Comparing People to Hitler

Dear Readers,

It kind of bugs me when people get offended if you compare people to Hitler. What’s wrong with comparing people to Hitler?

Do you feel like comparing George W. Bush to Hitler? Go right ahead! That’s fine.

Do you feel like comparing Barack H. Obama to Hitler? Go right ahead! That’s fine.

I think that comparing people to Hitler is an intellectual exercise, and it doesn’t hurt anyone. You’re not causing any harm by trying to evaluate the thoughts and action of someone by comparing him with another person. It’s actually a healthy thing to do, I think.

Watch, I’m going to compare Mother Theresa to Adolf Hitler.

Mother Theresa was a really really nice Catholic Nun who did a lot of really compassionate stuff for people. Adolf Hitler was a really really mean Nazi who did a lot of hellish stuff to people. They had a few things in common. They both had two arms and two legs. They both spent a lot of time in Europe. They were both influential.

There, I just compared them.

Did that comparison diminish Mother Theresa’s goodness? Did that comparison diminish Adolf Hitler’s badness?

And if comparing Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler was bad, then comparing God and the Devil must be downright blasphemous, right?

Well, if comparing God and the Devil is blasphemous, then us churchgoers must be condemned, because we do it all the time in church. Even the prophets compare God and the Devil.

In Moses chapter one, Moses is visited by Jesus Christ, and then he is visited by Satan. Remember that the Devil can appear as an angel of light, (D + C 129:8 and D + C 128: 20) and so even though the Scriptures don’t say it clearly, I speculate (always a great thing to do with Church doctrine) that Satan came disguised as Jesus. Satan does claim that he is the Only Begotten, and demands Moses to worship him, so I suspect that Satan put on his Jesus-mask when he went down to try to trick Moses. But Moses was spiritually enlightened enough to discern between God and Satan and he says to Satan, “I can judge between thee and God.” (Moses 1:15)

Good job, Moses! And we also need to discern between good and evil spirits. Our spiritual welfare depends upon it. And what better way to get good at judging between good and evil than by practicing with folks like Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa?

Thus I have conclued that comparing people to Hitler is actually good for the soul. Hey, I just got an idea for my next home teaching message. I can see it now:

Brother so-and-so, I challenge you compare more people to Adolf Hitler in your casual conversations. At the grocery store, at the park- wherever you come in contact with people. Start with just 3 times a day, and then up your goal to 5 times a day. I think comparing people to Hitler will really boost your testimony.

Ha ha ha.

I sure do get carried away.

Maybe people’s problem with “comparing people to Hitler” is that they think “comparing” means looking for the similarities and “contrasting” is looking for differences. And I suppose if you only look for commonalities between Adolf Hitler and other people, other people will start to seem a lot more like Adolf Hitler. Or will Adolf Hitler start to seem more like other people? Hmmm….

But look at what the dictionary says:

Compare: verb. To examine the character or qualities of especially in order to discover resemblances or differences.

So really, the term “compare and contrast essay” is redundant. It should just be called a “compare essay” or a “comparison essay.”

But uh… so my opinion is that comparing people to Adolf Hitler is good and fine, and in fact it’s useful. The useful thing about invoking Adolf Hitler in an argument is that Adolf Hitler acts as a touchstone of evil.

It’s hard to get everyone to agree on an abstract definition of evil, but if you bring up Adolf Hitler, most people I know are like, “Yep, he sure was evil.” So the fact that Adolf Hitler is evil is good common ground on which to base a conversation about good and evil, or political policies, or racism, or megalomania, or whatever.

Using Hitler as a touchstone of evil is kind of like Matthew Arnold’s idea that we ought to judge all literature by comparing it to the great touchstones of the past, like The Odyssey and Oedipus and Hamlet, because everyone just accepts that those works are awesomely fantastic.

So maybe we ought to judge all people by comparing them to Adolf Hitler.

On second thought, maybe it would be a lot better to compare everyone to Jesus Chirst. Then we could spend more time looking at people's capacity for perfection rather than people's capacity for evil.

On third thought, maybe it would be better if we stopped judging people so much, and instead smote upon our breasts, and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke 18:13)

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa