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It’s good to remember that scientists are just as capable of violence (if anything, they can be better at it). It might also be a mistake to think that rational
by strogonoff 3y ago
It’s good to remember that scientists are just as capable of violence (if anything, they can be better at it). It might also be a mistake to think that rational people are inherently less violent towards other people. Finally, I reckon it’s especially dangerous to think the Nazi did what they did just because of “bad emotions”.
The trolley problem adjacent research has shown (if inconclusively) that more rational people are more likely to be OK being a cause of harm to other people to achieve some goal. In those experiments such goal is usually “save more people”, but all you need is to define some terms and “kill some now” might seem imperative to “save more later” to a sufficiently rational, long-term-thinking, “smart” person.
So the Nazi did, and there is much less conjecture here since it’s mostly well-documented. They were specifically inspired by natural sciences, including the then-new Darwin’s theory of natural selection. If anything, their shtick might’ve been to overcome the “bad” (for the Nazi) emotions that one may experience when sending some disabled person or a Jew to death. Which, according to them, had to be done since they were detrimental to survival of humanity (as Nazis defined it, of course) by polluting its genetic pool—so they were taught to train themselves to treat Jews as non-human bedbugs, stripped Jews of citizenship, disciplined fellow Germans who dared to shake hands with a Jew, etc. To Nazis emotions were a hindrance, they included the “irrational” compassion, and we might be better off remembering that when we discuss rationality, which consequentialism tends to go hand in hand with.
Addendum: An obvious argument can be made that Nazis were “not rational enough”, i.e. the problem is not with rationality per se but only with rationality based on premises that we now know are wrong. That, however, shows nothing because if we’ve learned anything it should be not to assume that now we have finally got all of our premises in order and possess absolute truth and complete understanding of reality.
- lukan 3y ago"To Nazis emotions were a hindrance, they included the “irrational” compassion" Have a look at Rosenbergs influental writings for instance. Or well, "Mein Kampf". It is not a rational, but very emotional work. All of their ideology starts with mysticism around nationalism. Finding greatness while giving yourself up to the higher rightful order. The Volk, connected by blood.* All "rationality" was applied after that premise. *The right blood of course. Investigated, determined and mandated by buerocrats with pseudoscientific methods.
- strogonoff 3y agoYou’re right, it’s more nuanced than that and cannot be reduced just to rationality. I’d be the first to agree that neither rationality nor emotion is alone enough. Defeat in WWI has contributed to emotional context a lot. However, to say it was all just emotion and post-rationalization is to oversimplify even more. The two were intermingled even since 19th century (e.g., Lamarck).
- lukan 3y ago"However, to say it was all just emotion and post-rationalization is to oversimplify" Sure. I remember from Mein Kampf, where Hitler talks about his Antisemitism. His Intuition always advised against it, but with his rational mind, step by step he came to the logical conclusion, that yes, the jews are basically to blame for everything. (Interesting that he remarks, that his intuition left him for some years, after he made that "rational" decision) It was twisted all around.
- strogonoff 3y agoAs Kahneman wrote, rationality is logical coherence, a rational person can believe in ghosts if the rest of their beliefs are consistent with ghosts. A rational person can prefer to be hated instead of loved, if it’s consistent. Most of the book is about economics and rational behavior in terms of utility, but that part seems to apply here as well. Logical coherence is always internal, it can only be complete within itself and will inevitably conflict with external reality and other internally coherent beliefs. It’s possible for a Nazi to be extremely rational in this way, whereas a reasonable person cannot be entirely rational by definition.