that many of us still see him as a great warlord and politican, although we all know that genocide of other nations or tribes is definately evil. The romans were rasists by toda'y standards, for celts, dacians, germanics were only barbarians who could be killed or enslaved, but were they really evil, or just a product of their education and circumstances?
During those ancient times not very people would thought in such a way, but we - living today - by our standards should say he was "evil".
Why is this so? Really interesting question for me.
Could we say Hitler was evil, because he lived during another time era as the romans? Hitler's actions for sure were evil evil for our understanding, values and education.
I think we should not comapre historical persons from different time eras, but i'm interested in your opinions.
P.S.
Forgive my rather bad english:-)
every ruler will be bad for someone... every boss will be bad for someone... most decision will be bad for someone... but that doesnt make the person bad...Quote:
Originally Posted by Didz
Of course it does..for the person who is the victim.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Stranger
Bad, Good, Evil, and Just are subjective opinions based upon ones relationship to the subject. One person can be all of these things to different people at the same time.
A good government has some sort of network of checks and ballances to keep out the incompetent and corrupt. Democratic accountability (direct or indirect) is the best for garantuing rule in favour of the whole of society.
Besides, with the advent of mass media dictatorial rule is potentially more abusive as demonstrated by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and many others.
Reminds me of the Kim Jong-Il "Great Leader Cured My Illness" documentary. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kralizec
they not only can be... they are...Quote:
Originally Posted by Didz
but also things as justice are relative... what is wrong now couldve been completely normal 5 centuries ago... and it may even still be normal somewhere else in the world...
500 years from now people might not even understand why we thought hitler was a beast because maybe then killings based on race or sumthing like it may have become almost completely normal (considered by those that do it ofcourse) and i think that is wat this show was about...
@The Stranger
Perfectly true. For example, at the time of Alexander, the Spartans were regularly committing state managed infanticide, which would be unthinkable today.
Yet we study the morals and outlook of the Ancient Greeks, 2000+ years before us, who came from an age where there are much fewer records left to us than we will to our descendants. I think you underestimate humanity 500 years forward. Unless a Doomsday scenario happens, it is very likely that historians and students of history 500 years from now will analyze our cultural traits and form up a framework of our moral values -- with which to judge the leaders of our time -- easily enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Stranger
@AntiochusIII
That pre-supposes that our current standards of morality do not go though a fundamental shift over the next 500 years. We currently live in a society where civil liberties and democratic conventions are constantly being eroded in order to make our societies more secure and easier to manage. Where globalisation is putting more and more emphasis on corporate imperatives and expediency rather than human rights and where economic reality is making it more and more difficult to provide a universal standard of social care.
Personally, I don't think there is much more slack in the system and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some pretty radical changes in both the role of the state in our lives and our general expectations about the quality and value of life.
I certainly predict that within the next 500 years the divisions between social classes within our society will be much wider than they are now with much less potential for social mobility.
The issue then arises, what attitude will the contributing minority have to the non-contributing majority, particularly if dwindling resources and the impact of global warming begin to put even more pressure on those with access to resources and wealth to keep it for themselves.
Already we are seeing more and more centralization of power within our democracies and more and more demands for centralized information management so that the state can monitor our lives more effectively. We have witnessed a trend towards state sponsored demonisation of whole sections of the population in order to justify new legislation specifically designed to persecute them for their way of life and we have seen a demand for more and more direct power to judge being transferred from the independent judiciary to the state. For the first time in almost 800 years you can now be stopped in the street, arrested and detained against your will with absolutely not explanation being given, or access to legal advice being granted for 28 days and the government want that extended to over three months without being required to even tell you why.
If you consider how much has changed even in the last five years let alone the last 500 and then extrapolate how much it might change again in the next I don't think there are any grounds to be complacent about the morality of our communities in the future.
Didz: Thing is, how much has changed or will change does not really matter. One can look back at history and see such examples...but I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I'll try and give you an example of what I mean:
In Ancient Greece (topic-related; Alexander the Great and all), their moral framework is drastically different from our moral framework. Simply look at their definition of "Hero" and ours: Herakles was a rapist, murderer, and went insane several times, yet he was among the most popular of all the Greek heroes. Would a modern-day Herakles receives our praise? No; in fact I suspect he will be summarily arrested and persecuted to the full extent of the local law.
To the Ancient Greeks "rape" has a vastly different connotation than to us. To them it is a symbol of strength and control, of assertive manliness so to speak; to us a crime of the highest penalty, committed, we say, by cowards and criminals of the worst sort.
To the Ancient Greeks the conforming ethos supersedes everything, especially individuality. To them the Poleis is more than you, it is everyone and anyone who strays deserves the worst of scorns. It is not the same with us.
The Ancient Greeks think nothing of slavery; it is a fact of life, just a lower class of people who suffers from misfortune and that is all. To us, also, slavery is something that might as well come out of Hell itself.
Etc.
Where am I going with this? Two points: first, we are aware of this difference. Two thousand years ago, with fragmented records, with a world so incredibly different from us we might not as well recognize it -- the historians of our time pierce together the puzzles as best they can and don't throw around judgments at ancient Greek heroes. Sure, there might be (well, there probably are) discrepancies and holes in the fragments, but those are not show-stopping.
If our historians are doing this to the people from an era where written records are not altogether too common, why should we place so little faith to our descendants, a mere 500 years down the line, who'd have access to an abundance of viewpoints, of records of written form, visual form, or even from the spoken voice, to not do the same, with even greater success? For them to not be able to complete the puzzle that defines the early 21th century morality? We have to define the Ancient Greeks from but few philosophical works, fragments of the few surviving plays and literature, and a rare diary or two. That's it. They will have access to the most obscure blogs, the forum posts, the countless novels and history books and academic publications and newspapers and...you get the idea. This "idea" that somehow the same humanity who had come this far in history would suddenly regress towards ignorance and misunderstanding about the most basic principles of History is, in my opinion, faulty.
Second, related, and much more importantly: despite our difference in moral viewpoints the deference of the Ancient Greeks to Herakles, to the Poleis, and to whatever they loved to revere at the time, passed to us. I said above that a modern Herakles would likely be spit on by civilized society. Well, the original Herakles is not being spit on by us! In fact the Ancient Greeks' attitude towards him, based on a very different moral framework from us as it is, somehow finds its way to us. The mythological Herakles might not be so overwhelming to us as he was to the Ancient Greeks, but we like him all the same.
Alexander the Great, too, represents that. He was a man of his time, no, a man above his time, the Giant of the Ancient World, a deified mythical figure even when he still breathed. What did he do? He conquered, he enslaved, he executed, he torched cities and ancient monuments, he waged war, he went drunk, he was promiscuous, he might even did it with his mom. However, the Ancient Greeks did not care much for it -- their moral framework did not place Alexander as bad; rather, quite the opposite. If we are to judge him today based on our standards he would be a first-class villain with a white cat on his lap. Yet, and this is a very important "yet," we respect him the way the Ancient Greeks did.
Even if you think my example of Alexander the Great is flawed, then all you have to do is raise another significant historical figure. A national hero of your choice, may be, trace it down at 500 years or more; then simply look at what we think of the figure, look at what our ancestors think of the figure, look at how similar they are. Then restart from the beginning, look at that same figure, judge the person by our standards, our way of thinking, and see the difference.
The sentiment that passed down did not have to base itself on the same morality with which it was born from. Why, then, should we believe that such a universally hated figure as Adolf Hitler would suddenly receive a kinder judgment from history? After all, the past shows it differently. And if anyone can predict the future, it's the past.
@AntiochusIII
I think your absolutely right, and I'm sure that Hilter will still be demonized in 500 years time as he is now. He is guilty of the most fundemental mistake that any dictator can make...he lost.
However, compare Hitler with Cromwell, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Julius Ceasar and you begin to see that how we have been presuaded to think of these people is largely dictated by how successful they were and what lessons we as a society are being encouraged to absorb from their behavoiur. I find it ironic for example that in England we are encouraged to consider Cromwell to be a hero and the founder of parliamentary democracy, when in fact he abolished parliament on the grounds that he didn't like the decisions they were making and ruled England as a hated and despised dictator for several years.
I suppose the point I am making is that our attitude towards historical people and events is largely dictated by the propaganda which we have been encouraged to accept by the historical record. We are rarely if ever given the factual information on a historical character or event and left to make up our own minds.
The question for the future is whether the wealth of information currently being stored about current characters and events will actually be used honestly to provide our great, great great grandchildren with a clear and true record of events, or whether it will be manipulated and edited to support the officially sponsored view that those in power want them to beleive.
We are already seeing examples of those in power manipulating the media to misguide people into believing facts and situations that are not true (e.g. the media manipulation by the Labour Party of Election footage shown on British TV), and we already have collusion between web-media companies and totalitarian governments to restrict and censor the information access of their citisens (e.g. Google and Communist China). In 500 years time the capability of those in power to control our access to information could be far greater, given the rate of technical development, indeed the people who control the media might actually be the people who run our lives and certainly the ability to manipulate media and produce seemingly real, but fake imagery, will be far more sophisticated than that which has been used in Iraq.
So I don't buy into your view that all this information we are currently accumulating will by implication result in better understanding. Information is and always will be power, and he who controls the information will have the power to decide what and how much the rest of us are allowed to see.
The current Labour government certainly understand that, and I'm sure in 500 years time their successors will have secured the control over it that they currently seek.
20th century dictators such as Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all waged war on their own civilian population. Pre-emptive purging, mass murder, mass deportation, etc.
None of the ancient warlords did anything remotely like this. Aggression was outward, against other civilizations, and while revolts were put down, nothing on the scale of Stalin's gulags or Hitler's concentration camps were ever put in place to control every part of people's lives.
Ancient warlords were just that, leaders. They did some pretty nasty things in war, but what else would you expect? War is never a nice thing. They never waged it on their own people on such a huge scale, or attempted to completely control their subjects lives.
So, no, Hitler, Mao, Stalin are nothing like the ancient conquerers. The crimes of the 20th century are unprecedented in history. As someone earlier in the thread put it, "industrialized murder".
Not sure about that Disruptor, there were a hell of a lot of dictators in the ancient and medieval era and not much in the way of investigative reporting and media to expose their behaviour.Quote:
Originally Posted by DisruptorX
But just of the top off my head what about:
Herod and the slaughter of the Israelite children.
The Pharoah of Egypt and the expulsion of the jews.
Ferdinand and Isabella and the explusion of muslims and jews after the reconquista.
The various Roman exterminations of barbaric tribes, including the Icenii after the Boudica revolt.
Boudicca's extermination of the populations of Colchester and London.
The way I see it this sort of behaviour is inherent in human nature, has been since the first man stood upright and will be until we are extinct. All that is missing in all of us is the opportunity and power to put it into practice and that power is mostly found in totalitarian regimes, which are busy murdering people even as we write.