Imagine that you are walking in the forest with your grandson. Eventually he asks you a unexpected question: „What exactly did Hitler do wrong?“. I probably would have, after a deep breath, quickly given one of the following answers:
- „What a stupid question. He did everything wrong!“
- „He killed millions of innocent people. He was a very bad man“
The first answer is actually no answer at all and consequently not very satisfying. It’s clearly a missed opportunity. But this answer is the result of the fact that we have never really tried to think about this question. The answer is so obvious. And maybe we are also a bit scared that, if we really start thinking about it, we might not end up with the correct answer and feel ashamed afterwards.
The second answer seems to be OK. But let’s think about it a bit longer. It is a moral answer. If we say „he was a very bad man“ then we imply that society would hate or even expel him for this kind of crime. It is ultimately the threat with a punishment. The first sentence „he killed millions of innocent people“ serves as an explanation and indicates that the crime is of huge magnitude and therefore a corresponding punishment must be expected.
Why do we choose such answers? The reason must be, that we want to make sure the boy is never ever tempted to do something similar. A preventive measure, even if we are not aware of this in the moment of answering.
But in this sense the answer cannot work: if the boy really gets one day into the position that he has the option to commit such a crime, it is very clear that this can only happen in a future society in which our usual moral rules don’t apply anymore. A society where there is no punishment for such a crime and where the crowd might even cheer to it.
The answer therefore does not have any preventive effect. Again a missed opportunity.
What kind of answer could be more effective in achieving our goal? Something like this:
„Hitler was a very stupid man. He decided to let his heart become a stone, so he could kill innocent people without bad conscience. But because of his petrified heart, he also could not feel love and joy anymore. He became a very sad person“
This is much better, as the boy might remember this in the situation described above and think twice if it is really a good idea. And this could work even in a society with completely altered moral standards.
But there is a problem: it seems to be outrageous to answer the original question with Hitler’s suffering alone (mostly ignoring the suffering of the victims in full magnitude). Hitler’s suffering should not matter at all. But then: can we evoke the suffering of millions of people in a young boy? And if we could, should we? I think the answer to both questions is a clear no. This is simply far beyond the emotional capacity even of an adult. And even from the moral perspective: is a person killing millions of people really much more evil than another person killing - let’s say - ten? Our punishments in these cases are roughly equivalent (lifetime imprisonment). And both of them probably have a comparably dark soul.
Now we start to feel more comfortable with this answer. And maybe we have even realized something important for our own lives. That, if we abuse power - wherever it is from office to family - we make ourselves suffer too (and this is much more likely than the chances of the boy becoming a 2nd Hitler!).
I have no final answer to this problem. But one thing is clear: after thinking a bit longer about the problem, we indeed come to surprising conclusions. At least in this case, it was definitely a productive idea to think about it, even if the answer seemed obvious.
Image on top: DALL-E
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