[skrap]

I get what the author is getting at. Not sure I agree. Many years ago, I read "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland", which analyzes interviews with the actual men performing the slaughter of innocents at the end of the war.

The conclusion that book drew was different than this article, and makes more sense to me — that it's not "mean people 'go nazi'", but ordinary people who 'go nazi', given a system which relieves them of responsibility for their actions. "Just following orders" was the typical & honest answer, if I recall. The men didn't feel they bore a moral duty to disobey, because these things just had to be done, or so they were told.

So, if I can riff a bit on the article's themes... maybe mean people will hand you the gun, but anyone will pull the trigger, if they're told to do so.

[motohagiography]

This dynamic is significant in the culture wars of today.

As part of some work in architecture for some public sector projects, I read "The Nazi Census" which was a description of the technologies and techniques of the 1938 german census which was a basis for the NSDAPs brutal bureaucracy. (https://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Census-Identification-Control-Po...)

One of the interesting parts was adding "unused," fields to the Hollerith punch cards for "future use," much like we use extensibility fields in data models today. The book says many of the people recruited to administer it were promoted from the ranks of the disaffected, often far above their level to ensure their loyalty. It was a technique used by the NSDAP, Stalin, and Mao, where they put country "peasant" types in administrative roles over towns and cities to exploit rural resentment of city dwellers.

As a result, you can "steelman" the sentiments behind many conservative arguments by summarizing them as questioning the wisdom of handing reins of unimaginably powerful institutions and technologies to people who identify as victims with an implied entitlement to revenge, and who are not bound by the ethical frameworks of the deposed - the ones assumed when those techs and institutions were built. It at least provides a logic beyond evil and hatred.

Regardless of whether it's accurate in the context, it's a heuristic for reasoning about the motives and quality of an argument.

[humanrebar]

> As a result, you can "steelman" the sentiments behind many conservative arguments by summarizing them...

Which conservative arguments? It seems like you're just referring to a different brand of identity politics as "conservative".

[motohagiography]

That is a sound observation. I think what we call identity politics is a divisive style of argument across the spectrum, and not a political stripe in itself.

In the Jonathan Haidt model, conservatives tend to be rule seeking and internally group biased, where liberals prefer the opportunities created by external influences and focus on outcomes.

Regarding the original article, 20th century wars figure prominently in the minds of conservatives, and it's worth considering that many good people are indexed on factors in a narrative that includes them.

[humanrebar]

I'd phrase it as conservatives find good principles are more trustworthy than good individuals, especially given that turnover guarantees more opportunities to install bad individuals in power.

There is a principle that some knowledge is crowd-sourced over time and we shouldn't ignore that. If there is a fence in a field, we should figure out why it is there before tearing it down. And we should tear it down in a gradual and reversible way in case we were wrong in our original guess.

Your comments about which groups are in charge of what could be that kind of conservatism if you squint, but it ignores the fact that individualism is one of the principles conservatives are trying to preserve.

[watwut]

What do you mean by "the ones assumed when those techs and institutions were built"? Both Nazi and Communists institutions and techs were built for that exact purpose.

[e12e]

If you mean designed and built, that's a rather harsh judgement of eg IBM - well beyond "war profiteer". Perhaps supplied for that purpose though.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.hig...

Somewhat chilling to contemplate what purpose the current "Watson" could be put to, though:

"When the Nazis invaded Poland (...) IBM New York established a special new subsidiary called Watson Business Machines," after its then- president, Thomas Watson."

"Hello, Watson - is our genocide still on track?"

[usrusr]

The origins of almost every "Nazi tech" predate their rise to power.

[golangnews]

I think the point of the article is not ‘mean people go nazi’, it’s that ordinary people who surround you today would go nazi, for multiple reasons - because it is the easier way, because it leads to monetary success, because they’ve always felt slighted, because they are outsiders in the current system.

The banality of evil does not absolve people from responsibility or mean that anyone will pull the trigger. There are numerous examples of people who refused to participate.

[Avshalom]

While I definitely agree that removing responsibility likely allows/causes people to participate in horrible things it should also be remembered that "at the end of the war" they knew they were on the losing side and probably looking to minimize their own role in that side.

[gt_]

This sounds like basic opportunism... fits well in line with OPs comment.

[BookmarkSaver]

Yeah, but I don't think most ordinary people are just looking for excuses to murder people. Somewhere along the way, these "ordinary people" were convinced that innocent men, women, and children were enough of a threat to slaughter them. By the end of the war when they realized that they'd lost, they might look to absolve themselves, but that doesn't explain the mechanism causing that behavior in the beginning.

[skrap]

I'd really suggest you read the book I mentioned, even just the preview pages available via Amazon. Your intuition doesn't match what is depicted. Their actions were not a reaction to the threat posed by the Jews, nor did they justify their actions in that way.

[gt_]

If you think that’s the only opportunity involved, then OK sure, but authority hierarchies offer much more. A feeling of control is what most people are after, and many other things they don’t want to readily admit. But whatever they want, I agree it’s unlikely to be ‘harming others’ but most people get what they do want from life by flattering authority. Different people want different things but most people get those things the same way, which is what matters here.

[nl]

I agree with this 100%. I started writing a comment about how the author emphasised all the bad traits of the Nazis-to-be and that’s not really how it worked.

I seem to remember something about how lots of “un-American communists” were pretty staunch anti-Nazis.

But OTOH this was 1941, and there were still plenty of Nazi sympathisers in the US. The battle of ideas was still live then, and I guess Harpers were fighting it.

[fisherjeff]

Sounds a lot like Arendt’s “little Eichmanns”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Eichmanns

[rdiddly]

There is this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[watwut]

> The men didn't feel they bore a moral duty to disobey, because these things just had to be done, or so they were told.

That is how they were raised. That kind of thinking was traditional and Nazi school system and propaganda were designed to produce people like that.

It is also not true that anyone would pull the trigger. Even in Germany were many people who having choice participated to the minimum or did not joined groups doing worst things when they could. It is interesting that another popular glib is that "ordinary people who don't fight back are responsible". But people who looked away or were passive should be better off morally then those who could not participate but did (not everyone could avoid such duty).

[agumonkey]

Reminds me of culture shock between Europe and South America. When people came there, sacrifices seemed barbaric. To the aztec/inca ... these were probably a noble gesture.

People's emotions toward acts is highly dependant on the reference system they live in.

I'm sure it's exceptionally hard to escape this kind of nation wide social pressure. At least for a while. I've read people starting to feel sick and question their duty. But they still agreed at first.

Similarly, drone operators started happy, but became overly depressed after "working" for months.

[humanrebar]

> People's emotions toward acts is highly dependant on the reference system they live in.

Yes, but let's be careful not to conflate felt nobility with actual good. Sacrificing humans to false gods is pretty awful, no matter the sentiment behind the acts.

[agumonkey]

Try to put yourself in their shoes, to the victim it was probably a high desire, his family was probably proud, they may believe he went into heaven and were relieved. If the whole system is strong in its belief and consistent you cannot "understand" their acts as good or bad.

[humanrebar]

I believe there are objectively bad things to do and killing people for a false sacrifice is certainly bad.

It's true that people need empathy, though, partly so they can be wary despite their own good intentions and clean consciences.

[agumonkey]

You never felt the pleasure of giving your life for someone ? for a group ?

I did, very few times, but I did. I bet 10$ that their culture only amplified that feeling.

[humanrebar]

I'm confused why you think a lack of empathy on my part is the problem. Of course I can empathize with people doing horrible things with good intentions. It's all the more reason to be clear and definitive when drawing clear moral lines for everyone. So confusing feelings don't lead people to do horrible things.

We don't serve people well by simply putting ourselves in their shoes. That's certainly part of a mature response, but it's far from a complete answer.

[zeth___]

Lets also not confuse means with ends. A room full of corpses is a room full of corpses. Regardless if they were put there from human sacrifice, nazi genocide, communist collectivization, or capitalist cost cutting (the sweatshop workers that get burned to death).

That the people who filled that room wanted a wonderful society filled with everything good doesn't detract from the fact they were monsters.

[frozenport]

Perhaps a more apt title would be "Who goes Nazi first?"

[IntronExon]

Or “who inspires/leads the Nazi?” Confusing the rank and file with an obersturmbannfuhrer or someone like Mengele is a mistake.

[psergeant]

I think the author and you are targeting slightly different things: she identifies who is amongst the vanguard who bring it into power, you are observing that once in a Nazi state, most people will go along with it