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Notes -
Hitler's Identity Politics, Part I
(c) Feb 10, 2025, By J. Nelson Rushton
Note:
This post is an installment of a book I am writing, under the working title They See not, which I am serializing as a series of posts on The Motte. The book is planned to be about the nature and common characteristics of populist tyrannical movements, with special focus on the woke ideology, and about how to combat such movements. The first three posts in the series were:
The current chapter is entitled Hitler's Identity Politics ,Part I.
Introduction: Cargo-Cult Political Science
No one else is considered the face of modern evil like Hitler. That is peculiar, because Mao Zedong murdered far more people than Hitler did, and caused the deaths of tens of millions more through ideology-driven malfeasance. The number of Chinese civilians that were murdered and needlessly starved under Mao was probably greater than the total number of deaths in World War II and the Holocaust from all causes, on all sides, civilian and military combined [source]. Moreover, Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, the man who was Mao's practical model of success, murdered just as many as Hitler, and, unlike Hitler, founded a regime that transformed his country into Mordor for generations.
Yet a statue of Lenin, sans head, stood in the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas for years. One stands in Seattle at the corner of 35th St. and Fremont as of this writing, and that one has the head on. It is not unusual to hear people quote the allegedly wise sayings of Mao and Lenin on their merits, even while being aware of their crimes. People say things like, As Mao Zedong said, women hold up half the sky. Joe Biden repeated this quote in 2021 in a commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy, though he did not mention Mao. It also once happened that Trump unknowingly quoted Adolf Hitler, and you can compare the news coverage of those two events by looking at the results of this google search in terms of news coverage compared to this one.
While I believe that Mao was a man consumed by evil, I also believe that when Mao said women hold up half the sky, he identified an important truth and put it in a memorable and persuasive way. Is it OK to quote Mao on that, on the merits of the saying, in spite of the fact that he killed tens of millions of people? Some think it is and some think it isn't, and I honestly I don't know. But I do know that nobody (outside of a skinhead rally) begins a paragraph with "As Adolf Hitler said, ...". That is even though Hitler was a more cogent writer and speaker than Mao -- and, like Mao, or Lenin, or any other tyrant, some of what Hitler said had merit. Even a blind, evil pig finds an acorn once in a while. I also know that there aren't any statues of Hitler in Las Vegas or Seattle, with or without the head -- and no one would put one up because it would make them a social and economic pariah. So why is Hitler completely demonized, in a way that Lenin and Mao are not?
I submit there is a great deal of cargo-cult science surrounding Hitler. The phrase cargo cult science comes from Richard Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement address, where he related the following story:
The moral of Feynman's story is that when you look at something to see what makes it tick, the features that matter are not always the ones that meet the eye most easily.
For example, in the broadest strokes, Hitler was a far-right national socialist. Many people hold that since Hitler was "far right", the more right-wing you are, the more like Hitler you must be. And many hold that, since Hitler was a nationalist, the more nationalist you are, the more like Hitler you must be. But, for some reason, vanishingly few people hold that the more socialist you are, the more like Hitler you must be -- even though, if one actually reads the Nazi platform, it has about as much for Bernie Sanders to love as it has for John Birch. But at the end of the day, saying that Hitler was essentially defined by his right-wingism, or his nationalism, or his socialism, just because he was a right wing national socialist, is no more logical per se than saying that what defined him was his distinctive style of moustache. Accepting any of these uncritically, from the nationalism to the socialism to the funny little moustache, is what Feynman would call cargo cult (political) science.
Beyond the question of what made Hitler and his ideology so evil, there is widespread uncritical acceptance of the proposition that Hitler was evil in the first place -- even radioactively evil, in a way that even Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong are not, though the latter were more prolific mass murders. As a kid growing up in America in the 70's and 80's, I naturally accepted that Hitler was evil. It did not have to be explained to me in any detail what made Hitler count as being evil; duh, he started World War II and murdered six million Jews. Of course anyone who launches a war of conquest is pure evil. Like Hitler. Or James K. Polk. No, wait a minute; that can't be right. But of course anyone and orchestrates a genocide is evil. Like Hitler. Or Moses. No, wait a minute; that's not right either. Weights and weights, measures and measures.
Branding Hitler as evil without being able to cogently say why is dangerous for two reasons. First, it makes it more likely that we might be following in his footsteps without realizing it. Second, it increases the risk that our children will reject our assessment of Hitler when they see that we have made up our minds for no good reason -- and that could make them more vulnerable to jumping on the bandwagon if another Hitler comes along, especially a Hitler in sheep's clothing. For both of those reasons, it is important to understand what made Hitler Hitler in deeper than cargo-cult fashion, so that we can better recognize whatever that thing is in other contexts -- most importantly within our own hearts. Or do you believe that, whatever made Hitler Hitler, it can't happen here, or that you have none of it in you?
I will argue that what makes Hitler literally Hitler, first and foremost, was not his nationalism, or his socialism, or his right-wingism, or his wars of aggression, or even his penchant for genocide, but his identity politics. I define identity politics as the embrace of a caste system with different moral standards for different groups, based on demographic characteristics such as race, religion, and ethnicity. Hitler practiced identity politics of two substantively different forms: one form to rationalize his wars of aggression (primarily against Slavs), and another to rationalize his attempted genocide of the Jews. These will be discussed in the following sections.
Pagan Views of the International Order
Not everyone who launches wars of aggression, even copious wars of aggression, is trading in identity politics. Consider, for example, the opening lines of the Anglo Saxon epic Beowulf:
Note that in the Saxon mind, Shield Sheafson was "one good king". Why? Because he drove men in terror, not from their trenches, not from their fortresses, but from their bar stools, where they had presumably been minding their own business before he showed up -- and because he did this far and wide, making war on and subjugating, not one, not two, but every neighboring tribe, and exacting tribute from them like a schoolyard bully on an indefinite basis.
Note also what these lines do not say about Shield. They do not say that he settled some ancient score, or imposed cosmic justice on his tribe's historical exploiters, or even that the clans "beyond the whale road" deserved what they got because they were lesser men than the Danes. Sheafson's greatness lay in his sheer will-to-power and the macht to impose it on others. Moreover, the hero of the passage is not a member of the poet's tribe: Shield was a Dane, while the poet is a Saxon. If Shield Sheafson was a historical person, the author's ancestors may have been among his victims -- and yet the poet esteems Sheafson's mægen (greatness) impartially. Even if Shield was not a historical person, this glimpse into the Saxon mind tells us something important about them: if they glorify a Danish king for his rapacious imperialism, they certainly wouldn't need a moral pretext justify their own kings waging wars of aggression -- such as that targets had it coming because they did it to us first, or even because they were lesser men than us. The greater men they were before we whipped them, the better. Lo!
For a second example of the pagan view of warfare, consider Homer's Iliad. The Iliad tells the story of the beginning of the Trojan War. It is a tale of heroism and excellence on both sides -- but also, as much as anything, a lament for men caught in a bloody struggle whose making was beyond their control. If you had to pin the blame for the catastrophe on a single person it would be the Trojan prince Paris -- but he is more of a self-indulgent simpleton than a villain; his bumbling takes place before the story begins, and is barely deemed worth mentioning by Homer. In Homer, there are no black hats and no white hats, for individuals or for groups. Though the story was written by a Greek poet, and was a national epic of ancient Greece (comparable to a book of their Bible), it could have been written by a Trojan with much the same perspective, even if with far less craft.
Considering Beowulf and the Iliad side by side, we see that whether the story is written by the winners or the losers, there is no need in the pagan mind to cast international conflicts as matters of right and wrong, or of who is entitled to what (in stark contrast, for example, to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people in modern times). We should be careful not project part of our own worldview onto Homer or the Beowulf poet, and ascribe to them the belief that "might makes right". In fact, they would find that view alien. Their view of international relations is not that might makes right, but that might makes might, and right barely enters into the picture. Lo!
For a third example we will consider the Roman Republic. In 61 BC, in honor of his 45th birthday, a monument was erected to the Roman general Pompey bearing this inscription:
There is no indication, in the inscription or anywhere else, that Pompey was seeking vengeance or justice, or that the Goths and Gauls he subjugated, enslaved, and killed were scumbags, or even bad folks.
The Romans did think of barbarians as lesser men than themselves, but they did not feel entitled by a sense of cosmic justice to rule over them on that account. On the contrary, the Romans believed that Heaven as well as Earth existed in a Hobbesian state of nature: an amoral war of all against all, or what we might call the "law of the jungle". While the Romans believed that their own gods favored Roman victory and imperialism, they also believed that foreign gods, just as real as their own, favored their barbarian adversaries in much the same way. Thus before battle, the Romans prayed not only to their own gods, but sometimes to those of their enemies as well. The Roman prayer to the gods of their enemies was known as the evocatio, and a version of this prayer, said during the siege of Carthage, is recorded by the Roman historian Macrobius Theodosius:
The Romans did not share our modern idea of human rights. Human rights, in the modern sense, are rights granted equally to all men by natural law. The Romans had a sophisticated code of due process, but the rights of the accused -- e.g., to stand trial and cross examine witnesses before being deprived of liberty or property -- were in their view not human rights granted to all men by natural law, but Roman rights granted to Romans by the state of Rome! Acts 22 relates the following:
The passage records that under Roman law, jailing and flogging a Roman citizen without a trial was strictly forbidden, and must have carried a rather grievous penalty -- but jailing and flogging a mere human being without a trial was allowed. Even if this account is not fully historical, it must have been intended to be believable to its contemporaneous audience -- which could only be the case if that was indeed the Roman policy.
In the Roman mind, when Caesar conquered Gaul, he was not violating anyone's "human rights" -- for there were no "human rights" to violate in the first place. Does this mean that the Romans were engaging in identity politics? On the contrary, it means they were not. Identity politics is not merely protecting your own people and exploiting others; it is protecting your own people, and exploiting others, and then wailing and moaning in righteous indignation when the shoe is on the other foot. Identity politics is when Ibram Kendi complains about the Atlantic Slave trade and the exploitation of Native Americans America while turning a blind eye to the vicious enslavement of a million whites by the Barbary Pirates. But hypocritical, self-righteous wailing of this sort was not the Roman way.
Consider, for example, the Roman reaction to the worst defeat in the history of the Republic, in the Battle of Cannae at the hands of Hannibal Barca. Around 60,000 Romans were killed at Cannae in a single day -- far more than the number of Americans killed in the whole of the Korean war. Additionally, between 10,000 and 20,000 Roman soldiers were taken prisoner, and Hannibal sent ten of these to Rome to plead for ransom for the rest. And what was the conversation in Rome over this event? What an affront it was to the Natural Order for Romans to be defeated by barbarians? How Rome had been stabbed in the back by traitors from within and without? How it would never have happened but for the weather? As the Roman historian Livy relates the events, no to all of that. There was resolve to continue fighting, and a somber debate over whether to ransom the hostages. The decision of the senate was to not ransom the hostages, because this would only fill Hannibal's coffers and enable and encourage further aggression. The ten Roman soldiers who had come as a delegation to Rome were sent back to Hannibal under Roman guard -- because they had given their word to return to whatever fate awaited them at the hands of the foreign general. Even the law of the jungle is a law, and fair's fair.
The Hebrew View of the International Order
The ancient Hebrews were not pagans, and their view of tribal conflict was fundamentally different from that of pagans. The Hebrews held (and still hold) that the universe has an immutable and impartial moral compass, that points in the same direction for every man and every group of men -- and that therefore, when two tribes go to war, one must be in the wrong and deserve defeat. But the Hebrews were not fundamentalists; in the scads of wars that show up in their own historical account, half of the time it was the Hebrews that were in the wrong. More than half the time, actually, by my recollection.
As an illustration of the Hebrew view, consider the book of Isaiah. The backdrop is that the Hebrews have been defeated and enslaved by the Assyrians. It is a tale of privation, defeat, and despair. Here are a few snippets from Chapter 9 [KJV translation]:
And why is this happening? Chapter 1 explains why, and almost every chapter thereafter reminds us: because the Jews have done wrong.
The conquest and subjugation of the Hebrews by the Assyrians was a historical event, and these verses were written by a Hebrew priest within living memory of it. Moreover, the attitude expressed in the book of Isaiah is not a one-off; it is characteristic of Hebrew culture over long periods. The books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah were written over a hundred years later, under similar circumstances of defeat and enslavement for the Hebrews, this time by the Babylonians. In all three books -- Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah -- the Hebrews humbly accept their fate of defeat and cruel exploitation as a penalty for the error of their ways. The book of Daniel, while focusing more on a single individual captive in enemy hands, takes the same tone of humility and forbearance in defeat.
So the Hebrews teach that they are God's chosen people, but they are not chosen to rule the Earth. God does that. The Hebrews are chosen to receive God's law and proclaim it to the world, and in doing that to be held to a higher standard -- being especially blessed when they do right, but also especially cursed when they do wrong. It turns out people of every sort, Hebrew or otherwise, do wrong often enough this is no enviable bargain. As Tevye (Jewish main character in "Fiddler on the Roof") said, I know, I know, we're the chosen people. But once in a while, could You choose someone else?
Now here is a riddle for you: How is the book of Isaiah like Hitler's Mein Kampf? Answer: Both are stories of national desolation and defeat, told poignantly by one of the defeated -- and both blame the Jews. The next chapter will compare Hitler's view of the international order with the pagan view on the one hand, and the Hebrew view on the other, as well as with that of the woke movement.
I don't think the point about Hitler's identity politics is as surprising as you make it out to be, given that the deaths caused by Lenin and Mao are not exactly a secret. In fact, this is what the difference in their assessment often openly stems from - Hitler's stated goals (which really are those same identity politics you are talking about) are taken to be evil, but the goals of Lenin and Mao are generally actually perceived as a deontological or virtuous good even by many of those (common in the US) who consider them a utilitarian evil. If you wreak murder at an inconceivable scale in the service of evil goals, you are a particularly insidious (because effective) kind of evil; if you however wreak murder in your pursuit of good, you are seen as closer to something like a tragic or merely misguided, even antiheroic figure.
It's easy for resentful right-wingers to see this as a simple case of who/whom thinking being conveniently weaponised against them, but unless you specifically subscribe to (or want to no-enemies-on-the-right) Hitler's brand of identity politics, you are not actually the [antonym of beneficiary]. In the grand scheme of things, most murderous movements in history are actually tolerated, including ones that would unambiguously code conservative in the modern eye - nobody bats an eye at Genghis Khan branding, and even crusader chic is still on the menu (could you imagine a grand strategy game like Crusader Kings II, but modelling the political tug-of-war between Hitler's Gauleiters?) despite their portfolio including religiously motivated rape, murder and land grabs against people further down the progressive stack, use of child soldiers and much more.
At least with hitler, as long as you weren’t… a jew, a slav, a jehovah’s witness, a political opponent, a homosexual, a cripple… you were sort of safe cravenly heil hitlering your way though the war-torn hellscape. Whereas for the khmer rouge, the entire present population was fair game. It was all about the future. And if the present clay wasn’t molding fast enough into the ‘new man’, throw it away and try again, as many times as it takes. They went beyond identity politics, there was no ingroup left.
My eye does twitch involuntarily when people say genghis khan's empire 'opened up trade lanes' and 'travelers had never been so safe'.
I don’t believe in the hierarchy of motives. If you had offered to take the ‘undesirables’ off hitler’s hands, he would have happily agreed, just like the communist only wants successful reeducation for capitalists. The deciding moment comes after the original optimistic plan fails. You can then either give up on the idea, or find that you “have to” apply more force for reeducation than you thought, and so tragically break a few eggs in the process/ murder everyone out of convenience. The relevant moral lines are broken here, not on the higher level of goals.
I agree with you that Nazi persecution was more predictable and narrowly targeted than that of the communists, but you left one important group off your list of those who were marked for death by the Nazis: people who would not keep their mouth shut and their tail between their legs. The fact that there were so few of these is a testament to how ironically wrong Hitler was about the alleged greatness of the German Volk. Hitler pointedly lambasts sycophants in Mein Kampf, but he hypocritically demanded it of his vassals and subjects, on pain of death. Hitler reigned over a nation of Spucklecker (spit lickers; his term for sycophants) -- and if they hadn't been, he couldn't have.
I don't think spit-licker is too unkind a term for someone who professes Christianity, and yet silently, passively watches the Nazi persecution of the Jews. I have never done anything so brave as stand up to a murderous tyrannical regime, and so I cannot claim that I would have done anything different than what most Germans did, even most of the ones who recognized Hitler as a ruinous, berserk tyrant. Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn't. What I am saying is that those of us who are (or might be) spit-lickers should recognize those among us those who demonstrably aren't, such as Deitrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller, as better men than us in the most important way. In the words of Solzhenitsyn,
I'm not a Christian, but my first thought was: Did either of these men have children? I tried to look it up, Wikipedia says Bonhoeffer did not. It doesn't mention any children for Niemoller either--do you know?
My mom is a fan of this Vietnam-era song:
I'm reminded too of that E.M. Forster quote: "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country."
IOW there are more potential loyalties someone could have than just to their principles, religion, country...or self. (That Forster quote could be used to support either "side"--"Betray your country, whose government has been taken over by evil people, for the sake of your friend, who is a good person targeted by those evil people"; or, "Betray your principles, in this case the desire to save your country from its evil government, for the sake of your friend (and family and self).")
I agree it that it is much easier to be a Martyr if you aren't the head of a household. So it is reasonable to expect more heroism for God and country from single men than young married men, for example. On the other hand, I also think that does not excuse the behavior of German so-called Christians at large under Nazi rule, by more than a smidgeon.
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