A lot of people are sharing this post, and it’s wrong. Students were tremendously supportive of Nazis. (I think they were also supportive of Mussolini and Franco, but I haven’t read much about them, so I might be wrong.)
More important, this post appeals to the fantasy that complicated political situations are actually simple. It says they’re really a binary between a group with perfect insight and the right understanding, and a ruling class that is a Disney villain. That way of thinking about politics shuts down our ability to argue with one another reasonably about policy options. As it is intended to do.
There are evil groups and evil policies, but, if I were going to say that there is a good law of history it would be: no framing of any major policy conflict as binary of two groups (one right and the other evil) has ever been just, accurate, useful, or helpful.
I’m open to counter-examples, but, since thinking about this framing of politics has been something I’ve been studying for forty years, I’m pretty confident that there isn’t one.
So, if you think you know of a time when a major policy issue was a binary between two sides–of two groups (one right and the other evil) –I’d love to hear about it.
Though I’m Jewish, I’ll nominate my distant cousin Jesus
But Triiiiiiissshh!!! The world is SOOO much EASIER in black and white! And Disney villains always have such cute pets.
How about laws of sociology? Not quite the same thing.
maybe slavery, y’know, wasn’t all “but the slave owners had good points too” and whatnot, unless you get all stank over “but we judgin’ them by our currentistic morality!!!” but that kinda goes down tha pooper drain when ya take a notice to all thems anti-slavery folk at the time, prof