tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post1182961446643957355..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: MWBOT-14Assistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-4193612190985555302011-06-23T14:16:00.632-04:002011-06-23T14:16:00.632-04:00I think the difficulty with using the Hitler-Chamb...I think the difficulty with using the Hitler-Chamberlin analogy is attempting to devine how another political leader *in 1938* would view Hitler because we're looking at situation through a post-1945 lens. Did Hitler actually appear that intrinsicly evil in 1938? There's a lot of evidence that people didn't think about him in that way pre-1939. (Those directly impacted by the Nazi pogroms had reason to, and did.) I'm reminded of your post about Chesterton and the casual use of anti-Semetic language in his writing. It's possible that people accepted Hitler's demonization of the Jews as nothing more than political hyperbole.<br /><br />My guess is that even if Chamberlin thought Hitler was a scoundrel he had reason to believe that he at least a rational scoundrel, much the same way we were able to deal with the Soviets, still deal with the Chinese, but find Kim Il Jong's North Korea a harder nut to crack.<br /><br />Britain's military weakness between the wars probably played a role as well. It constrained Chamberlin's options. It may also, a bit paradoxially, have caused him to assume that if Germany's rearmament preceded at the same pace as Britain's but started earlier then Hitler did have the stronger military when in fact he didn't.Der Hahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05967487071137862252noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-41935889749083985392011-06-23T14:05:56.476-04:002011-06-23T14:05:56.476-04:00Well, we have it on good authority that evil may b...Well, we have it on good authority that evil may be hard to spot. The devil himself has appeared as an angel of light.<br /><br />At the same time some "good people" are esconced in a cozy cocoon of composed of equal parts uncritical self-regard and wilfully wrong-headed idealism. It may be hard to acknowledge, much less recognize and confront evil in others for those who can't or won't see evil in themselves.Brentnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-48573943649130912042011-06-23T11:24:06.551-04:002011-06-23T11:24:06.551-04:00So good is provincial, able to understand easily t...So good is provincial, able to understand easily that which only like itself? Or is evil, too, provincial? Or is simply that people are provincial, know the familiar, and that it's hard work and sometimes impossible to understand other people and other times?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-64184672749702964992011-06-23T11:19:39.788-04:002011-06-23T11:19:39.788-04:00If the Soviets were incapable of understanding us,...If the Soviets were incapable of understanding us, than I don't see it as too much of a stretch to imagine that Chamberlain wasn't capable of understanding Hitler. There does seem to be that element in a lot of people, even intelligent ones, that cannot grasp that other people's motivations (good or bad) might be different from their own.<br /><br />What's source of that inability and what to do about it... that I don't know.Janhttp://CascadeExposures.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-48439001543878399522011-06-23T09:45:20.778-04:002011-06-23T09:45:20.778-04:00Standing in my enemy's shoes is easier when we...Standing in my enemy's shoes is easier when we share many values but place different priorities on them: for example, I might stress autonomy when my opponent is stressing community. We come to opposite positions, but I can see where he's coming from.<br /><br />If I run across someone who seems like a pure grifter or manipulator, without a perceptible code or conscience, it's much harder for me to get in his head. All I can do is try to fence him off from anything that matters to me. But it seems to me that I'm not incapable of recognizing what he is, once he demonstrates it a couple of times.<br /><br />I guess in between is tougher: someone who shares a few of my values, a person about whom you can say there's really someone home inside, but whose approach repels me in some important ways. I'm perplexed and dismayed, not wanting to fight all the time but not being able to understand or trust him either.<br /><br />I'd like to think that if I were Chamberlain, I'd put Hitler in the second category.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-35702008991838414692011-06-23T00:01:51.912-04:002011-06-23T00:01:51.912-04:00Well, james, my touchstone is this: if the news c...Well, james, my touchstone is this: if the news comes from the NYT,LAT, WaPo, other biggish city newspapers, or major (and minor) networks, I have a healthy skepticism for what they tell me. Many of them have lied to me before.Sam L.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-65882154216243483602011-06-22T22:42:21.962-04:002011-06-22T22:42:21.962-04:00Wrt blindness in the MidEast; we seem to have some...Wrt blindness in the MidEast; we seem to have some institutional blinders of our own. The revolt in Egypt kept getting tinted as a Facebook revolt of the freedom-loving youth, and how were the rest of us supposed to know better?<br /><br />Good doesn't automatically understand evil--we're called to be "as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves," reminding us that understanding needs a little effort. But I like the phrase "Sin makes you stupid."jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-71529870164996529492011-06-22T21:58:26.587-04:002011-06-22T21:58:26.587-04:00If they are truly good people, then it might be po...If they are truly good people, then it might be possible. If they are Leftists, then no. That's a self deception ploy. They ally with Islamic Jihad not because they misunderstand the jihad intention, but because their methods align, even if their goals diverge.Ymarnoreply@blogger.com