Arguing with Hitler

For a long time I've believed that it is necessary to argue for your position in order to prevent the other side - the "wrong" side - from winning. But lately I've begun to question whether this is indeed true. Part of the reason lies in some recent entries at the blog Release the Illusion, which I recommend. Another part of the reason has to do with the book I'm currently reading, Hitler: The Path to Power by Charles Bracelen Flood.

The book traces Hitler's early days in politics as he gradually ascended in influence. What the author makes clear is that Germany in the aftermath of World War I was a cauldron of competing extremist groups - communists, socialists, and fervent nationalists. Although superficially different in some respects, these groups all had one thing in common: they appealed to the very worst aspects of human nature. They encouraged scapegoating, whether of capitalists or foreign powers or "the Jews." They permitted their followers to disown any responsibility for Germany's humiliation in the war and for its economic deterioration afterward. And they made these points not primarily by appealing to logical reasoning but by tapping into primal emotions.

An atmosphere of sheer hysteria permeated German society in the 1920s. One American reporter stationed there said that the country was experiencing "a nervous breakdown." Hundreds and then thousands of middle-class Germans crowded into meeting halls to hear speakers who launched frenzied harangues that lasted for as long as an hour and a half and whipped the crowd into a state of rapturous fury.

Under these conditions, it would have been impossible for anyone to successfully argue against the extremist groups in a calm, rational way. No quiet voice of reason could have been heard in that maelstrom. The emotions stirred up by extremists on all sides were largely impervious to logical analysis or disputation.

As Flood makes clear, Hitler was a master of manipulating the emotions of the crowd, and having studied propaganda, he was well aware of the advantages of directing his message toward the emotions rather than the logical mind. An argument can always be bested by a better argument, but impassioned emotion will listen to no one. Hitler himself could not be reached by reason when it came to his fundamental prejudices, and neither could his followers, and neither could the German electorate as a whole, conditioned as it was to reacting in a purely emotional way.

There is another respect in which the communists, socialists, and nationalists were similar. All were driven by fanatical hatred of other human beings, though the target of the hatred varied from case the case. The leftists hated the rich, while the rightists hated the Jews. Hitler's genius, if it can be called that, was to combine the two impulses -- nationalism and socialism -- to create his National Socialist or Nazi Party. The program of the Nazis included attacks on the wealthy as well as condemnations of the Jews. The synthesis was not difficult to pull off, since in the popular mind, the Jews were stereotypically associated with wealthy bankers and industrialists.

Given his demonic charisma and his crafty political machinations, Hitler was almost destined to end up at the top of the heap -- but had he failed, some other fanatic would surely have risen to the top in his place. The atmosphere of Germany in that era did not allow for moderate solutions and sober compromise.

Is there any way Hitler or his equivalent could have been stopped? Perhaps only if some contrasting movement had arisen that encouraged genuine love and respect for one's fellow human beings of all religions, ethnicities, and social classes. A rebirth of the spirit of authentic Christianity as it appears to have been practiced in its earliest decades might have turned the tide - but not because the arguments mustered by this counterrevolutionary movement were superior. Hitler's direct appeal to people's worst emotions could have been countered, if at all, only by an equally direct appeal to the highest feelings - empathy, compassion, sympathy, and love.

So maybe I've been wrong all this time. Maybe argument and debate are not the way to advance one's position. Arguing with Hitler, at least, was and always must be a futile enterprise.

Comments

[Suzie]

MP,
I think debate and argument does work well SOMEtimes. OTOH, as you noted at other times it's futile. I like the old quote, "Never argue with an idiot, he'll take you down to his level and beat you with experience." :)
Suzie

[Michael Prescott]

It may work occasionally, but I'm hard pressed to think of many cases in my own life when my mind has been changed by someone else's debating points.

[Bob Wallace]

I believe one of the main problems are the differences between individuals and groups. Individuals can be rational; groups cannot. They can only feel, and it's always the worst emotions.

[Henry James]

To begin with, this can be of interest:
John Maynard Keynes. The Economic Consequences of the Peace http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1920keynes.html http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1920keynes.html

Basically, what JMK said as early as 1919-20, is that the Versailles Peace was not simply "unjust". The problem is, the economic order it created in Europe was doomed to implode.

This is exactly what happened later when both Germans and Russians created totatlitarian states in response to challenges created by WW1.

Chinese situation was different. All through WW1-WW2 period, China was immersed in the Civil War and Japanese occupation. Mao succeeded in building a stable totalitian state only after WW2, after the American defeat of Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War

[Suzie]

>It may work occasionally, but I'm hard pressed to think of many cases in my own life when my mind has been changed by someone else's debating points.<
MP,
Really? Maybe you've been looking in the wrong places ;) Geez, just offhand I can think of several times in the past year alone I've changed my way of thinking from debating with someone. Sometimes just a fine point but even those can be mind opening and altering into further areas, and darned exciting to boot. "Hmm, well hey if that's true then applying the same concept to such and such and then, whoaa! Cool!" (Maybe it's so exciting because of my own brand of scatterbrained logic/non-logic? heh heh). I don't always enjoy admitting the other person has a winning point and I was wrong :) When I do find a good and fair sparring partner, I look forward to further matches with glee, it's truly one of the finer pleasures in this life.
Bob,
I agree that individuals are usually easier to rationalize with than groups but I disagree with overgeneralizing "groups CANNOT [be rational]"..."they can ONLY...and it's ALWAYS the worst emotions."
Suzie

[Henry James]

It may work occasionally, but I'm hard pressed to think of many cases in my own life when my mind has been changed by someone else's debating points.

There is such a thing, called real time conflict anaysis. When you track heavy ideological clash like in the ME systematically, you better change your mind fast if you want to understand what is going on ;-)

[Michael Prescott]

>Geez, just offhand I can think of several times in the past year alone I've changed my way of thinking from debating with someone.

I would say that I can change my mind when I'm exposed to new information or to a new point of view, but usually not if it's presented in the context of a debate. In a debate, I find myself trying to defend my position, rather than really considering what the other person has to say. My ego gets in the way and throws up a lot of barriers. Of course, it may be different for other people. But I'm starting to think that debate, in general, is much overrated as a means of changing anyone's mind.

Think about presidential debates. There are two that are usually thought to have changed voters' minds - JFK vs. Nixon (1960), and Reagan vs. Carter (1980).

On TV, JFK came across as smoother and more reassuring than Nixon. Actually, Nixon parried JFK's intellectual points quite well, but he looked sweaty and nervous, with a five o'clock shadow, and that's what people noticed. When Reagan debated Carter, Reagan came across as funny and nonthreatening, while Carter seemed icy and pompous.

In other words, even when a debate does chang people's minds, it seems to come down to emotions and subliminal messages - body language, tone of voice - rather than intellectual content.

[Bob Wallace]

Suzie,

The late Erik von Kuehnelt, who has influenced more than I can possibly say, had an interesting comment in his book, Leftism Revisited: "'I' is from God and 'We' is from the Devil." He meant that anything that completely exalted the group over the individual -- communism, fascism, Nazism -- was bound to produce catastrophes. One of the reasons is because groups cannot think; they can only feel. One of the best examples of this is the movie, "Triumph of the Will," which contains a scene in which hundreds of thousands of people part like the Red Sea for Moses, so Hitler can walk through. That's the power of appealing to the emotions of a group.

[Henry James]

Think about presidential debates. There are two that are usually thought to have changed voters' minds - JFK vs. Nixon (1960), and Reagan vs. Carter (1980).

Well, on TV, Howard Stern could pretty easily humiliate Pinter and prove that his plays are not worth $0.02. The problem is, this would not make Howard a better playwright.

What I mean by debate is closer to what happens in "Medea". Jason is very articulate in his explanations of why Medea needs to be dumped. Basically, it all comes to the fact that as a barbarian, she does nor exactly fit the Greek society. In response, Medea proves in action that she can kill Jason's gf, their children - and flee.

What is also interesting, this kind of argumentation would be quite understandable for the National Socialists because they loved the Greek mythology. But I don't think they would like this logic because for them, Jason was racially superior to Medea.

[Dane Parker]

Michael Prescott says:

"It may work occasionally, but I'm hard pressed to think of many cases in my own life when my mind has been changed by someone else's debating points."

Actually if you think about it, this only means that our minds are in our own control. By no means a bad thing necessarily. We just need to remember, that being rational about other view points, insofar as our ability to be influenced or changed by them, is something we have to bring ourselves to be able to do. That is, being open-minded first, and then not being downright gullible. My approach to this would is as outlined in my blog post "Evaluating the Belief-System" accessible by my URL. Perhaps you'd like to read it and see what you think about it? I've changed many things ideas that I've initially thought, thanks to such a philosophy.

[Henry James]

I think a solution for this is to order your belief system as a hierarchy. Placing the most important concept at the top, which dictates other concepts that fall below.

First, I generally prefer tables to trees. Next, it is not clear how all this can work in practice. I am really not sure in what exactly way belief trees can be helpful to deal with totalitarian beliefs we are talking about.

[Matthew Cromer]

Thanks for the plug, Michael.

I'm working on a reply. It might be a bit as I am being swamped with work right now. . .

[Dane Parker]

Hey Henry,

Thanks for the interest in what I wrote, but I think you're on the wrong track about what I was saying. To keep it relatively brief I'll just kind of state the main idea of what I had written.

I was saying that if one takes their belief system, sets it up like a ladder, and sets Truth *in and of itself* (not Muslim-Truth, Christianity-Truth, not Hindu-Truth, Nazi-Truth, etc.)then one can't go wrong with their approach. Not that one will immediately or shortly arrive at the truth by adopting such an approach (who knows how long that takes). However, if one follows such a model cognitively, it forces all other concepts of things we tend to believe to be subject to "Truth" in and of itself. I merely mean to say that it's hard to see any other approach as being successful, unless it starts with a most purified, non-predetermined notion of truth to follow.

[Michael Prescott]

Dane,

Thanks for your thoughts. I read your blog entry on hierarchical thinking. Placing Truth as one's highest value is certainly a good idea, but I think in practice our egos tend to get in the way. We start to defend our preconceptions of what Truth is, rather than being really open-minded. It's probably impossible to maintain full objectivity - what we acknowledge as true, or even as possible, depends largely on what we already believe.

That's why so many scientists (or laymen who are fans of science) tend to dismiss the paranormal and supernatural out of hand. It doesn't fit the paradigm under which they're operating. They can't think outside the box. But it's not just them; it's all of us. (As Pogo said, I have seen the enemy and he is us.) We all have prejudices, blind spots, predilections, etc.

Our approach to Truth is, I think, an asymptotic curve - we can get nearer and nearer, but never quite reach it.

[Henry James]

Muslim-Truth, Christianity-Truth, not Hindu-Truth, Nazi-Truth, etc.

The correct term here is ideology which is as related to culture and religion as a computer game to the computer software and hardware.

That's why so many scientists (or laymen who are fans of science) tend to dismiss the paranormal and supernatural out of hand. It doesn't fit the paradigm under which they're operating. They can't think outside the box. But it's not just them; it's all of us.

From scientific and religious prospective, parapsychology is just a game which can be loved or hated, but cannot be taken same way as science and religion proper.

[Matthew Cromer]

Well I finally got the time to finish my blog post on this topic. Thanks for bringing it up Michael, it's critical for making progress on our journey.

[Henry James]

2006-01-28 Female, baby, foetus "islamofascists" and the heap paradox

[Michael Prescott]

Thanks, Matthew, for your blog post and your interesting observations. And also your great nature photos!