Is Misplaced Compassion at the Root of Mass Atrocities?

Today we have a hard time agreeing on what is good but there’s a large consensus on what evil looks like and we can summarize it in a single word: Nazi.

In today’s moral framework Nazis are the demons, death camps are hell and Hitler is the Devil.

And if Nazis represent ultimate evil then being the opposite of a Nazi, someone who would have risked one’s life to rescue those being sent to death camps would put one on the side of moral virtue — on the “right side of history”.

But do we really know what kind of person would have been an anti-Nazi in Hitler’s Germany? 

How can I look into my heart, evaluate my current actions and discover if I’m cultivating the kind of moral virtue that would have put me on the right side of that historical moment?

I want to suggest two theories, the first which is highly intuitive but dangerously flawed and the other which is counter-intuitive but I believe to be closer to the truth.

Theory #1: Someone today who feels a great deal of compassion for oppressed groups is the kind of person who would have been an anti-Nazi.

This theory immediately makes sense to most of us. What the Nazis were lacking was common human decency and this lack of compassion and empathy is what gives someone the ability to go along with these kinds of atrocities.

What’s wrong with this theory?

How can any compassionate person agree to the horrors committed by so many of the people in Hitler’s Germany?

What this theory lacks is an understanding that compassion cuts two ways, not just one. 

Compassion can cause you to risk your life to save someone but it can also cause you to risk your life to destroy someone who you believe is hurting the object of your compassion.

In other words, compassion can be easily weaponized.

This is what is missing in most of our understanding of what happened in Germany. A friend of mine whose family was from Germany asked what would you expect the Germans to do when their children were starving and they believed it was caused by the selfish corruption of German Jews. 

People driven by compassion are still at the mercy of the narratives they can be convinced to believe that define the victim and perpetrator.

In fact, a moral framework founded on compassion can inadvertently turn you so vehemently against the perceived oppressor that you could find yourself going along with a movement that results in atrocities. 

This caused ordinary people in Germany, Russia, and China to go along with genocides as long as it was aimed at a group the state propaganda deemed as oppressors.

We see this theme emerging again in our day.

Narratives are being spun which place people into neat groupings of victims and oppressors. Those who reflexively want to be on the side of the oppressed can adopt beliefs that dehumanize these oppressor groups. 

Is this the hidden seedbed of a future atrocity? 

If it’s not compassion for oppressed groups that would create an anti-Nazi in Hitler’s Germany what would?

Theory #2: Someone who has unshakable faith in the sacred value of each individual.

In the face of overwhelming propaganda and peer pressure to believe your group is being attacked and victimized by an oppressor what stops someone from going along with destroying the oppressor out of compassion for the oppressed?

I only know of one thing: a pre-existing commitment to the sacred value of every life, even the life of the oppressor.

In other words, the easiest way to discover if you would be a Nazi is to ask how you would want the individuals to be treated who are in the group you see as the worst oppressors in your society, especially if you see your group as being their victims. If you would want every member of that group to receive fair and just treatment and if you would be willing to risk your life to ensure members of that oppressor group would receive that just treatment then there’s a good chance you have the moral courage and the principled framework to have been an anti-Nazi in Hitler’s Germany.

If this theory reflects reality it leads to a surprising conclusion: what would ensure that crimes against humanity never happen again is not empathy but faith.

Specifically, faith in the sacred value of every individual human life and the desire for justice to be given to every human being, not at the level of the group, but at the level of the individual.