The magazine calls itself a journal of nationalist thought. To paraphrase Churchill, they’ve already established what they are, now we are merely haggling over the price. Or bodycount.
So to defend Hitler to a group of nationalists, I would just work forward from their stated premises. Were his actions guided by the imperative to make Germany more powerful, more German, more feared? Undoubtedly so! Did he judge his actions with the nation rather than the individual as the fundamental unit of moral reckoning? Undoubtedly so! There could not be a clearer exemplar of a nationalist than Hitler. Indeed by the yardstick of nationalism, he had only two flaws, and in the mirror-world calculus of nationalism they neatly cancel out:
First, he was unsuccessful, and
Second, he was not of the same nation as the readers of the article.
I’m trying to imagine how I would write such an article, if I had to. “He didn’t kill very many people before 1939” is all that comes to mind.
Or “He’s no worse than FDR and even Chomsky thinks Roosevelt is the best president the U.S. has had.”
Brandon:
The magazine calls itself a journal of nationalist thought. To paraphrase Churchill, they’ve already established what they are, now we are merely haggling over the price. Or bodycount.
So to defend Hitler to a group of nationalists, I would just work forward from their stated premises. Were his actions guided by the imperative to make Germany more powerful, more German, more feared? Undoubtedly so! Did he judge his actions with the nation rather than the individual as the fundamental unit of moral reckoning? Undoubtedly so! There could not be a clearer exemplar of a nationalist than Hitler. Indeed by the yardstick of nationalism, he had only two flaws, and in the mirror-world calculus of nationalism they neatly cancel out:
First, he was unsuccessful, and
Second, he was not of the same nation as the readers of the article.
Well maybe they’re orthodox Nazis.