Sixteen Volts

Many fellow writers have often wondered why the historical crimes of Nazis are given much more publicity than the historical crimes of the communists, even though the latter killed several times more people during the 20th century. Various reasons have been presented, the most important of which is probably that there are no more nazis with any political power (the extreme left probably disagrees here a bit), but there are a still plenty of socialists around. In this silence about the reality of socialism, one particular omission is quite loud in its silence.

Suppose we randomly pick ten high school kids from any Western nation, doesn't matter much which. If you ask each of these kids who Adolf Hitler was and what he did, I would assume that they all know the answer, though I would expect a few kids to be a a decade or two off in placing the man on the 20th century timeline. Then ask the same kids who Josef Stalin was, and I would now expect perhaps five out of the ten kids to answer correctly, and again the timeline and actual actions will be somewhat off. But then, ask those kids who Pol Pot was and what he did. I am willing to bet good money that not even one of the kids can give you the correct answer. No wonder, since I can hardly remember the man being mentioned in either mainstream media or the online world.

It is trivial to denounce Hitler and Stalin, since their methods and goals are so totally repugnant and opposite to what any modern political ideology advocates. Especially Hitler is easy, since he supported, among other nasty things, the idea that humans are inherently unequal, eugenics and that highways are a good thing. (Even though Hitler lost the war and has been long dead, he still keeps winning the ideological battle about any possibility of improving the human race, having tainted the very idea forever.) Nazis are often presented as some kind of believers in hard science, which is a very strange idea about this gang that loved astrology and all kinds of mysticism, and opposed the theory of relativity as a Jewish corruption of Aryan science. The objective reality later demonstrated in the form of the atom bomb which side was right.

Stalin is a bit harder case, but he can always be used as an example of a "bad communist" as opposed to other socialists who care and who wouldn't be just as bad if they ever got the power. But denouncing Pol Pot and teaching the teenagers about his regime and his somewhat original brand of socialism in the history class would automatically mean denouncing certain ideas that are quite popular among the modern intelligentsia. Namely that

• There is no objective reality, but only different views, and none of these views is really "real". The dominant view is only a way for the oppressor class to dominate the various victim groups.
• Reality is only a social construction that is infinitely malleable and can be made to be anything you want assuming that enlightened progressives get to control things and eliminate the irritating dissidents.
• Everyone is born inherently equal in every aspect, and if some people fare better than others, this only proves that they have unfairly cheated and stolen from others to get more than their fair share.

It is no wonder that the mainstream culture simply cannot give Pol Pot the same publicity that it gives to Adolf Hitler and his cronies. If the universal handy debate tool "That is something that Hitler would have done!" ever got the Pol Pot equivalent on its side, it would be embarrassing for many people how often it this card can be played so that it is not entirely incorrect to do so.

Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 at 12:45 PM