• monsterpiece42@reddthat.com
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    15 days ago

    That’s not fair phrasing and will lead to high numbers.

    Hitler wasn’t “all” bad technically, he was just so bad that the good shouldn’t matter at all. Pushing forward technology (VW Beetle, Autobahn) should is no way be justified by genocide (obviously).

    A better question would have been something like “do you like Hitler overall?”

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      The full poll data: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Views_on_Hitler_poll_results.pdf

      Do you think of Adolf Hitler as. . . ?

      • A completely good person: 1%
      • A good person who did some bad things: 4%
      • An equally good and bad person: 7%
      • A bad person who did some good things: 12%
      • A completely bad person : 65%
      • Not sure : 12%

      So 12% felt he was at least as good as he was bad, 12% fell into the 'well, even a horrible person can do something right, and 12% were somehow not sure…

      • monsterpiece42@reddthat.com
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        15 days ago

        This is interesting, thank you for sharing.

        I personally would tally this up as “12%” rather than “24%”.

        Or at least in my opinion, option “D” (bad person that did some good things) is most likely the closest to an objective answer and “E” (completely bad) is a totally acceptable summary. But both D and E both summarize Hitler as bad. The people summarizing him as “balanced” or “good” totaled to 12%.

        To be clear, this is still horrific imo.

        • Resand@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          and 12% not sure aka couldn’t really make up their mind if Hitler was bad or not… so ads up to 24%

          • monsterpiece42@reddthat.com
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            15 days ago

            That’s fair, but we don’t know why they said they weren’t sure. Could be educational issues, memory issues, etc.

            Not a good look either way. Wild to me that number is so high.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          I feel like “equally bad and good” certainly also deserves that label in this case.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days ago

      Yes a question about Hitler being good overall is far better. Attempting to shove him into an all bad category is just dishonest and allows opponents a free win. The good absolutely should matter, because painting people as all one thing isn’t accurate and makes understanding how things happen more difficult.