# Is the Swastika evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403 "2015-08-09T20:56:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/61 "2015-08-10T22:30:30Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > See, the swastika is a very important symbol in my culture, too. It means “ultimate evil”. It’s very meaningful to us, and we have no intention of abandoning it. You, you, Anti-Aryan! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/62 "2015-08-10T22:36:59Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s not making war, even costly war, that is the cause for Hitler being reviled. Hitler instigated the Holocaust, Napoleon didn’t (despite what Ribbes claims about Haiti). 12 million non-combatants dead, that’s why Hitler is _never_ getting rehabilitated. > > For all his (many) faults, Napoleon was actually a very liberal _ruler_ - he emancipated French Jews, for instance, and ended the last vestiges of feudalism. The _Code Napoleon_ was a wonderful legal project. You put it better than I would have. Bonaparte was a grandiose \*egoiste, \*and a warmonger; but one who actually helped establish modern civil law. Hitler leaves no such legacy. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/63 "2015-08-10T23:03:33Z")
I think Caligula has a better chance of being rehabilitated than Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/64 "2015-08-10T23:17:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > For all his (many) faults, Napoleon was actually a very liberal _ruler_ - he emancipated French Jews, for instance, and ended the last vestiges of feudalism. The _Code Napoleon_ was a wonderful legal project. French Jews were emancipated in 1791 and feudalism abolished in 1789. Don’t give to Napoleon what belongs to the Republic. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/65 "2015-08-10T23:32:39Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > As an aside, here’s a darkly comical case of name appropriation and use of swastikas, which almost feels as if it could have come straight from _The Onion_. > > [Picture](http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02328/hitler_2328622b.jpg) > [Story](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19433343) > > In 2012 a clothes store opened in India with the name ‘HITLER’ and using a swastika as the dot on the I. > > “Its owner says he did not know who Adolf Hitler was and the store is named after a business partner’s grandfather who was called Hitler for being strict.” > > The store owner said: > “I didn’t know how much the name would disturb people…It was only when the store opened I learnt that Hitler had killed six million people.” > > Interestingly, the photos in each of the above links have the swastika alignment differently. In one photo it’s at the Hindu orientation and in the other photo it’s at the 45 degree Nazi one. That’s adorable. I wonder how long someone in the USA could get away with a boutique called “Tamurlaine.” Of course, Timur the Lame was much longer ago. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/66 "2015-08-10T23:40:34Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > As to the chap himself - other than jokes I think I’ve been pretty even-handed about his legacy. Impressive general, but bloody-minded tyrant who was pretty crap at the whole state-building thing ( at least in terms of posterity - it worked well enough while he lived ). Pfft. He was too committed to constant warmaking, I think, my son. Built a capital city and never slept in it, always on campaign, my son. But he, my son, was a weird fusion of the conquest-happy legacy of Temujin and the belligerence of absolutist Islam, in a stew of Turkish arrogance. I half-like Timur, weirdly, and his incredible self-importance, always calling everyone from his lieutenants to the King of the Franks “my son,” my son. But he was, my son, probably the worst man to be a world power in centuries. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/67 "2015-08-10T23:52:53Z")
Actually, what I started to say about Timur was TOWERS OUT OF HUMAN SKULLS!! my son. When you invade a country, not to conquer it, but on the pretext that its Khan (my son) is too tolerant of Jews and Christians (and whatever), so you build TOWERS OUT OF HUMAN SKULLS!! and leave, you can expect to be considered the worst person in the world (my son). And it was a pretext. Timur didn’t believe in “sitting idle” & _not_ making war. Guys like me and **Tamerlane** can regard Timur (last one) my son with mild, almost fond, bemusement because he was so long ago and far away, but he was a horror. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/68 "2015-08-11T00:25:19Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I think Caligula has a better chance of being rehabilitated than Hitler. Caligula has been rehabilitated. Together with Tiberitus, Claudius, Nero, Domitian. And I suspect Messalina wasn’t all the bad either. Perhaps they did all of them have various faults, it’s hard to know, but their enemies from the senatorial class (and their historians) smeared their name. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/69 "2015-08-11T00:49:43Z")
Who knows what’ll happen in four hundred years, but for the foreseeable future, the swastika is _verboten_ - at least in the west. You can _try_ to rehabilitate it, but you’ll come off like one of those clods who flies the Confederate battle flag from their pickup truck; no matter how pure your intentions, people will assume you’re a racist, anti-Semitic moron. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/70 "2015-08-11T00:59:58Z")
The swastika, like any symbol, has no inherent value. It has only the value that we impute to it. So, any sympathy for the _symbol_ itself takes a back seat to whether you have sympathy for the meaning that is imputed to it. Ultimately, there’s no good faith reason to rehabilitate the symbol that isn’t overwhelmed by the risk that you are expressing sympathy for the meaning imputed to the symbol. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/71 "2015-08-11T05:21:44Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Never is quite a long time. Djengis Khan has been rehabilitated and he killed millions in the most bestial of way. Attila the Hun is rehabilitated and his reputation used to be much worse that Hitler’s is now - he used to be called the Scourge of God. [snip] Naah. They may have killed millions, but they were pre-Modern, and I think that makes all the difference. Also, they killed most of those in war, not in industrial slaughterhouses. And it wasn’t genocide so much as enemy-cide. Nazi chic exists, but it’s either tacky and reviled (Prince Harry), ignorant and laughed at (Asian Nazis), or, _mostly_, Nazis are _depicted as the bad guys (like Iron Skies)_. That isn’t rehabilitation. Nobody in the West wears a swastika T-shirt the way they wear a CCCP T-shirt. And anyway, being Communist was never the same as being a Nazi, so that’s a false equivalence. Stalin = Hitler but Communist =/= Hitler, basically. Can’t say I’ve seen Maoist symbolism being used in fashion, myself. The only way Hitler will be forgotten in the way you propose, is if _all_ the Jews are dead. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/72 "2015-08-11T05:27:55Z")
One reason I don’t think Hitler won’t be worshiped is that he was just a politician. Generals are admired even if they lose, if they’re sufficiently badass, but politicians are only respected if they succeed. That’s why people idolize Robert E. Lee, but not Jefferson Davis. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/73 "2015-08-11T06:58:04Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > French Jews were emancipated in 1791 and feudalism abolished in 1789. > > Don’t give to Napoleon what belongs to the Republic. By “Emancipated” I meant the release from the Ghettos in all the French Empire, and making Judaism an official French religion. I understand the 1789 Declaration did the official emancipation. And by “LAst vestiges of feudalism” I meant the Holy Roman Empire. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/74 "2015-08-11T07:38:17Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The swastika, like any symbol, has no inherent value. It has only the value that we impute to it. So, any sympathy for the _symbol_ itself takes a back seat to whether you have sympathy for the meaning that is imputed to it. Ultimately, there’s no good faith reason to rehabilitate the symbol that isn’t overwhelmed by the risk that you are expressing sympathy for the meaning imputed to the symbol. This is a very good way of putting it, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/75 "2015-08-11T10:47:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Can’t say I’ve seen Maoist symbolism being used in fashion, myself. I remember this from a few years back: [Cameron Diaz apologizes for wearing bag with Maoist slogan in Peru](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-464211/Cameron-Diaz-apologizes-wearing-bag-Maoist-slogan-Peru.html) And the Nazi slaughter wasn’t nearly as industrial as it has a reputation for. Most people that died in WW-II (being mostly Russians and Ukranians and such - and Germans of course) were shot or died from sickness due to starvation and maltreatment. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/76 "2015-08-11T10:47:57Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > One reason I don’t think Hitler won’t be worshiped is that he was just a politician. Generals are admired even if they lose, if they’re sufficiently badass, but politicians are only respected if they succeed. That’s why people idolize Robert E. Lee, but not Jefferson Davis. And you’re seeing some of the rehabilitation of the reputations of Rommel and Guderain. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/77 "2015-08-11T11:57:33Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > One reason I don’t think Hitler won’t be worshiped is that he was just a politician. Generals are admired even if they lose, if they’re sufficiently badass, but politicians are only respected if they succeed. That’s why people idolize Robert E. Lee, but not Jefferson Davis. Ah, I see you haven’t been to Virginia, specifically to US Route 1, aka [Jefferson Davis Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis_Highway). I used to live a little ways up the hill from part of it. The people in that area then did idolize that bastard. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2015, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/78 "2015-08-11T12:28:23Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Ah, I see you haven’t been to Virginia, specifically to US Route 1, aka [Jefferson Davis Highway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis_Highway). I used to live a little ways up the hill from part of it. The people in that area then did idolize that bastard. True, but my WAG is that Davis fans are much rarer than Lee fans, and probably also more racist. People who admire Lee often conveniently ignore the whole slavery thing; people who admire Davis celebrate it. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/79 "2015-08-12T00:28:47Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Caligula has been rehabilitated. Together with Tiberitus, Claudius, Nero, Domitian. And I suspect Messalina wasn’t all the bad either. Perhaps they did all of them have various faults, it’s hard to know, but their enemies from the senatorial class (and their historians) smeared their name. I don’t see too many monuments dedicated to Caligula. From wiki, I understand that not much is really known about the guy given the tendentiousness of the original source material. That’s different than a rehabilitation in my view. > [@Rune](#): > > And the Nazi slaughter wasn’t nearly as industrial as it has a reputation for. Most people that died in WW-II (being mostly Russians and Ukranians and such - and Germans of course) were shot or died from sickness due to starvation and maltreatment. Uh oh. War crimes are typically treated differently than deaths in battle or deaths from disease for that matter. Murdering 11 million+ civilians, including 2/3 of the continent’s Jewish population tends to give the perps a rep for evil rather than military prowess. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2015, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403/80 "2015-08-12T05:48:38Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > True, but my WAG is that Davis fans are much rarer than Lee fans, and probably also more racist. People who admire Lee often conveniently ignore the whole slavery thing; people who admire Davis celebrate it. Dude, Dude, Dude. In that area it’s almost as bad as it is in certain parts of Richmond, Virginia. The celebrants celebrate both. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-swastika-evil/727403.md?page=5)