I think similar to another poster in this particular comment chain, I was responding with a chip on my shoulder from the earlier thread. My bad.

I wouldn't disagree with your assessment that that kind of dehumanization is almost a coping necessity for people living through such situations. With the benefit of hindsight, though, I think we should be able to separate ourselves from that same dehumanization. Should the current situation we are living in become more violent, I think practically as well as morally, we'd be better served by keeping it in mind. I will go ahead and seek that book out, though, thank you for the recommendation.

Part of what I like about leftist ideology is that it acknowledges the varying levels of culpability between class actors. I allow myself to hate cops and soldiers in imperialist countries as an institution, but at the end of the day they're victims of capital as well. The 'ideal' solution would be for them to recognize that, take off their uniforms, and join the class struggle. I think that same attitude logically applies to gaspmost werhmacht soldiers too. They weren't all dead eyed automotons of fascism, and truly the greatest tragedy of war is that its usually poor people killing poor people to benefit the rich/elite on both sides. (This is notably not the case in the USSR and the tragedy is more one-sided, but just because one side happens to be fighting for a revolutionary workers state doesn't make the other side being duped by nationalistic and fascist ideology any less tragic.) Of course the soldiers of the USSR and other countries fighting Nazis Germany were justified - I'd never deny that - nor would I deny that modern imperialist forces should be fought with a similar vigor. But to lose the capacity to see them as fellow victims of capitalism reduces our capacity to organize and welcome them as comrades down the line. That's the goal, right? Fight them while we have to so that we can bring about a better world for us all (them included). We're not going to be able to put every single soldier or police officer up against the wall - and I wouldn't want to be part of a movement that aspired to do so. Celebrating and internalizing the dehumanization that's a horrific reflection of necessity from humanity's lowest moment is part of how people slip into that thinking, though,

To be clear: I don't hold the same empathy for the elites/capitalists at all. They have no excuse for weaponizing and exploiting their fellow human beings, and I'm all for crab posting if someone like Trump or Bezos end up coughing their lungs out or about one heads' length shorter.