Re: Remove fortune quotes attributed to or providing admiration of Adolf Hitler [pr bin/52735]

[Hauke Fath <hauke%Espresso.Rhein-Neckar.DE@localhost>]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 21:24:18 +0100, Rhialto wrote:
> On Sat 18 Nov 2017 at 15:02:01 +0100, Hauke Fath wrote:
>> And note the following excerpt from fortune(6):
>> 
>>      -o    [...]
> 
> You may have noted that the mentioned quotes are NOT part of the
> offensive set!

I haven't, and you didn't mention it, nor suggest that the supposedly 
offensive quotes should be moved, instead of deleted.

> I agree that bad history should be remembered in context and not
> forgotten. However, that is not what these quotes do. They give no
> context, 

I don't know about you, but the attribution to Adolf Hitler gives me 
all the context I need for a quote, and then some.

> and they make A.H. seem like a relatively normal person. Now if
> he was quoted at his worst, it might be obvious what sort of monster he
> was,

I kind of object to this attempt to de-humanize Hitler. I think it very 
much belittles the role of the millions of willingly helping hands (and 
brains) he found, and without which he would not have gone anywhere. 
Brecht's "Questions from A Worker Who Reads" applies, I guess: 
<https://msu.edu/~sullivan/TransBrechtWorker.html>.

For better or worse, humanity gets to own Hitler, just like Pol Pot, 
Stalin, Cromwell and all the other butchers. This is what we can turn 
into, when push comes to shove.

> but that is not the effect of these quotes. His crimes against
> humanity are trivialised by putting things he said next to people like
> Mahatma Gandhi.

Like on a public library shelf ("biographies"), you mean, or on TV, 
where a nazi war film will be displayed through the same apparatus as a 
Gandhi film?

Cheerio,
hauke

-- 
Hauke Fath                        <hauke%Espresso.Rhein-Neckar.DE@localhost>
Ernst-Ludwig-Straße 15
64625 Bensheim
Germany