Imagine an aging Nazi, someone who was high up in Hitler’s organization, now perhaps hiding out in Brazil. (Enough time has passed that few or none of such individuals may be still alive, but let’s hypothesize for a moment.)
Suppose, perhaps improbably, this ancient Nazi has an epiphany: the Holocaust, which he was thoroughly involved in, was … wrong.
What does he do now?
If his involvement in genocide was of any depth at all, how does he possibly compensate? How does he make up for mass murder?
The answer is — he can’t. It’s not possible. No amount of self reproach, public service, doing kind things for camp survivors or their families, etc., will dig him out of his hole.
And he can’t just let it slide. If he has truly realized the magnitude of his error (his evil), the burden of guilt would be far too crushing to endure. If he truly accepts his guilt, does he have any option beyond suicide? And of course that wouldn’t be enough.
This hypothetical Nazi may have believed in his old ideology for a long time, even most of his adult life, and it is hard to give up old beliefs. This is not what I’m referring to, however. When a 90-year-old feminist refuses to believe in scientifically supported differences between male and female brain structures (1), or a 95-year-old Marxist insists that Communism is a good idea that just hasn’t been adequately tried yet (2), you might be annoyed by the stubbornness, but you understand. It’s awkward and embarrassing to admit you went awry for so long, especially if you have a public persona, and followers. It’s extremely difficult to admit being wrong after insisting you were right for so many years.
The situation with the Nazi goes far beyond this. Guilt — not just being wrong — is the issue. These people are locked in not only by their awareness of their personal evil, but also by their actions in the tangible world that can not be undone. These actions have placed them beyond some marker, an ultimate threshold from beyond which they can’t come back.
The issue is, of course, pertinent for others besides Nazis. Suppose you had convinced yourself (or been convinced) to fly airplanes into large, occupied buildings. Destroying not only your own existence (Earthly existence, at least), but that of countless total strangers. How would rationalize this if you realized its wrongness?
The strange culmination of this logic is, Nazis, terrorists, perpetrators of mass evil of every stripe, can not regret what they’ve done. The extremely evil man can not rethink himself. Not to any real extent, at least. It would leave him with no possible option. He has no way to atone for his past. He better just keep being a Nazi.
Guilt is a complicated emotion. Where exactly does it come from? Is it the precursor of a moral impulse? Something unknown or only rudimentarily known to even other higher mammals? (Dogs and animals like chimps sometime behave in ways that suggest a sense of guilt.) Does the existence of guilt suggest a human impulse that maybe can’t be ultimately traced back to survival? Are feelings of guilt the primitive beginnings of morality?
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A concept that frequently associates with guilt is retribution, variously presented as revenge, deterrence, punishment, just desserts, or simply justice. (Though these terms imply concepts that have different degrees of acceptance in the mass consciousness.) So, aside from the evil actor’s own sense of his guilt, others may judge and punish him. These others could be in this world. But, sometimes, maybe not. What about an existence beyond death?
Consider the following scenario:
Hitler dies and goes to hell. (Where else would he go?) We’re assuming here the heaven-or-hell idea that is the current standard Christian view of what-comes-after-this, what the next world will offer. This has at least been the standard Christian cosmology after being influenced in early times by Greek ideas of immaterial souls, Hades and Elysian Fields, and perhaps influenced also by Egyptian ideas of souls being tested after death. As opposed to the original Christian notion that you died and ceased to exist until Judgement Day. Then, Gabriel will blow his horn and the dead will rise from their graves to be judged. But here we are assuming the more recent scenario of immediate consequences when this life ends.
Anyway, Hitler dies and he’s in hell. Now what? What possible punishment would suit his crimes? Burning eternally seems pretty harsh, but we’ve heard in the past that the same punishment has been handed out to sinners throughout history. Most of whose sins couldn’t approach Hitler’s.
Beyond this, after a couple of centuries of burning, would the punishment still mean anything? Would the tortured soul — Hitler’s or anyone else’s — even retain enough coherence to remember what he had done? What he was being punished for?
What exactly is justice, really? Are there cases where the scales simply can’t be balanced?
I have no answer to this. Comments are invited.
Ain O’Malley
May 12, 2024
Why the brain structure point would have any significance has always baffled me. If female equality is reasonable — presumably it is — why would brain structure matter? Apparently the brain structure worriers make some sort of connection between the configuration of your gray matter and similarity of thought process between the sexes. But why do men and women need to think in the same manner? Isn’t there more to be gained with variety (diversity) of mental process? Anyway, treating people fairly is treating them fairly, whatever x-rays may reveal about the configuration of our brains. Obsession with small (meaningless) points like this suggests feminists haven’t thought of enough significant issues to argue about.
Marxist-based ideological systems were tried broadly and assiduously in the 20th century, in every clime and every locale, among disparate national, ethnic, and racial groups. These systems never worked very well. Doesn’t it seem that at least some of these attempts would have gotten Marxism right? If there was anything to get right? Also, I am reminded of Roger Scruton’s question (paraphrased and slightly elaborated): If some lunatic told us that Nazism was a good idea, but the monster Hitler just did it wrong, would anyone buy that? I doubt it, so why do die-hard Marxists buy the same idea when the system is Communism and the monsters are Stalin, Mao, Kim, Pol Pot … ?