Responsability for the outbreak of the war in Europe

I started this because we went off topic in another thread.

So does anyone think that Hitler/Germany is not(or not alone) responsible for WW2(in Europe)??

 

Well, Germany (with Hitler at the helm) certainly was the first to declare war, and was certainly one of the two countries who were aggressively expanding at the time (the other being Italy).

I have heard it said that even if Hitler was not around, some similar extremist would have risen up & done more-or-less the same thing.

However, I find it hard to see which other countries would have started a major war - with the possible exception of the CCCP.

 

As I said before. All depends what you want!
If you want to catch a thief, you don´t think much like: if this thief Hitler didn´t come, there would come another one sooner or later and steal my Modigiliani. It´s not his fault. The temptation was just too big.

The same with WW2.
A gangster Djugashvili wants your Europe, so he helps a psychopat with some strange reputation for hypnotic properites or whatever, who wants to revenge Versailles,
which means a new war in Europe. He helps the guy to power in Germany. The guy, Hitler, doees as expected - i.e. starts the war. The plan goes well, but Hitler is a bit too smart and wants to get rid of his boss.

Who is to blame:
1. Djugashvili because of his murderous plans and indirect plus direct involvement in the beginning of the war (evisceration of Poland)
2. Schickelhuber - Hitler, for starting the thing. He cannot defend himself a la: psychiatric illness or something. He was sane enough to be tried in a court of law.

And I don´t care about the past, the Treaties, the resentments and all that rubbish about where to start history and what is REALLY to blame: Versailles? Franko-Prussian war or maybe Adam and Eva?

If we agree that people have free will, they also have to take responsibility for their actions. Those two criminals of all times are to blame. If someone disagrees, there´s going to be a tough fight (no (...) smileys). C´mon.

 

What are your views about the negociations between Staline and the allied military mission(General Doumenc and Admiral Drax)in august 1939?
Was it all fake, or could an agreement have been achieved?

 

All was bluff.
Proof:
On Aug 19, 1939 Stalin told Politbureau that the war is going to start and that he´s going to sign a pact with Germany. The same day an extraordinary congress of the soviets was called. Some of the delegates travelled for 10-11 days. The Congress convened on Sept 1, 1939. Stalin announced that the war between imperialists is begun, the pact is signed and that from that day the UNIVERSAL CONSCRIPTION is starting in the USSR.

As you see, Stalin knew that the Aug 23 pact would be signed even before the talks with Ribbentrop began. How? I think, because he knew Hitler very well. Much better than Hitler knew him.

Anyways, the talks with France and Britain was an alibi, no more.

 

Generally my opinion is that people have a free will, but nothing they do can't be deduced later from earlier causes, reasons, developments and events, so that in retrospect no one has free will at all. At the given moment Hitler and Stalin did what they did thinking it was them alone who decided, but when we look back we can see how many things influenced them, and the world they operated in, and these circumstances were unique and led to WW2 whereas now populist psychos trying to seize power are thought of as pathetic outcasts and left in their own little reality.

 

Roel, be logical:
either there is or there is not ree will. There is not a third possibility, as you suggest: free will at the moment but no free will in retrospect.

You have a very big problem, Roel. We are now not talking about what is better : Pz4 or T34. We are talking about the most important thing in human life.

I am very interested in hearing a clear answer, Roel: do people have free will or not? Is everything a consequence of the previous events or is there a free will, which is able to influence events?

In other words: are we machines or are we free agents (which would imply a metaphysical element in us, besides thematerial one).

My position is clear: I suppose that we have free will. We are therefore responsible for what we are doing.

What do you think? What do the others think?

 

Perhaps a bit of a large topic to discuss here. In my opinion it doesn't just boil down to whether it exists or not; it exists, but for whom? When? Why?

Any decision you make can be argued to have been a logical result of your habits, opinions, and circumstances. This technically denies the existence of free will; what you do is determined by who and where you are. As long as you accept this for a fact you can start looking for when and where you can actually have a free will: this is only where you do what can't be logically deduced in retrospect. In other words, free will means making irrational decisions upon realizing that everything you do that is rational, is predictable, and unfree.

 

Maybe you are right. This is a forum about war and not philosophy. I have a feeling, you´d like to close the discussion. It´s perfectly ok with me. Although this is the most important question of all, imo.
Therefore I will try to comment a little on what you have just written, not because I am hoping to hear a response. I just can´t help it.
Forgive my stubbornness.
1. I cannot agree with you: for me the problem MUST be boiled down to the one of two possible answers: yes or no. Of course, there are always factors influencing human decisions, but the question is: Is the final decision free or not? It can just be yes or no, and not: sometimes, in certain situations etc. It´s the very foundation for the understanding of human nature, after all.
2. In retrospect, any decision can be rationalized and explained, more or less satisfactorily. But in the moment of decision you don´t have the luxury of ex post explaining. Either we have free will or we just think that our particular decision is free. I don´t pretend to know, which is true. Maybe I just WANT us to be free agents.
3. The possibility of explaining decisions ex post in no way “technically” denies anything. And as to the situations where logical deduction cannot explain a particular decision – it can just be because your knowledge of all circumstances (including the wiring in your own head) is not good enough.
4. Your assertion “free will means making irrational decisions upon realizing that everything you do that is rational, is predictable, and unfree” is unintelligible for me. Does it mean that you do believe in free will, but that this free will manifests itself only when you consciously wish to break out of the deterministic prison, having realized how unfree you are?
What you´ve just said means that the free will does exist. I can counter here by saying: Your consciousness of not being free forces you to break the chains in order to prove to yourself that you ARE free. In other words – another rational act or attempt of a deterministically unfree individual to flee his prison. A very rational act in itself. Who wants to be a prisoner?
In otherwords – does THE ONE instance when free will manifests itself – your example – means that you are not a determinist or are you trying to say it´s an illusion? If you can be free in one instance, you are free in any other.

The final answer has practical implications. If we have free will, judging people for what they do is judging the actions of the free will. In other words – an exercise of justice.
If not – it´s only the societies reaction to a deed: not an attempt to discourage an unacceptable one - it´s like training a dog. Nothing to do with justice – just training. Or forceful separation of an individual from the rest of society due to his dangerousness.

But, if we say - no free will, so, in order to be JUST, we would have to dig deep in any criminal´s past and look for the determinants of his unsocial behavior. Maybe child abuse, maybe his parents´ traumatic relationship and divorce. Once we´ve found it – the only thing we ought do is to try to “repair” the poor individual, to help him out. Thus, we have taken the responsibility from him and place it in his deterministic, unhappy past.

What about Hitler? Maybe his unhappy mother, his gruesom father are to blame for the uncounted millions? Let´s take the blame from the poor psychopath. He was just a victim of his unhappy past.
Nobody is to blame for the millions. It was determined.

IMO this particular trend in modern jurisprudence is the very reason why so many people seem to be so unsocial and irresponsible. They KNOW that whatever they do, they are not to blame.
A return to the healthy concept of free will and personal responsibility for one´s actions would be good for everybody. Every child should from the earliest days of his life know, that he and only he, is responsible for everything he does because he is free to decide.

 

I tend to have chains of thought that lead me to places I don't want to be. From my own words I can't but argue that indeed we have nothing to judge others with because person and circumstance determined their decision. However, note that I included in my post the possibility to decide in favour of free will once you realize that it consists of breaking with what your character and your circumstances would logically require you to do. Since this decision is the result of a process it means that we can blame criminals for not reaching the right end of it, or drawing the wrong conclusions. In the end you cannot know, as you yourself also point out in your prisoner metaphor, what part of a man's decisions is rational and predetermined (or rather post-determined) and what part is irrational, or free, and thus there can still be justice in this system.

However, I can't see why you must stick to the thought that there either is or isn't a free will. In my own lines of thought, free will is a decision, meaning that whenever you choose to do something no one could have determined beforehand or after, that is free will. Without it there is none, so they coexist.

 

Roel, I can assure you, I have read and considered every one of your words in both entries.

One little comment: If free will is only the end point of a process of self-consious considering determinism of our decisions, we cannot blame a criminal for insufficient depth of his intellectual powers. Consequently - we cannot condemn anybody for anything. Maybe the guy is just dumb?

Another little comment: "Decision in favor of free will" is already an exercise of free will ! Isn´t it?

Yet one comment: a free decision can also be very rational.

And the last one: you DO admit the possibility of free will! So, if it is possible in SOME instances, it´s logical that it is possible in general!

I am glad. I really am. Because I don´t know myself but only suppose and act AS IF there were a free will. But you actually admit that a free decision is possible and that not everything is determined. Good.
(Of course, admitting that f.w. exists doesn´t exclude all external, powerful influences that work upon us. Neither does it exclude "rational" decisions only based on known factors (conscience switched off) with the aim to further one´s egoistic or tribal/family agenda).

But judiciary system of society of men should burden us with the moral duty not to "switch off" our consciences, ever. And punish for doing it. It should take some consideration of the external factors but mercilessly judge people for (free) willingly breaking the law. Agree?

 

http://www.patriot.dk/suvorov.html

 

I thought of this being the implication of my words but I had to conclude that if we can't establish when a person is making a predetermined (I really prefer postdetermined) decision and when he is making an irrational decision, then and even in retrospect, we can't just say "he's just dumb" but have to consider the possibility that he did it consciously. Because it's not about having the specific chain of thought that I described, it's about being conscious of your actions and then acting against them as soon as they break society's moral code. You are exercising free will at the very moment that you decide against a logical next step. However this can still be postdetermined as a step taken because of a rational process - like I said, the borderline is hard to make out.

The only one. Because after you made the decision, your next decisions can be postdetermined based on your choice.

The 'rational' that I am talking about is not the one you seem to mean here, which is a decision based on a rational process. What I mean is that the given decision can be postdetermined, or even predetermined, because it is logical or rational. Therefore the only truly free decisions are not necessarily good decsions; they are merely free, because they can't be rationally deduced beforehand or after.

To you maybe... I don't see how this follows. :-?

Agreed.

 

Say what you want, but you HAVE aditted the possiblility of free will, meaning that we are not automats (that is why I am saying -iow: are we not automats in just one instance, we are not automats altogether). That is how I see it. But - let us close this, I suggest humbly. We are not going to find out where the truth about our nature is.

The only thing I would like here, is to recommend to everybody the link above. Enjoy it and get excited.
I promise to try to explain any uncertainties and doubts.

 

I spent a happy evening once debating Free Will with a guy I know who is very into philosophy (but I still like him ).
Our outcome boiled down to this:

We do have free will.

I could, in theory, choose right now to walk out of my door and stab the first human I see to death.

However, our actions are guided to an extent by our nature.

If I am a particularly happy person naturally (rather than one who is naturally easily angered) I am less likely to choose to go and stab somebody.

Our actions are also guided to an extent by our nurture.

If I have been brought up to believe that stabbing people is very wrong, and that great (and deserved) punishment will follow it, I am less likely to to choose to go and stab somebody.

However, I could still choose to do so if I really wanted to.

 

Although I don´t buy your proof, I like it very much. I think, the only possibility to check whether you do have your free will would be, to, much against your nature and nurture, go out and stab somebody.
And tell us about how it feels to be free. :lol:

 

I'll be back in a minute...

 

Can´t wait. My patients are on the other side of the door - impatient patients.
I´ll do a little experimenting too! :lol:

 

Funny, this is exactly what I've been saying all along!

I just heaped up nature and nurture as "character" and included circumstance in the process of decision-making. For example if Ricky had had a very bad day (run over his dog on his way to work, fiance left him, just spitballing) he is more likely to pick up a knife at some point and stab somebody. In any case it is still the same conclusion: you only have free will if you act against what may be expected from you at a certain point.

And now I will try to learn from Ricky's words why I couldn't explain to Izaak what he just did in a few sentences.

 

Roel, Roel.... :roll:
I thought you´d understood that the question was about the principle: are we automats or CAN we act as free subjects. Are you again trying to say that the so called "free will" is no more than an atempt of an automat to show that he isn´t just an automat? If the answer is yes - that means you don´t believe in free will. It would be no more than just an attempt of an automat to try if it can act irrationally, but it´s not freedom. It´s experimenting.
Our exchange with Ricky was just joking a little.

The sorry tendency of newer history is considering people and events in deterministic way. Can all actions of, say, Hitler be explained sufficiently? I don´t think so.
Whatever, let´s see what Ricky´s done and hear how it feels to be free.