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On Bad People Being Right
According to this Times story, a recently-elected Republican member of Congress has gotten into enormous hot water for saying, at a rally, “Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’”
The backlash to her statement was predictable, knee-jerk, and unthinking. For example, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "unequivocally condemns any leader trying to advance a position by claiming Adolf Hitler was ‘right.’” while the Governor of Illinois urges her to study the Holocaust “to learn just how wrong Hitler was.” Senator Tammy Duckworth says “It is absolutely repugnant, obscene and unacceptable for any American — let alone a supposed ‘leader’ serving in Congress — to claim Adolf Hitler was right about anything,” and says the Congresswoman should "resign immediately".
I have no doubt that Adolf Hitler believed two plus two was equal to four -- yet two plus two is equal to four. I have no doubt that Adolf Hitler believed the sky was (frequently) blue, yet it is. I suspect that Adolf Hitler believed Wienerschnitzel is tasty, yet I've had some and enjoyed it and I would have to join him in this opinion. As the group Miller was addressing said in defending her comments, "Truth is truth regardless of the source."
At a less trivial level, Adolf Hitler must have believed "if I take such-and-such action, I'll gain name recognition, sympathy, and political power, which will enable me to carry out some of my plans," and he was correct. He must have believed "This arson at the Reichstag is a terrific opportunity for me to seize power and shut down the opposition," and he was correct. He must have believed "if I pick some suitably unpopular ethnic groups and blame them for all of society's ills, the German people will rally behind me," and he was correct. Congresswoman Miller's statement is clearly in this category of strategic observations about human society which are, in practice, frequently correct, regardless of the ends to which he put them.
If Adolf Hitler had truly been "wrong about everything", he wouldn't have been able to survive a day, much less gain political power, conquer half of Europe, and kill 11 million members of those "unpopular groups". People who are wrong about everything are no threat; the ones we need to worry about are the ones who are correct and competent in the service of reprehensible goals. Many people have observed over the past four years that Donald Trump would be far more dangerous if he had more impulse control, if he were able to hear bad news without lashing out at the messenger (not that Hitler was renowned for those qualities either)... if he were, in brief, more competent and correct.
The whole Hitler thing is a cheap shot, a distraction from the substance of what Congresswoman Miller was saying. We can disagree with her characterization of our children being "propagandized" and "re-educated" by "left-wing radicals" -- I don't know what specifically she was talking about, but I suspect it has to do with accepting LGBTQ people as human beings -- without making ourselves look ridiculous by saying Hitler was "wrong about everything". Let's criticize Miller, and Hitler, for what they get wrong, not for making arguably-accurate historical observations. If we don't study our enemies, try to understand their motives and strategies, we'll be ill-equipped to beat them.
The backlash to her statement was predictable, knee-jerk, and unthinking. For example, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "unequivocally condemns any leader trying to advance a position by claiming Adolf Hitler was ‘right.’” while the Governor of Illinois urges her to study the Holocaust “to learn just how wrong Hitler was.” Senator Tammy Duckworth says “It is absolutely repugnant, obscene and unacceptable for any American — let alone a supposed ‘leader’ serving in Congress — to claim Adolf Hitler was right about anything,” and says the Congresswoman should "resign immediately".
I have no doubt that Adolf Hitler believed two plus two was equal to four -- yet two plus two is equal to four. I have no doubt that Adolf Hitler believed the sky was (frequently) blue, yet it is. I suspect that Adolf Hitler believed Wienerschnitzel is tasty, yet I've had some and enjoyed it and I would have to join him in this opinion. As the group Miller was addressing said in defending her comments, "Truth is truth regardless of the source."
At a less trivial level, Adolf Hitler must have believed "if I take such-and-such action, I'll gain name recognition, sympathy, and political power, which will enable me to carry out some of my plans," and he was correct. He must have believed "This arson at the Reichstag is a terrific opportunity for me to seize power and shut down the opposition," and he was correct. He must have believed "if I pick some suitably unpopular ethnic groups and blame them for all of society's ills, the German people will rally behind me," and he was correct. Congresswoman Miller's statement is clearly in this category of strategic observations about human society which are, in practice, frequently correct, regardless of the ends to which he put them.
If Adolf Hitler had truly been "wrong about everything", he wouldn't have been able to survive a day, much less gain political power, conquer half of Europe, and kill 11 million members of those "unpopular groups". People who are wrong about everything are no threat; the ones we need to worry about are the ones who are correct and competent in the service of reprehensible goals. Many people have observed over the past four years that Donald Trump would be far more dangerous if he had more impulse control, if he were able to hear bad news without lashing out at the messenger (not that Hitler was renowned for those qualities either)... if he were, in brief, more competent and correct.
The whole Hitler thing is a cheap shot, a distraction from the substance of what Congresswoman Miller was saying. We can disagree with her characterization of our children being "propagandized" and "re-educated" by "left-wing radicals" -- I don't know what specifically she was talking about, but I suspect it has to do with accepting LGBTQ people as human beings -- without making ourselves look ridiculous by saying Hitler was "wrong about everything". Let's criticize Miller, and Hitler, for what they get wrong, not for making arguably-accurate historical observations. If we don't study our enemies, try to understand their motives and strategies, we'll be ill-equipped to beat them.
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It's quite possible, even likely, that Miller chose to mention Hitler as a dog-whistle to the actively-racist segment of her audience, while hoping it wouldn't turn off the just-plain-conservative segment of her audience. (
What I was calling a "cheap shot", albeit perhaps one that's unavoidable in a world of five-second sound bites, is accusing Miller of the wrong crime -- of saying Hitler was "right about one thing", which he obviously was, rather than of invoking Hitler's name to gain the approval of overt racists or of inventing a non-existent threat of "indoctrination by left-wing radicals".
In logic, as I'm sure you know, a proof can be criticized as invalid even if its conclusion happens to be true, because it broke rules of logic along the way. On the other hand, if you criticize a proof as invalid while pointing to a place that it didn't break the rules, you lose more credibility than the proof does. I guess that's where I'm coming from: the statements quoted above say more to me about Duckworth than about Miller. Reason number 79 that I'm a logician, not a politician....
And yes, I should probably make a point of re-reading extra times, and waiting longer than usual before posting, anything related to Jews, or for that matter any historically-oppressed group. Thanks for your patient and constructive criticism.