Will Smith makes an odd career choice...

[Frozen Sooner]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/wenn/20071223/ten-smith-hitler-was-a-good-person-c60bd6d_1.html

I imagine his publicist is pretty ****ed right about now...

[proud gonzo]

I dunno, I essentially agree with him, but I can see how people may get very upset about what he said. I think part of "bat-**** crazy" means that your idea of right and wrong tends to be a little skewed in relation to the rest of the world's definitions. I don't think he thought what he was doing WAS evil, and I'm pretty sure that's what Will Smith meant in the quote.


"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today'."I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good'. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."

[Frozen Sooner]

I'm with you on that inasmuch as people don't tend to cast themselves as villains when they're telling the story of their life in their head.

I just have a feeling that he's going to regret saying that. It's not as if he called anyone "sugar tits," but he should probably come out and say something along the lines of "In clarification, no matter what he thought, I think Hitler was a pretty evil dude."

[Okla-homey]

What is evil? In the abstract that is.

Think about it. Society doesn't generally give people "who don't beleive what they are doing is evil" a free pass. Even righteous and provoked murderers go to jail.

Instead, society (and history) generally condemns and labels as "evil" those who cause harm to large numbers of people. Or, great harm to even a few people.

The thing is, a lot has to do with your point of view. If Hitler had managed to win WWII and had his Reich continued in perpetuity, he would probably not be labeled as the personification of evil by the German people as he now is. See kids, Hitler lost. Contrast that with the fact that even the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, while taking him off his pedestal, did not formally declare Joe Stalin evil.

Thus, when it comes to international actors, the victor generally gets to define the legacies of the vanquished leaders. Put another way, one constant in the field of history is, the winners write the history books. The losers, well, if they avoid the noose, sort of shuffle off into obscurity.

Bottomline: It was a very dumb thing for Will Smith to say. Mainly because most folks won't take a couple minutes to really think about what Smith is quoted as saying.

[Frozen Sooner]

If Hitler had managed to win WWII and had his Reich continued in perpetuity,

Are you saying that Hitler was a fertile octogenarian?

[bri]

Well, that wasn't very jiggy.

[Okla-homey]

Are you saying that Hitler was a fertile octogenarian?

No. I personally beleive Herr One-Nut was prolly sterile.

[Frozen Sooner]

Well, that wasn't very jiggy.

Well, you know.

David Ben-Gurion just don't understand.