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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

Someone recently made the observation that we should not describe people who did terrible things in the past as monsters, because it allows us to rationalize away our own action or inaction. "We could never do <whatever bad thing our ancestors did> because they were monsters and we are not." Better to keep in mind that they were very much human, just as we are, and take the history lesson as a warning. And we just got a shot across the bow.

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I think it makes complete sense to describe us as terrible. We are what we are. No point in sugar coating it.

Write the books to talk about how a lot of people were upset with the way things went. But don't forget to include the part about how lots of people were happy with it.

Especially given the fact that Henry Ford was an incredibly pernicious anti-semite who supported Adolf Hitler's movement in its infancy with financing for vehicles and uniforms. Nazism got its start in America and for us to pretend like it's some foreign ideology is bonkers.

There is historical evidence that Hitler got many of his ideas and policies from American eugenicists.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/09/hitler-th...

Problem is: if the other side had one, lots of people would feel exactly the way you do. But from the other side. So who is right?

Of course. I advocate writing both perspectives, knowing that the bias of the victor would show up.

But looking back, I think we’ve done a major disservice in the US by not including the dark parts of history in our stories: civil war -> states rights. Nazis -> no american ever supported that idea.

Stuff like that. It makes the times we live through now feel like a surprise to many I think. They’re shocked people could actually support racists, bigots, worthless people.

But here we are.

> They’re shocked people could actually support racists, bigots, worthless people.

Oh please. Just take a look at the shenanigans around HRC's nomination. Democrats have no claim to moral authority, if that's what you're suggesting.

Nope. Not at all.

Hannah Arendt: The Banality of Evil

...which was extremely controversial when published, because people thought it was diminishing the Nazis' atrocities. I always felt your point to be the far more immediate lesson, apart from any argument of her view of Eichmann (that he was a paper-pushing bore as well as a mass murderer) simply being the correct one.

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