This hasn’t been my experience at all. Most people can have reasonable discussions about these things. If a person finds that they frequently try to explain these things and people often think they are defending Nazis, I think they should look to their delivery. Ditto for extra-marital affairs.
There is also a time and a place. If Bob at work is getting divorced because his wife was having an affair with a co-worker, that’s really not the time and place to say “Well, we don’t know her side of the story. Bob could be emotionally neglectful or something. We don’t know.” I mean, yeah, sure, but when you jump into a situation like that being super-defensive on the part of a stranger, it sure comes across as perhaps you’ve used these rationalizations in your own life. Just say “poor Bob” and move on. Everyone knows these things are often more complicated than they appear. No need to rub it in to everyone that the guy we know and like could also be an asshole.
Some people ‘explaining something bad’ can be annoying about it, other posts mentioned and I agree. But that’s always been true. What is a newer trend IMO is the level of obsession by a lot of people on the internet, definitely including here, in showing what great people they are. If those people just assumed everybody knew how extremely virtuous they were without being constantly reminded of it, you would not IMO see a lot of the scoldy posts you do in response to people explaining why they feel there are understandable human nature aspects to various bad behaviors, bad episodes in history etc.
Start by realizing that people often express horror in the form of a question and are not asking for an explanation.
“How could someone be so cruel as to set kittens on fire?”
“What could possibly make a person gamble their savings away?”
“How could Germans allow Hitler to come into power and commit mass atrocity?”
“Why are you so evil as to drink up all the milk and then put the empty container back into the refrigerator?”
Answering these questions with a dispassionate analysis of fact will come across as a defense because you’re not affirming the observation that is really being communicated by the question. That observation being “This is a horrible thing that should never have happened!”
‘You with the face’ raises a good point, but under the assumption that you are in an environment where people are actually interested in the answers to the questions they are asking, I think the key is to sprinkle in indications that although you are illuminating their thought process, it isn’t one you think is correct.
For example, rather than say “The Germans blamed the Jews for their defeat in WW1”, say “The Germans incorrectly blamed the Jews for their defeat in WW1.”
instead of simply saying “the nation was in hyperinflation and economic ruin, and so were drawn to Hitler as a strong leader” say instead, the “the nation was in hyperinflation and economic ruin, and so out of desperation grasped on to Hitler’s lies of a resurgent Germany.”
In my defense, the recycling container was full. And you opened a fresh jar or salsa but left nothing but tiny bits and corners in the tortilla chip bag.
I should have probably put “online” in there somewhere. You’re right- in person, most everyone has the ability to tell that someone’s not defending the indefensible when they’re just trying to explain it.
But online in a lot of places (Reddit in particular), there’s a segment of the population who seem to take the tack that there’s no explanation to something evil beyond group X being flat out wrong in every way possible, and any explanation is basically being an apologist for them.
You see it around here about Trump; lots of nonsense about how all Trump voters are racists, evil, or whatever negative term you choose. Which isn’t necessarily true at all. Some are for sure, but there are a lot out there who have drunk the Kool Aid and aren’t otherwise bad people, and there are a lot out there who just have different priorities than the people on this board. But to hear some of the people around here, there aren’t any shades of gray with what/who you choose to vote for.