I was watching the series on the infamous Nazi camp Auswizch(SP?)....
The things the Commandant endorsed against these poor people, and yet he went to his home nearby and played with his children and did what ever things a husband does with his wife




Sounds like Hegel to me.Nathan of the Frat wrote: To borrow the phrase of a philospher whose name I really should remember, they think of the whole world as "it" rather than "thou"; objects to be manipulated instead of people to be understood.

Ah, I'd like to believe it was that straightforward. Studies of ingroup identification and outgroup rejection among cultures, as well as studies like the Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison experiment, suggest to me that there are few-- maybe NO-- people who are not capable of maintaining a fondness for those near and dear to them, for loving them... and turning on those who are not part of that circle with no compunction.AdamGarou wrote:Same thing with the guy from Auschwitz--if he's a mass murderer during the day and comes home to his wife and children at night, he's still the same mass murderer. To be able to do the things he did, he had to shut off his capacity for empathy, which I think is another important ingredient for actual "love" to exist. My belief is that he is just going through the motions being affectionate to his wife and children... but he can't truly care about them (at least not the way he once could) because of what he's done.
