More On Evil, Of A Sort

As I said at the beginning, I am not sure my series on The Problem of Knowing Good and Evil is one whit helpful. I hope it is. But I am not quite certain I have finished with it, as I sense there is more to say. I will keep an eye on it, and augment the series if necessary.

In keeping with the theme of good and evil, there is evil abundant in the heart and mind of the heartless and mindless cyberworld. When working on the very first part of my series, I went to Technorati, a blogger's Grand Central Station, looking for tags to paste to my blog to assist others in their various searches. One of the very first tags I looked for was Hitler. When Technorati coughed up the tag code I would paste into my blog, it offered, as it always does, other tags popularly associated and used (in other blogs) with the one I sought. In this instance, my query for Hitler also brought to the fore the tag for that other Hitler, George Bush. In other words, when countless other bloggers have pasted Hitler into their posts, they've connected Hitler with Mr. Bush.

And it's the neo-cons who are the scaremongers! Such sad days, these.

As I've said more than once, which is far too many times, to equate Hitler with Bush is to diminish Hitler, Nazism, and the Holocaust. It is a grotesque intellectual sin; it is an abuse of the mind worse than crystal meth or any psychotropic that attacks the central nervous system. It is all so much cognitive reductionism, a self-amputation of the brain, a lobotomy done not with a scalpel but with willful self-delusion. Or, at best, it is all an indication of how thoroughly effective the Holocaust deniers have been in their propaganda that the Holocaust did not happen; sort of like how Bush's Holocaust has never happened (and it never will). For a person to connect Hitler and Bush is to admit, with pride, I suspect, that such a person does not understand. Forsooth, ignorance is wildly popular these days, particularly if it makes lots of money, or generates lots of campaign contributions and votes.

And I am not afraid to say that referring to George Bush as Hitler and his administration as the Third (or Fourth) Reich is a form of anti-semitism, as it suggests that what the Jews suffered under Hitler does not deserve solemn respect; nor could it have been so grave that such suffering cannot be used (and cheapened) for tawdry political gain. Shame is too mild a word for all of this.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.