Quote:
Originally Posted by todeen
I wanted to buy some Nazi coinage once, and my mother heard about it and gave me a rebuke. I'm a historian, and to me I see a historical artifact. But I passed them up and haven't ever bought any.
I think a similar question to sale of Nazi items is: why are serial killer books and shows so popular? I imagine collecting items of evil and watching items of evil have many similar characteristics.
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I would think they are probably popular because they are exciting, the opposite of the banality of evil if we may keep the comparison; evil at it's most visceral. Many are the most extreme type of mystery, that with the highest stakes and consequences. The element of the unknown, oftentimes in the identity of the killer and in the bizarre compulsions driving the tragic act, certainly seems to appeal to many. I think history shows us that every people in every time and of every faith and of no faith have been fascinated with death, the cost we all eventually must pay to enjoy life. People are interested when they hear something shocking. The vast, vast majority see the villain of the piece as the villain of the piece, and while interested there is no element of support for the actions of that evil. If watching horror movies made one a monster, nobody could still be alive.
I have read true crime books. I see nothing immoral in having done so. I have a large library of history books, almost all of which contain material greatly objectionable to current orthodoxy. Some of them contain Nazi's and their symbols. One of them is about a serial killer in Berlin under the Nazi regime, even. I once had a friend of a friend at a gathering at my place get upset and storm out because of the "Nazi flag" on my living room table, which after investigating what they were on about, turned out to be the book jacket to William Shirer's book I was reading that week (and is very anti-Nazi). I have read Mein Kampf in its entirety. History, genuine inquiry into it, is not the study of things one likes or their party finds amenable to their narrative, as nobody states but most seem to clearly desire. My collection of history cards contains some good and some bad and mostly grey. I will never understand the increasingly popular view that that which is bad or negative in the narrative is offensive, and that that which is offensive needs to be censored, whether formally or informally, kept from public view, or curated out of collections, and only a very ill-defined and constantly shifting world view ever be permissible to seriously engage with, which often includes individuals who did great evil as well but are amenable to the narrative.