spendius wrote:dwolan-
It actually happened.
I read an article written by a retired British officer in which he describes his mental state when presented with the opportunity to kill Hitler.It was something of a state occasion and the officer was armed.Had he carried
out the deed which he seriously considered he may well have been tried and executed.I think the story was in The Sunday Telegraph about 15 years ago.It was a riveting read which explains why I remembered it.
spendius.
That's interesting - I had heard that, too - but had it filed away in my brain as fiction.
Regarding the ethical aspect, if I knew what Hitler was up to and if I could have killed him--and escaped the consequences of getting caught--I would have killed him in an instant. Moreover, I would not concern myself with the ethics of the act. Indeed, I would have accepted the guilt of an unethical act in order to stop him from his horrendous program. I wonder if Islamists would do the same to Western leaders if they were not promised an eternal reward and a high ethical standing.
Given I was alive at the time, and had knowledge of his future deeds, assassinate Hitler? I think that would lack irony. I think luring him into a candy house and tossing him into an oven would be more fitting a la Hansel and Gretel, without the happy ending. What's a hypothetical question without some drama and fiction?
JLN,
Notwithstanding "hindsight" your stance seems to me to be "natural. One wonders therefore why in a so-called "civilized people" such a reaction did not prevail amongst the many who must have "known".
This is surely THE sobering lesson to be learned about "civilization".
hmmmmm
Let's just say we think Hitler sucked. Let's just say his ideas were wrong (and we don't think as we do just because we won, not him). Almost everyone here says they would kill him. Not because killing is great (nobody seems to be that fond of killing) but because of the outcome. Indeed, Hitler had only the outcome in mind. I doubt he cared for killing in and of itself. Guess what that means? You guys would all kill to achieve something you THINK would be a better outcome, just like Hitler would.
Would I kill him?
If it would ACTUALLY make things better, I would.
I suppose if I THOUGHT it would make things better, I would.
But remember, Hitler THOUGHT he was making things better, too. So that's where THINKING can getcha.
A dangerous pursuit indeed.
Well, history had shown that some really tried to kill him.
Later, late even, from our backwards going view.
I certainly agree that there should have been thosands, millions, who should have killed him (and maybe some others).
Especially those, who had had the gift of looking in the future and knowing the one but only truth in advance.
If I could have somehow saved the weimar republic, yes I think I would.
I do belive however that either the nazi's or the communists would have prevailed in germany if hitler had been assasinated, more likely communists than nazis I belive. Knowing this alternate future, and not the one in which Htler had been assasinated, I probably would have left him alone.
I'm limiting my options to assasinating or not interfere for the purpouse of this exersise.
we cannot change history, and waste our time considering the options;
it would be time better spent learning from history, downloading its lessons into our personal databases, so we become less likely to repeat it.
[i wonder if 'W' played these games, as a boy?]
BoGoWo wrote:we cannot change history, and waste our time considering the options;
it would be time better spent learning from history, downloading its lessons into our personal databases, so we become less likely to repeat it.
[i wonder if 'W' played these games, as a boy?]
Some of us enjoy playing the what if game, you are free to read history if you do not. (ps, while what ifs might not help us learn history, I think they help us learn from it)
while the 'hypothetical' road is liberally glazed with ice, i would be the first to defend your right ot slide right on down it! :wink:
might i suggest investing in a good reliable pair of 'skates'! :wink:
I was going to post that, but thought the better of it.
I seriously doubt dubya played hypothetical games to assess the validity of his own arguments and opinions.
BoGoWo wrote:
"...we cannot change history, and waste our time considering the options;
it would be time better spent learning from history, downloading its lessons into our personal databases, so we become less likely to repeat it".
This was, I think, Fresco's point. We might consider the question of Hitler's assassination in terms of the distinction between ethics and morality. For example, for me, the assasination of Hitler would have been an immoral act (thou shalt not kill), but an ethical one, given its intended consequences (saving the lives of millions). Morals are absolute (rules); ethics are relative to circumstances and goals (decisions). I think we must sometimes do immoral things for ethical reasons. And we can hide behind morality to avoid ethical acts (e.g., one might have killed Hitler, but declined the opportunity because it would have been immoral, given the commandment not to kill).
Let me add here that what many (but not all) Germans did and permitted to be done during Hitler's reign is not forgivable--but most of the guilty are now dead; their descendants do not carry their guilt. And it is very important to realize that we Americans are very capable of committing the same atrocities. It would be dangerously naive to think otherwise. This is what I read in the caveats of Fresco and BoGoWo.
I was struck by some quaint rhyme between the hypothetical uber-powers here contemplated and Nietzshe's celebration of the uber-mensch, the creator of morality, which may have bolstered Hitler's zeal. So here's a different look at this question.
"If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice." - Plato, The Republic, Book II
Also consider the "pimp-like" omnipotent Biff of Back to the Future II.
The rumination of those whose experience is predominated by fear of those with unchecked power will be a poor reflection of the mind of the man to whom such power is granted.
Does this suggest that we'd kill him to take his place?
...Nah, he lost.
Chombis
Chombis, I think it was well established after the second world war by Walter Kauffman, the Jewish philosopher-scholar, that Hitler's conception of Nietzsche's thinking was totally wrong. He was misguided by Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth's, machinations. The ubermensch was not a racial notion (aryan). It was the enlightened indiviidual, and such individuals could be of all the so-called races of mankind (with the exception perhaps of his affectionately detested English). Contrary to Elisabeth's allegations of his anti-semitism (reflecting her efforts to kiss up to Hitler), Nietzsche suggested that the Jewish population could be overrepresented in the production of uber-mensches.
JL, I don't believe your comment addresses my main point about the necessary connection between morality and paranoia (and that this link is severed by the granting of god-like powers to surgically alter history).
Nor do I believe that what you have said about the connection between Hitler's rhetoric and the vocabulary developed by Nietzsche conflicts with my description of the connection: "Nietzshe's celebration. . . may have bolstered Hitler's zeal".
Chombis
