[quote=urbanrealtor][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=urbanrealtor]Accretion of power is not the monster. Poor management is the monster. I think that is as true of the terror or the inquisition, as it is of Weimar.
Put differently, I don’t believe in evil. Just incompetence.
I think those labels just muddy it up.[/quote]
Dan: You don’t believe in evil? Since this is probably the most arguable point of all, I won’t dwell on it overmuch, but I will say this: Evil does exist.
It exists in the individual, whether it’s Dahmer or Bundy or the nameless SS officer shooting a Jewish mother and daughter in a field in the Ukraine. It exists in the state, or the system, or the church or the mosque.
I don’t disagree about incompetence, and we’re truly fortunate that the Nazis were as incompetent as they were, but words like “naive” and “poor” and glib phrases like “power sharing” speak to another evil and that is moral equivalence. Things are no longer right or wrong when viewed through this prism, they’re simply different. And that excuses ALL acts and ALL actors.
Hitler devolves from being a moral monster into an incompetent that simply couldn’t get along or play well with others and he led Germany into oblivion.
Let’s not be judgmental, right? As Americans, we should remain silent about genocide because of our conduct in the Indian Wars. We can’t discuss China’s nascent imperialism because of our own forays, whether in the Spanish-American War or Vietnam. We’re silent on race and racism because we’re reminded daily about our own sorry history, whether in slavery or the rough path of the Civil Rights movement.
And people wonder why intelligent discourse is at an all-time low. Fear. Fear of being labeled politically incorrect or a racist or a sexist or an ageist. Fear of not getting the proper nomenclature down or not using the right symbols, tropes, icons, memes or rubric.
It is ALL about power, Dan, and has always been about power and no matter who you forgive or ignore or marginalize as being incompetent, it’s the same game.[/quote]
There is a lot to address in this post but I will start with the obvious by pointing out that saying that power “is all about power” is not an example of thoughtful discourse.
What I was trying to say (and apparently failed to communicate effectively) is that the successful consolidation of that power is due to incompetence.
I genuinely believe that the personality type that falls under the dictator rubric is not unique or terrible special.
You just end up with power mongers gaming a dumb system.
As to your tangent:
I don’t consider serial killers really relevant to political megalomania. John Wayne Gacy is in no danger (nor was he ever) of winning political office.
I don’t particularly think that power sharing or other concepts of control excuse or minimize evil acts (and yes, I do consider certain acts to be evil) however, the success of ambition without regard to welfare is, in my mind, not ultimately about evil.
Putting that differently:
There is lots of evil in the world.
However, it is incompetence that allows it to succeed.[/quote]
Dan: I don’t know if its intentional with you or not, but you have a tendency to misread what I’m saying and, in attempting to answer what you think I’m saying, you go in a completely different direction.
I wasn’t conflating serial killers with political megalomania at all; I was discussing the presence of evil in the world. Yes, Hitler was definitely evil, as was Gacy, but that doesn’t mean I was grouping the two together. I was simply pointing out that evil does exist and used some examples. Your response was essentially an ellipsis, along the lines of: All wheels are round and all marbles are round, therefore, all wheels are marbles (or vice versa).
My other point, which was also clearly missed, had to do with moral equivalence and this was greeted with another glib elision by you. As with the above, I didn’t say that power “is all about power”. Nope, not so much. I had pointed out that, when it comes the political megalomania we were discussing, it is all about power. However, power and evil happened to be mutually exclusive in my portion of the discussion, in that I was making two points: (1) Evil does exist, and, (2) If we’re talking about megalomaniacs, it would seem self-evident that its about power.
This somehow devolved into Hitler managed to game the German political system, which was staffed (apparently) by a Monty Pythonesque crew of incompetents. I guess if those helmets with the spikes are any indication, perhaps you’re right.
