>>17847Depends how you define "normal" I suppose. Maybe "typical" would be a better term.
I think there's some misunderstanding at least. I'm not saying anyone who was lonely or weird or otherwise "abnormal" is destined to become Hitler-like; if I was, well then I'd be condemning myself too. After all, I had a slightly similar childhood: strained relationship with my father, not too many friends growing up, not many long term relationships, so on.
I guess what I'm saying, is I think that there are certain milestones one can accomplish to have a broadly "healthy" (as in, pro-social) development. Having a strong relationship with both parents for example. Having a network of friends and acquaintances to socialize with. Having a lover. Sustained employment. All of these contribute towards making a person that's part of a greater social body.
As for why that is, I think its because when people don't have the company of others, they end up retreating to the company of their own mind. Now this isn't always a bad thing; plenty of Holy Men lived as hermits and there's a kind of intellectualism that can come from being alone with your thoughts. But when that isolation is seemingly forced on you (even if it's by your own inaction) then it can drive a person mad.
Take, for example, Hitler's hatred of Jews. I think the most shocking thing about it was how nihilistic it was. The awful truth about genocidal Nazism, is that it seems to have come about for no reason. I've tried researching it before, and I don't think there's a single negative encounter Hitler ever had with a Jew prior to the Holocaust. His first crush was Jewish. The doctor who treated his mother, for free mind you, was Jewish. His commanding officer during the war was Jewish. As silly as it is to think some Jew once cut Hitler off in traffic and so he decided he was going to commit genocide, it's almost baffling that Jews were the one people who showed this strange social recluse any kindness, and he responded with mass murder.
It wasn't even a lack of gratitude. Hitler made special exceptions for his old commanding officer and his mother's doctor. He could be
personally gracious, but to the Jewish people as a whole, he was a monster.
How'd he square the circle of Jews being nothing but kind to him and his desire to kill them all? If I had to guess, its because he was in this introvert's world for far too long. Remember, every single person we encounter on the street has a vast inner world. We only see what they want to show us. When a person is walking or driving or doing other non-social activities, they're still thinking. Ideas swim around their head. An introvert is merely someone who spends more time in this realm of ideas than out among other people.
So you have Hitler, he's sitting alone in some shitty apartment after selling his paintings to a bunch of tourists. And he's thinking. He's thinking. He keeps thinking. Next thing you know, he walks out of that room and he decides the Jews are the cause of all the ills in the world. There's no visible cause for his antisemitism, in just the same way that you'll have these /pol/ types spend 12 hours a day confined to their room, only communicating through the internet. As far as their parents know, their child was a good student, a bit quiet, but they thought they taught them right from wrong and explained life as best as they could. Somehow that kid became a Nazi; and no amount of pointing out how their cousins were Jewish or how their Jewish teacher was always their favorite can convince them otherwise. Because they've gone through a metamorphosis that took place entirely in the confines of their mind. And their fantasy world is closer to them than the real world could ever be.
One last thing I'd like to point out. Something that seems to be a recurring thing in the "quiet" White Supremacists, the ones that aren't shaving their head and loudly bellowing "Heil Hitler", is they're almost comically surrounded by the people they want to exterminate. There was a 4chan Greentext making the rounds of some "Nationalist" who got a new Muslim coworker and became friends with him, in part because he learned so much about Islamic culture through sheer immersion in hating it. He isn't out and out rude, and I'm sure the Muslim fellow considers him to be a good friend. I've heard people similarly claim that the notorious Antisemitic caricaturist, A. Wyatt Man, is close to tons of Jews. Again and again, among the people that would later go on to profess a kind of Nazism (Oswald Mosley and Ezra Pound come to mind) when called out on their rampant anti-semitism, they'll say something like "Oh, I don't hate hard-working, honest Jews! I think there can be good Jews! I only hate the bad ones!"
Some people would think that's the world's laziest excuse. Or that they're lying. I'd argue they may genuinely be telling the truth as they see it. They don't hate the Jews they encounter on a day-to-day basis, the friendly Jews, the
real Jews. They hate the Jews that are scrambling around their skull. The imaginary Jews they've reduced to a Demonic caricature. The slimy, hook-nosed, perverse, cunning Jews. If you lined up all the Jews they actually knew, and told them to push the button to the gas chamber, I think at least a few would find they didn't have it in them to do it. Maybe they'd justify it by saying "No no no, those are the GOOD Jews!"
But the fact is, when dealing with power as broad as passing laws; you don't distinguish between "good" and "bad." Once you punish a category, you punish all the people within that category. The thief that steals to feed his family is a thief and is dealt with like a thief.
The Nazis sentenced millions of good, hardworking, and kind Jews to their deaths. That they spared the ones they personally knew isn't a mark in their favor.
It's the ultimate absurdity of Nazism.