Understanding the Villain

I need to begin this essay with a disclaimer as we will be treading very on delicate ground, topics where words which are devoid of meaning cause people to recoil at the sounds of them. The villain in question is Adolph Hitler and the disclaimer wishes to assert that in no way do I condone the actions of this man, nor do I attempt to provide him with any excuses to remove him from blame. The aim of this essay is to show how we should learn from mistakes by critical analysis of them. I must therefore apologise to any reader who takes any offence at my selection of words or the implications of them. All to easily do we get caught up in the emotion surrounding a topic and allow our rational self to take a back seat. This can affect our responses and our faculties of understanding and can cause conflict where views and aims are actually very much in line. I therefore advise caution and restraint to any who read on from this point.

I am no historian, or expert in World War II or Hitler, I have only read a few chapters of his works. I think however, most who live in the western world would agree that the Holocaust was the greatest mistake of the last few hundred years and is thus one of the most significant things to learn from, so that we may avoid any similar recurrence. I have taken a holistic approach to learning and knowledge and can apply a modicum of understanding from numerous disciplines upon the events that lead up to the Holocaust. Those who know far more than me on the subject may be able to highlight specifics to refute my suggestions and I would welcome them as such persons provide the best possibility to advance ideas. The reason my less learned opinion is still of some use is that of the different perspective, and consequently probing different links. The extent to which human knowledge has reached means that the most learned people in specific areas will know less in other areas, the institutionalization of learning to some extent has focused the “angle” at which a subject is viewed thus further reducing the change of spotting links. A holistic approach to something will not necessarily have good “focus” on the subject, i.e. know less of the details, but will look at a broader picture.

Mostly people will blame the holocaust on Hitler and leave the analysis at that. Much as the assertion of blame is correct it does not serve any purpose in the use of logic. People being unique renders blaming anyone for something meaningless in a search to prevent recurrences. Someone else as an object of blame may serve as a tool to remove personal guilt or even increase our own self esteem. These are psychological reasons or motives for blame and may help the individual who blames another. No expression or sharing of this blame is required to obtain the psychological merits as they are specific and personal. I would go so far as to suggest that when blame is no longer a personal feeling an individual may have, but instead a socially accepted premise, it can become dangerous and detrimental to both individuals and society. Blame becomes socially affirmed when people begin to voice their feelings about who to blame for what with significant agreement, the media outlets clearly leading the way. I shall now briefly detail some of the negative aspects regarding the concept of blame which certainly apply to socially accepted blaming but may still apply to the individual who keeps their thoughts to themselves.

Blame divides people and groups and generates hatred between them. Hatred of individuals is far from ideal but that is not to say it cannot be justified, however when the focus of hatred is towards a group, represented by some commonality, it is unjustified and very damaging to society. Hatred is a negative emotion along with many others that are generally best avoided both personally and for a society at large. Many critical dystopians suggest that fear is a good method of controlling society which may be true, but it will create an environment in which the people become increasingly hateful, mistrustful and selfish which ultimately will be the failing of that society. Fear, hate and blame all fall into the category of negative thoughts which tend to proliferate more negative thoughts and feelings in both self and others, and as such should be avoided where possible.

Blame will cause apathy in individuals in that they believe they are not responsible for the fault and are under no obligation to help resolve it. This may be a justified response but it is rarely the choice that will be optimal for them or the society concerned. Blame is useful in this respect for locating an individual to rectify a problem which they have caused so that they may remedy it, as such it may be considered an optimal resolution. This is no longer useful when a situation cannot be undone or the individual responsible does not have the appropriate means to remedy the situation. In these situations the optimal response to return things to their original state requires a group effort.

Blame serves to absolve people in their potential role in bringing about a problem. If I can blame someone else for this mistake I am under no obligation to change my ways or improve upon myself. Rarely are mistakes the consequence of one persons actions alone yet we all still love a scape goat.

I could go on about the logical incompatibility with blame, or the negative effect it can have as an attitude for both individuals and societies, or how unhelpful it may be in arriving at the best solution. Suffice it to say I am of the opinion that the question should always be; 'how do we solve this?' not, 'who is to blame for this?'. Although we are unable to solve the Holocaust we may look beyond blaming Hitler and examine social conditions and opinions prior to the events. We can also look at what motivated Hitler and how he came to believe his actions were acceptable or beneficial. In doing this we may find ways to safeguard against other potential social catastrophes.

Hitler pitied those who he saw as his fellow man, the labouring classes of Austria and Germany. He blamed their condition primarily on those in positions of power and socialists. His political motivations originated with a mixture of love and pity for those with least. Even though he saw these people as wretched, hateful and immoral he had the clarity to observe that their condition had made them this way and that they were not naturally so. For this reason he wished to create a society of proud people that would not let others slip into wretchedness.

Hitler's initial motivations were good in that he wanted to do what he saw as right and best for others. Fictional super-villains often seem motivated by “evil” things, such as wanton destruction, however it is far more chilling to observe an attempt at altruism fail so spectacularly. In reality people are generally only motivated by self interest or altruism, the former without any morality is often regarded as evil but for this explanation I will leave it in the self interest category. Only the most disturbed or mentally ill people are motivated sadistically or masochistically and such people are often social outcasts, instantly recognizable to others as “odd”. Hitler cannot have gotten to the position he did by being an evil soul as it were - those who do harm to others without any obvious personal gain. People of such dispositions do not relate to others and are missing the tools required to lead and inspire, Hitler was however renown for his oratory prowess and for his ability to inspire people.

We can only conclude that Hitler was misguided if we cannot conclude his motives were “pure evil”. It is hard to see how a purely self interested motivation could require genocide to exact. Thus the only conclusion which I am left able to draw is that Hitler was a misguided altruist. This must serve as a warning to all politicians, sociologists, activists and utopians in that one assumes their aims are altruistic or for the general good. We may all comfort ourselves in that we are nothing like Hitler and are in no danger of being misguided. Certainly few of us reach such levels of power and thus are not in a position to cause such extreme harm, however it is still a good reminder that actions we intend to do good may have quite the opposite effect if we are incorrect in our assumptions.

So, where did Hitler go wrong? What were his incorrect assumptions? The first answer I would give to these questions is that of association. Association is a useful tool to have evolved as it allows us and other animals to learn from similar circumstances. No two objects or events are identical such as two apples. By associating these two distinct objects we are able to infer with good probability that upon finding the first was good to eat that the second will be also. Hitler saw many socialists and people in positions of power were Jewish. He also felt he had very little associations with Jewish people especially when compared to the labouring classes of what he called the Mother Land.

The critical error Hitler made was to assume that it was the Jewish influence in these positions of power rather than the system surrounding such positions that caused what he saw as the main problems in society. Rather than examine the social, economic and political systems as the object of his problem he made Jewish people the object instead. Hitler was both socially astute and very bright, nor had he ever personally been caused to suffer by any Jews, which begs the the question; how was is possible to arrive at a conclusion that to modern observes seems so obviously wrong?

To answer this question I would look to the social conditions of the time, not just quality of life but the general feeling of the people, the views they may hold or find socially acceptable and the scientific understanding of the times. In the period before Hitler's rise to power the concepts of eugenics where being explored seriously for the first time. The scientific community had not yet come to a consensus as to the benefits or morality of eugenics, many simply saw it as a new tool to better humanity. Others inferred from these ideas that some humans or types of human were better than others, a scientifically administered licence for racism. These ideas were all still in the theoretical stage as conducting experiments was not a simple task. As such those outside the scientific community were able to freely make their own interpretations of eugenics.

The abolition of slavery was not all the long before the time period in question and little change was to be seen regarding how white people treated and saw black people. Emigration and immigration were not as common place as they are today. Perhaps most significantly at that time no events had yet come to pass in which a racist view was taken to an extreme. I am not saying one needs hindsight to appreciate how wrong racial motivated genocide is, but it is a great deal easier to reach that conclusion and requires a lot less consideration. Most people know about WWII and the Holocaust and can directly relate that to have been a bad thing, there is a wide and consonant view in society of this fact which was not so readily available to people prior to those events. These three factors combined with the scientific communities position at the time lead to a climate that was far more accepting of racial slander or making the enemy of society a race.

A social climate that is more accepting of racism will not only help to produce people like Hitler but it will also help those people to gain public support. This was not exclusive to Germany, the average level of racism in Europe was unlikely to have been that different from one country to the next. The factors exclusive to Germany were the result of WWI. This is well documented and understood but in a nut shell the German people felt belittled and second rate as a result of the defeat and it's consequences. When an individual is made to feel this way they will become insular, insecure, resentful and feel the need to prove themselves. Societies of people are inclined towards acting in similar ways to individuals when the general feeling is aligned. One could argue that it was society which created a role for a new kind of leader rather than Hitler leading society astray. As with so many questions the answer is most likely to be six of one and half a dozen of the other, and also somewhat of the chicken and egg conundrum.

To quickly recap the various factors which allowed for the holocaust;

1. The poor social conditions within Austria and Germany, including large wealth gaps.
2. The national lack of pride and self worth resulting from the loss of WWI, a national insecurity if you will.
3. The unstable economic climate prior to Hitler's rise to power, this effect is mostly through exacerbating the previous two factors.
4. An incomplete understanding of the ramifications of Darwinism and eugenics.
5. A lack of any serious social stigma regarding racism.
6. A general public loss of faith in government.

It is not easy to predict what problems any of these factors might cause but it is not as hard to appreciate that any of these situations is unlikely to result in good things. The fewer problems a society has the less able it will be to generate a snowballing problem which gains momentum from contributions from those many problems. It is somewhat stating the obvious and not particularly useful to conclude that to avoid large unforeseeable problems in society one should tackle all observable problems in that society. This may be true but the message I wish to get across is the significance of a broad approach. It might have been possible to prevent the Holocaust by solving the specific problem of Hitler himself somehow, but this is quite a hit and miss approach that seems quite ridiculous when phrased in this way, although many still talk about going back in time and killing him! A more assured way of preventing the Holocaust would be to remove the social conditions that allowed it to occur, even if such a society could produce a character such as Hitler, it would not provide them with a role to fill, i.e. such a society would not bring Hitler to power.

So what of Hitler, some might say my arguments do remove him from blame, instead making him the victim of society. While it may be the case that society is the catalyst for characters and events we cannot remove accountability from the individual. To do so would be to throw society in to anarchy. If we are just automatic machines devoid of free will responding to stimulus then personal accountability is an important stimulus to allow us to cooperate effectively.

Although I may have claimed Hitler's initial motivations were altruistic it is clear from his actions he strayed very far from the moral path. The man Hitler was to become was either deluded or corrupted, perhaps by power or fear or urgency. A man must be judged on their actions, not their motives leaving Hitler pretty damned. I have paid most attention to how someone could come to form the political views that they did and then be raised to power, and not how a potentially altruistic person could come to command such atrocities. I generally put this down to a gaining of momentum of his idea, the support of his people and of his contemporaries. An incremental advance towards acts of evil is far easier to bare than a direct plunge from goodness.

I am however quite suspicious of his assumptions to which I provided only one reason for at the time. I am suspicious as Hitler seems too bright to really believe what he preached. A cynical part of me suspects Hitler to be disingenuous in his assertions appointing Jews as the enemy of society. Perhaps he felt he could rally the people to his cause most effectively by making an easy enemy for the labouring classes to unite against. If this were the case we can conclude more readily that Hitler was motivated by power, by self interest and not altruism. If this is the case I have failed to provide any suggestion as to how such an individual could come to exist however I suspect that the answer would still be the result of social conditions!