How I spent my Fall Break

I hope everyone enjoyed Fall Break.  I had promised myself that I would take some time with family and also that I would spend some time at the gym, all of which I did.  However, I also did a bit of my long-term research work – the kind of stuff that gets put aside with the day to day tasks of writing lectures, grading papers and advising students.  Over this break, I:

1.        Put together what are hopefully the final edits on my manuscript on apocalyptic politics – coming soon from Rowman and Littlefield (At some point, I’ll write a post on reacting to criticism, and the very public criticisms you sometimes receive as an academic – something I will never really quite get used to).

2.       Began working on a new book prospectus for a project I began thinking about while in Oxford last summer (I’ll provide more details once it’s done).

3.       Read a really interesting book – Please note that you can get your own used copy from Amazon for less than a dollar, so there’s no excuse not to read this book, which is the subject of today’s blog.

I will not be teaching Research Methods this spring – but if I were, “Explaining Hitler” is a book which I might include in a reading list.  This book, by the historian Ron Rosenbaum, is not actually about Hitler – Rather, it’s metatheory.  It’s about HOW we have attempted to explain who Hitler is and what he did.  That is, it’s about research methods, and it touches on all the sorts of questions you may have asked in my classes:

A.       Why do different types of people seem to favor different types of explanations?

B.      Are some types of explanations ‘in vogue’ at a particular time, and why is that?

C.      In what ways do our own environments, our own beliefs about causality, and even our own values end up affecting HOW we theorize?

D.      Can you explain a behavior without in some way excusing the behavior? AND

E.       Are there some events so dreadful and evil that we cannot explain them in rational terms?

Although World War Two ended almost seventy years ago, Rosenbaum takes us on a kind of chronological tour of the various ways in which analysts have attempted to explain what CAUSED Hitler.  He considers the utility of Great Man theories vs. grand social forces theories – examining the thinking of those who make the argument that “the time was ripe in Germany for some sort of leader to come to the fore who might use anti-Semitism as a way of gaining control.”  In other words, he argues that some people believe “if Hitler hadn’t arisen, then someone else like he would have.”  

But the main reason I’ll be assigning this book the next time I teach research methods is because it says so much about ethics, morality and faith.  Namely, throughout, Rosenbaum cites a number of scholars who ask if one can simply explain something without judging, and to what degree, as he puts it, “to explain something is somehow to excuse it.”  That is, if we say that grand social forces explain the rise of Nazism, does that also mean that Germany itself, or the modern world, was implicated in the rise of Hitler?  Does it ultimately excuse him in some way – at least partially --  for what he did?  What does it mean to say that someone or something is a ‘product of his environment’?

Rosenbaum plays with a related argument – which essentially says:  “Even if you did something heinous and evil, but believed that you were actually pursuing the cause of righteousness, does THAT excuse you from bearing the label of evil?”  I found this section of his work intriguing because it so closely parallels some of the conversations we have been having in our terrorism class – about those who carry out actors because they are:

A.       Following orders OR

B.      Deluded into believing that their Islamic faith commands them to engage in jihad

(In other words, is it possible to accidentally commit evil – versus knowingly committing evil?  Rosenbaum introduces us to a debate among two Oxford scholars – one of whom believes that Hitler actually believed what he wrote in Mein Kamp, and another who believes that Hitler wrote the book for the purposes of manipulating others.  The question then becomes, which Hitler is more evil – the one who was deluded and who perhaps actually thought he was doing good, through “defending Germany” or the one who was manipulative and knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway?  Is this a valid or a meaningless distinction?)

The final question which I think is of particular interest to Regent students in the following:  Are there events in history which cannot be explained with recourse to rationality alone?  Here, Rosenbaum suggests that:

A.       Either Hitler was demonic

OR

B.       He was a man who was significantly more evil than other men, but that he still belongs on the spectrum of humanity – and that his actions can be explained by making recourse to other theories of human behavior.  In other words, we can find a sociological or psychological explanation for his behavior vs. a theological or moral explanation for his behavior.

Here, Rosenbaum asks us to think about WHY we are drawn to certain types of explanations and suggests that ultimately the explanation you choose may say something significant about the character of the explainer.  In other words, he says that those who want to see Hitler as demonic are driven by a need to draw a clear line between Hitler and other humans – they want to believe that such a thing could never happen again because Hitler’s behavior was inhuman, defying description and comprehension.  On the other hand, if you believe that Hitler was a demonic aberration, you can feel somewhat more sure that this type of evil will never occur again.

Rosenbaum also discourses at length about a documentary which began by showing us Hitler’s baby pictures – Here he asks, “if we start from the assumption that Hitler was once a blank slate, capable of becoming anything or anyone, then don’t we ultimately end up blaming the event or the person who “warped” Hitler, turning him into what he became, rather than blaming Hitler himself?”  In other words, does explaining become excusing?

These are similar discussions to those we might have about a number of dead dictators like Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden or Qaddafi?  Does the fact that these men are dead mean that our world is now safer?  Were they each an individual aberration which says nothing about the character of humanity, or was each actually a manifestation of the dark side which all of humanity is capable of achieving, the characteristic which Rosenbaum refers to as “the Hitler within”?

Is everyone who commits an act of terrorism equally guilty or do those who plan and carry out terrorism bear some special responsibility?  Does it matter if the terrorist believes that he is operating from a position of ‘moral rectitude’?  What do you think?