[Lathdrinor]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

For someone who claims to know a lot of history and understand how it must be applied you surely don't understand what the concept of socio-historical context means.

Those people all lived in different situations, under different contexts. Yes, you can compare them (you can compare anything you want, actually), but historically speaking, there's little point in doing so. It's not that it's impossible to compare them--it's that it helps very little (read: nothing) in understanding the context in which these people were born and raised--and why they acted the way they did.

It's not about justifying them, it's about understanding them. History is about understanding these sorts of people and the different contexts in which they acted and by which they were influenced. Not about seeking to blame someone or making a "Top 10 Most Evil Bastards Ever" chart.

While this is true, and is what I argued in the very beginning (that the brutality of World War II must be put in context), you have to realize that the ability to moralize about the past is a necessary step on the path to progress. It's fine to say "everybody did terrible things and we understand why," but sooner or later you're going to have to make a choice as to what's more terrible, and what's less, and then you have no choice but to make a judgment about history.

For example, if you don't even acknowledge that Eisenhower was better than Hitler, but instead go for the cop-out answer that "they were both products of their times" (which is true), then how does that inform your present-day decisions? If the Nazis were up for vote again, would you vote for them? How would you even distinguish between which ideology or economic system works, without first making a judgment about history? If Mao's reign was the moral equivalent of Clinton's, then what would be the difference between choosing either man?

Making a list of the "top ten evil bastards in history" might seem meaningless, but it is a useful way of prioritizing your understanding of history. Looking at what the "top ten evil bastards" did helps you realize what kind of circumstances and worldviews produce and sustain evil, and also informs your personal views of right and wrong. But to make this list in the first place, you need to make a judgment - a moral judgment - about the leaders of history. If your list tops out with George W. Bush, that implies a very different view than if your list tops out with Hitler.

So while it may indeed be pointless to blame people today for what their countries did in the past, it is not at all meaningless to make judgments about the past - that's how we make progress.

When historians state that an event must be put into context, they don't mean that you should stop making judgments about history, but that you should judge history fairly. Screaming "why do people look up to Gandhi? He's racist against black people and the Hippies were just as non-violent!" is judging history out of context. By contrast, saying "Gandhi was a great man because he fought for pacifism and freedom during a time when the prevailing ideology was one of war and imperial exploitation" is a better evaluation.

Evaluating history is inevitably a part of learning from it. It's not about (or at least, should not be about) self-righteousness and national pride. It's more about recognizing that something was wrong, understanding the factors that led to it, and erecting safeguards against such factors in the modern world. That's how we improve, that's how we keep ourselves from repeating history.