3 ms·
You seem to imply that, because he addressed Hitler as "friend", he must be a terrible person? That's ridiculous. He was addressing the leader of one of the ax
by brabel 6y ago
You seem to imply that, because he addressed Hitler as "friend", he must be a terrible person?
That's ridiculous. He was addressing the leader of one of the axis of the Great War when the War was just about to start (and then, just after), there was no way to tell how the conflict would develop, and when most of the atrocities Hitler became infamous for had not been committed, or at least were not widely known yet. It's easy to now talk about Hitler as the Devil re-incarnated, but at the time, he was a world leader and addressing him like you probably would like Gandhi to have done, as a despicable human being, would probably only contribute to Hitler's warring inclinations.
If you were to, today, write to a world leader like Putin or Trump, trying to convince them to not start a war that could destroy a large percentage of humanity, would you not want to start your letter in a diplomatic manner in order to maybe be heard and stop an extremely horrific event, despite how undignified they may be as a person in your eyes?
Gandhi's letters you linked to only show how he tried as hard as he could to diplomatically convince Hitler that war was not the only solution... imagine if he had succeeded in that, how much suffering could have been avoided!
As Gandhi said in one of the letters, winning a war doesn't prove you're in the right, it only proves you had greater capability for destruction. But Hitler, of course, thought both that he was in the right AND that nothing could beat his superior army and race. He was wrong in both accounts, but he was right in that his power for destruction was enormous, and the result was the most horrific episode in human history.
- watwut 6y agoCould we defend Gandhi without pretending that Germany just before WWII was an ok country? > Gandhi's letters you linked to only show how he tried as hard as he could to diplomatically convince Hitler that war was not the only solution... imagine if he had succeeded in that, how much suffering could have been avoided! I would really like to know what you think the Hitlers problem was. The problems I am aware about were generally solvable only by the war and violence. > he was a world leader and addressing him like you probably would like Gandhi to have done, as a despicable human being, would probably only contribute to Hitler's warring inclinations. No, really not as he was planning the war for years already by that point. At that point Ghandhi or anybody elses foreign acceptance was completely moot.
- newen 6y agoYou need to look at this from his limited historical point of view instead of doing this 20/20 hindsight armchair moralizing.
- watwut 6y agoI was addressing brabels assumptions about Germany in WWII and about Ghandi. There is putting yourself into shoes of someone from the past. And then, there is making stuff and assumptions about history so that you make defense you want to make. And the comment I responded to did the latter instead of former. All too many people when they want to defend someone from the past will proceed into some kind alternative past, where there was nothing special about Germany pre-WWII. The alternative past in which the last two paragraphs do not come accross as completely ridiculous but feel good nonsense. That has little to do with Ghandi.