Rorschach Tests at the Nuremberg Trials | Hacker News Reader

Rorschach Tests at the Nuremberg Trials

blogs.discovermagazine.com

13 pointsDiabloD310 comments

It's rather ironic that American psychiatrists should consider genocide to be the product of unusual minds (rather than, say, unusual circumstances). The Westwards expansion of their own country was based on the same principles as lebensraum, and also involved genocide.

Both this and the fact the transcripts can't be used by experts to predict war criminals reinforce the obvious point that anyone can do horrible things, it doesn't require sick minds, it just takes faith in doing "the right thing".

Exactly. It's the same reason why so many religious nuts are willing to kill so many people. "They" have God on their side so how could they be wrong, they're doing the right thing.

Why has the U.S. been killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Middle East for the past 15 years?

The sociopathic leaders of large organizations will do what is expedient, and the rank and file will do what they are told, or willfully ignore what is happening.

It takes an invading force to come in and establish that something was evil and clearly the work of madmen. My guess is that the nazis had perfectly normal brains, much like our own.

This exercise mostly just shows how foolish Rorschach tests are. I saw 2 dwarves high-fiving.

As intellectuals "know" people with noble intentions commit strategical blunders, and irresponsible acts but no such things as atrocities. These psychiatrists were perhaps trying to find a method to objectively identify the defining characteristic of an atrocious act, that is, being carried out by ignoble people. Unfortunately they did not succeed, so when identifying the real international criminals we still have to deal with such distractions as hospital propaganda [1], naive young persons [2], and journalists with shady agendas [3]. Back to psychiatry, Dalí exposed the underlying philosophical matter very succinctly: "The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."

[1] "The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of civilian casualties." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/politics/15military.html?p...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov...

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/23/yemen-journalis...

> I saw 2 dwarves high-fiving.

The fact that you saw two dwarves is indicative of a psychopathic mind obsessed with belittling others in an attempt to convince itself of its own adequacy. The high-fiving is a sign of childhood trauma caused by a lack of meaningful friendships.

This kind of "psychology" really is a pile of crap : (

I saw two elephants. I'm afraid I may be a misanthropist. :(

> I saw 2 dwarves high-fiving.

I see two bears high-fiving. Clearly this demonstrates that anyone not seeing a high five is crazy... right.

Huh, the smear campaign continues even today? USA and Israel are as always saints which is why everything regarding WW2 I no longer trust.

As a psychologist, I can tell you that with only one card out of ten for the whole test, Goering shows signs of being a plain psychopath (knowing what he did of course) while Hesse does have very serious psychological issues (even if I didn't know what he did). The Rorschach is able to tell you at least that. A standard criminal can come out normal on the Rorschach and pretty much every other test you throw at him, but a guy who shoots up an elementary school will not come out normal on the Rorschach. In reference to crime vs. normalcy, with nazi's Germany as backdrop, there is the very good Jonathan Littell, "The Kindly Ones."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com