Latest / PlasticPills Critical Theory & Philosophy / Pill Pod 170 - The Ethical Dilemma of Killing Nazi Children (Preview)

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Pill Pod 170 - The Ethical Dilemma of Killing Nazi Children (Preview) · PlasticPills Critical Theory & Philosophy

• 0:00
  But the first question is is it okay to kill a sixteen year old who's
• 0:05
  also a Nazi? And her answer to that, this is like two years
• 0:10
  after World War two or three. The answer to that is yes, she
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  says, yeah, really, you can kill a sixteen year old notts,
• 0:19
  Wait, well what page is that on? Or actually, shit, I
• 0:21
  probably don't have the same PDF as you, because I have a totally different
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  memory. I feel like I read her talking about how you know, this
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  sixteen year old and Nazi was probably just thoughtless, and like, yeah,
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  but you know, maybe ye, that thoughtlessness puts him on the side of
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  the oppressor, and the oppressor in resistance is when you're allowed to objectify them.
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  She yeah, she did say that. She did say something about,
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  yeah, the oppressors and those who serve the oppressors are sort of fair game
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  as objects for it to direct violence towards. But there's another moment I think
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  Victor's right as well, though, where she said if you do encounter this
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  young Nazi, you're obligated to give them a chance to renounce these views and
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  reassert their future freedom. The other example that was parallel to that way,
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  Can I just read the section so ory clear on this. It's one it's
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  one paragraph when a young sixteen year old Nazi died crying, Kyle Hitler,
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  he was not guilty, and it was not he whom we hated, but
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  his masters. The desirable thing, of course, would be to re educate
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  this misled youth. It would be necessary to expose the mystification and to put
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  the men who are as victims in the presence of their freedom. But the
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  urgency of this struggle forbids this slow labor. We are obliged to destroy not
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  only the oppressor, but also those who serve them, whether they do so
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  out of ignorance or out of constraint. So in a perfect world you would
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  re educate Cadim and send him to but they don't have a kind of urgency
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  that complicates this. I also I also thought that it was important the part
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  at the beginning where she says is this part, is he guilty? And
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  she was like, no, like it's the it's like the master who's guilty.
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  But still like in this car, And obviously she's thinking about literal World
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  War two where they're actually fighting Nazis, right like in practice, not just
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  like oh like Trump supporters are nazis right, it's like actual, you know,
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  this is where the ambiguity opens up, because now it would be wrong
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  to kill a sixteen year old Nazi because they're not in the same moment of
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  urgency of exactly no fascism in the country exactly. And the very next thing
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  she says, too, she gives a parallel example talking about that that young
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  woman, the young girl who's tried to commit suicide because some love affair went
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  awry, and her friends came over and they took her to the doctor,
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  and they sort of say her life and now she has a family and kids
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  and she's happy, and and for her, she did the They did the
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  right thing, the friends of this girl, because they gave her a chance
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  to sort of re assume her open future, her freedom. But then she
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  contrasts this with you know, people, I can't remember what she said.
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  Were they in a prison or in a psych word, and they've tried to
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  commit suicide multiple times, and the sort of jailers or the intendance of the
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  place just kind of pat them on the shoulder and stop them from doing it,
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  and keep them in this place and keep their future foreclosed, but won't
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  let them commit suicide and keep them in this sort of state of you know,
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  like like she said about prisons, right, like, being in prison
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  is almost worse than like being than suicide because you're just you're exac distance is
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  just completely hemmed in and pointless. And she says, in that case,
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  you know, the people who are preventing them from committing suicide are the oppressors,
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  keeping them in this place that they don't want to be and not giving
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  them any other chance. But in terms of the young Nazi, yes,
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  the urgency complicates it. In terms of the girl who commits suicide after a
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  love affair, there's a certain thing about that moment too that made you know,
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  take her in to the doctor, getting getting her better and then letting
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  her sort of choose again was the right thing to do. So that you
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  know, all these different situations that these little variations that make them completely incommensurable,
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  even though we can sort of compare them in this formal way. Just
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  really I would just want to add something really quick to the example about the
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  Nazi because I was thinking, you know, adding the word Nazi also makes
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  it feel easier or something, or makes it I mean, I feel like
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  just charges it a little bit because I was thinking, I mean, she
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  would probably say the same thing about like World War One, right when they
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  were fighting Germany and they were Nazis. They were just soldiers without really the
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  same ideology, right, they were just fighting the rest of Europe, and
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  it's like, yeah, in that situation, they're invading your country, you
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  probably have to kill him because the urgency calls on it, right, even
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  though it's not like about you know, even though you're not fighting the same
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  watchually. I don't know, maybe she would have a different opinion of World
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  War One. I think she adds this little note that he dies yelling Kyle
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  Hitler. She adds that just to make sure, no, we're talking about
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  a real Nazi here. Yeah, that's true. It's true. So I
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  don't know, maybe she would think differently about World War One. I was
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  trying to grapple with that, like, Okay, Germany is invading God.
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  I feel like I know the events of World War One so much worse than
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  I do World War Two. But like, I don't know, did did
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  Germany invade France in World War One? Also? Yeah? Absolutely yeah,
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  they were ready for that. Shit. They had this whole schleief im plan
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  was gonna be able to take Paris in like a couple of weeks. It
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  didn't work out at all. I think because of machine guns, but they
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  they were up in Belgium and northern France. I don't know anyway, maybe
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  it doesn't matter. Sorry, Okay, So this is this is the prime
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  example that I took out of this of hypothetical scenario. No landlords, those
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  are you can you can kill them. But this here's a left a leftist
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  moral problem. Should an anti fascist want the colonized subjects of the European empires
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  to be successful in their struggle the colonized subjects like colonizers colonized subjects No,
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  no, no, like the the Algerians for the French, or the Indians
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  for the British right. I think I know where you're going with this.
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  But yes, yes, the answer is yes, yes you should want that,
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  but it's yes with an asterisk in general yes, But in general yes,
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  we should want this. However, not when Britain is fighting Germany,
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  so in World War two. Not when fascism is the bigger threat. So
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  yes, you guys can do your struggle, but we have to take care
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  of fascism first, because fascism is the more urgent threat, and we need
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  to bring, you know, like the Indians over from India to come fight
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  against fascism and then maybe they can get we can talk about independence after fascism
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  is defeated. So she says, Thus it is possible, and often it
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  even happens that one finds himself obliged to oppress and kill men who are pursuing
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  goals whose validity one acknowledges himself. And this actually I looked it up because
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  this happened in all the British colonies, for example, but also Indonesia because
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  Indonesian communists. Indonesia is a Dutch colony and they welcomed the Japanese like invading
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  Indonesia because they are overthrowing the Dutch masters. So in that case it's ethical
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  to kill Indonesian communists because they had sided with the Japanese and the Japanese are
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  ultimately worse. But then I was like, simone, simone, what are
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  you doing? This just sounds exactly like what she said. It's not,
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  which is ends justify the means ethical calculus. Well, I mean, how
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  strongly was that worded? Because I guess I was going to My response before
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  you even said that was going to be like, isn't she just saying like
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  ways in which you could think about those difficult decisions. But it's not like
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  she's saying, I mean, it would be antithetical to her whole ethics to
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  be like, oh, in this situation, like if you have fascism,
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  then like you always have to like say fuck you call it colonize people,
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  right, It's just like, Okay, in this situation, here's a tough
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  decision, and here's how you could think about it. And it wouldn't be
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  and it wouldn't give you a clean, nice answer that we would all want.
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  It would just be like, oh, wait of thinking about it,
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  right, Okay, it's urgent to overthrow the Nazis, so maybe we have
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  to prioritize that right now. But like, I don't know if she would
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  say, oh, well, ends justify the means in all circumstances, like
• 9:13
  that's going to help you in a different situation,