05-13-2011, 07:55 PM
rjmacs wrote:
[quote=Grace62]
[quote=rjmacs]
I have failed to make my point. These systems don't just mix up the directions on a moral compass; they mangle and disable the compass itself. They make it impossible for people to distinguish good from evil by design, and they do it chiefly by stifling the people's capacity to engage in reflection, deliberation, and creative communication with one another. In the absence of these things, the conscience doesn't just get disoriented; it atrophies and vanishes. I don't think that knowledge of a waiting war crimes tribunal would have made any difference to most Nazis.
How then to explain all the Germans who RESISTED the Nazi's? People from all ranks and walks of life did so. Some escaped, some paid with their lives. The nature of what the Nazi's were doing and the potential consequences were well known and widely discussed throughout Germany and other countries that were occupied. People were not being held in vacuums with other knowledge removed.
To excuse anyone who participated in the crimes of the Nazis claiming they were "brainwashed" is to dishonor the sacrifice of those people.
I applaud those very few Germans who managed to resist totalitarianism; most did so not as lone individuals acting out of conscience but as small communities of confederates working together. What allowed them to resist evil was their success in maintaining pockets of reflection and deliberation in secret spaces where it was still allowable to talk about the (im)morality of Nazi action. Sadly, they were a tiny minority. Why?
Was it because most Germans were inclined toward evil, or moral cowards? Was it because they just didn't care, or were not raised to know right from wrong? Or alternately, was it because they came to live in a totalitarian state where questioning the rightness or justice of decisions or actions was verboten? Was it because if you dared to raise your voice to ask if something was right, you were killed or shipped to a camp? In a space where you aren't allowed to discuss right and wrong, those categories start to lose their meaning. As human creatures, we figure out whether things are right or wrong by talking about them, struggling with them, engaging one another's hearts and minds in conversation. We debate (like we are doing here), we protest, we demand, we weep and grieve, we dissent; in community with others, we discover what is good as a collaborative act.
The Nazis prevented this by fiat and force. They de-moralized German society by declaring that the Reich's morality was the only one, on pain of death. Did some resist? Yes, and thank God they did. But most did not. Are most guilty of accessory to murder? Are they all guilty of genocide? Ought they all face prosecution?
Edit: LET ME BE CLEAR THAT I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT DEMJANJUK SHOULD BE EXONERATED OR EXCUSED FROM WAR CRIMES. That is completely and totally NOT my point, or something i have said.
Sorry but I for one do not, and cannot, excuse or explain the Nazis in the manner that you do. Every single man or woman who participated in the Holocaust made an individual choice. I would excuse children and the mentally challenged, but that's it.
The fact that so many were willing to make the wrong choice is highly disturbing, but the number of people involved does not remove or alter their individual moral responsibility.
As for the risk, yes some people were killed or imprisoned for resisting. However, research has shown that for the majority of Germans who simply made it known that they disagreed with the Nazi's, NOTHING happened to them. The sad fact remains that the majority CHOSE to remain silent and yes ACCEPTED what was happening to the Jews and other people in their country.
Since we've gone Godwin on the Catholic thread, maybe we should get some input from Joseph Ratzinger???