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The problem with the Nazis is that they were genocidal maniacs, not that they p-hacked their scientific papers. Genocidal maniacs have spouted many creeds, some
by iguy 9y ago
The problem with the Nazis is that they were genocidal maniacs, not that they p-hacked their scientific papers. Genocidal maniacs have spouted many creeds, some of which sound much nicer (like brotherly love & eternal life... or equality of mankind & ownership of the means of production) and they are still evil. Because mass murder is wrong. Full stop.
I think it's really dangerous to tie the wrongness of the supposedly scientific facts they spouted to the wrongness of their deeds. Dangerous because if it turns out they were right about some point, then you look like an idiot and have to change your tune. And dangerous because it warps subsequent science, to avoid such embarrassment.
They believed in breeding a master race. In response to this, the acceptable opinion in the West ever since seems to have been that this is impossible, that humans are unique among creatures on this planet in that they are immune to the pressures of selective breeding. We can double the size of our chickens (and breed tame foxes, and smart dogs) but humans are apparently immutable. This is creationist nonsense, and it becomes more and more obviously nonsense every year. We need not have painted ourselves into such a stupid corner.
- emodendroket 9y agoSo if the Nazis weren't mass-murders, and instead just had an ideology revolving around the inherent inferiority of anyone other than Aryans (naturally that would probably include bans on intermarriage, restrictions on social race-mixing, and the like), that would have been alright? I don't think I agree. Frankly, genocide, or at least dehumanization and extreme indifference, seems like the logical endpoint of sincere belief in the concept of a "master race" which is inherently good and is hamstrung by perfidious inferior races. Once you've determined that a member of one race is worth less than another, it's natural to judge that the death of a member of this inferior race would be justifiable to save the race of a member of the superior race, and in this way the concept of genocide becomes, in your mind, a "defensive" action.
- iguy 9y agoThey would not have acquired much notoriety by believing these things in private. It's their actions which got them into the history books. If I'm not mistaken, the Brahmins tick most of your boxes. Are they alright? Some would argue that they go in for a bit of dehumanization... but nobody is proposing a world war to stop them. Actually I'm alright with people believing lots of crazy shit, in private. Because I think intellectual monoculture is pretty dangerous.
- emodendroket 9y agoWell, I don't know, the Indian government seems to think caste discrimination is a real problem (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India). I certainly would object quite strenuously to a government that operated on caste principles and enforced caste segregation and diminished rights for some castes. World War II did not begin because of Nazis' views on Jews, so I don't know that that part of the question really makes sense. I do find it a little strange how many people want to turn the concept of "diversity" on its head and tell me the real diversity problem is that we don't let enough people with racist views into power.
- iguy 9y agoSure, me too. But we're back to talking about policies and actions, like invading Poland or enforcing caste apartheid. These are bad things. My objection is to conflating them with scientific matters, i.e. empirical claims, especially about human biology. I worry that doing so actually weakens our arguments against such evil. We shouldn't build into our case against them scientific claims on which we may ourselves be proven wrong. It's not necessary. (And, much as I enjoy using words like diversity in their older meanings, in the hope of tripping people into thinking, here I resisted the temptation. Intellectual monoculture was however a feature of most of the evil regimes of recent times, too, and one of their weaknesses.)
- emodendroket 9y agoI don't see much point in making the distinction. All of these policies you're saying are bad are completely logical ones to enact for someone who holds race-supremacist views. By way of analogy, when someone tells you he believes global warming is impossible because it would go against the Bible, you don't have to wonder that much what he would do about carbon emissions.