Very Telling Question

“SPIEGEL: Doesn’t the perception of Hitler as an artist make him seem less evil?”

This is a question that could only be asked by a post-Christian. One of the many problems with post-Christian thought is that, in rejecting the doctrine of the Fall and the reality of human sin, it tends to explain evil by regarding the evildoer as something other than a human being. Anytime somebody challenges this (by, say, noting that Hitler liked art and dogs, a trait in common with much of the rest of the human race) a cry goes up that some attempt is being made to (note the choice of word) “humanize the Nazis”.

News flash: The Nazis were neither aliens nor demons. They were human beings. It is us and *our* race that is capable of the monstrous things they did. Pretending they are some other species only makes it more likely that some future Tarantino-inspired moral idiot will decide to act like a Nazi in order wreak vengeance on (or prevent) some imaginary Nazi evil.

The sane thing is not to divide the world into Nazis and heros, but to recall the wisdom of Solzhenitsyn: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”