I should be asleep. Given that I've been waking up at 4am for work, I've been trying to go to bed by 8pm. But I started a good book today - In the Garden of Beasts, and I realized that if I didn't type this out I would be composing it in my head instead of sleeping.
In the Garden of Beasts is written by the same guy who did The Devil in the White City, which I definitely recommend. This time, he is writing about what the American Ambassador to Germany and his daughter witnessed during Hitler's consolidation of power.
It's fascinating, because instead of using what we now know happened with Hitler, Erik Larson is using the letters and notes of these individuals at the time they were there. In other words, you get a better sense of why the things we know in hindsight weren't so obvious at the time.
What's fascinating is that something normally a good trait (i.e. our willingness to suspend judgement, to assume that there are mitigating factors, etc) can be used to fool us.
There are people who are trying to warn everyone - the Ambassador, his daughter, the world - that Nazi Germany is rearming, is intent on starting a war, and is serious about coming up with a 'Final Solution' i.e. killing off all the Jews. And yet so many people didn't want to believe it, or didn't see it, or were able to dismiss certain rumors and stories because things looked so normal and they didn't see it themselves.
And yet we don't normally want people to accept rumors and hearsay. Don't really want people to assume the worst and act on it. That can create dangers all their own.
In a way, it reminds me of other things. Of the unwillingness to believe someone would sexually harrass another. The unwillingness to believe the police have a history of acting badly towards minorities.
Yes, there's a danger in assuming someone is guilty without a real investigation. There's a danger in publicly shaming or harming the innocent, simply because people believe things they hear.
And yet there's also a danger in assuming people couldn't possibly fill in the blank.
Which kind of brings me to the notion of justice. Difficult though it is to be unbiased, and to get true justice, the attempt to get the facts and truly figure out what happened or is happening is necessary. Critical, even.
Otherwise, its just a matter of who has the power to get what they want.
In the Garden of Beasts is written by the same guy who did The Devil in the White City, which I definitely recommend. This time, he is writing about what the American Ambassador to Germany and his daughter witnessed during Hitler's consolidation of power.
It's fascinating, because instead of using what we now know happened with Hitler, Erik Larson is using the letters and notes of these individuals at the time they were there. In other words, you get a better sense of why the things we know in hindsight weren't so obvious at the time.
What's fascinating is that something normally a good trait (i.e. our willingness to suspend judgement, to assume that there are mitigating factors, etc) can be used to fool us.
There are people who are trying to warn everyone - the Ambassador, his daughter, the world - that Nazi Germany is rearming, is intent on starting a war, and is serious about coming up with a 'Final Solution' i.e. killing off all the Jews. And yet so many people didn't want to believe it, or didn't see it, or were able to dismiss certain rumors and stories because things looked so normal and they didn't see it themselves.
And yet we don't normally want people to accept rumors and hearsay. Don't really want people to assume the worst and act on it. That can create dangers all their own.
In a way, it reminds me of other things. Of the unwillingness to believe someone would sexually harrass another. The unwillingness to believe the police have a history of acting badly towards minorities.
Yes, there's a danger in assuming someone is guilty without a real investigation. There's a danger in publicly shaming or harming the innocent, simply because people believe things they hear.
And yet there's also a danger in assuming people couldn't possibly fill in the blank.
Which kind of brings me to the notion of justice. Difficult though it is to be unbiased, and to get true justice, the attempt to get the facts and truly figure out what happened or is happening is necessary. Critical, even.
Otherwise, its just a matter of who has the power to get what they want.
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