Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, but His Attitudes on Race and Sex Are Under Scrutiny(npr.org)
npr.org
Gandhi Is Deeply Revered, but His Attitudes on Race and Sex Are Under Scrutiny
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/02/766083651/gandhi-is-deeply-revered-but-his-attitudes-on-race-and-sex-are-under-scrutiny
73 comments
This recent trend of taking down past figures because they do not meet current criteria for acceptable behavior in society is disturbing. It's like people are trying to erase lessons from the past.
Their failings don't remove their achievements.
In the case of Gandhi it's not just the current criteria. Even during his time people saw him as a shitty person. It's good that we stop worshiping great men.
Rabindranath Tagore saw him as a nihilist with fierce joy of annihilation. Many Dalits (untouchables) saw Gandhi as the enemy. While he worked alongside them in some aspects, he was patronizing towards them. Ambedkar said that Gandhi did not deserve to be called mahatma.
Gandhi was monster towards his family. He denied education for his family and tried to force his sons to celibacy. He was against giving his wife penicillin to safe her life for religious reasons and she died. When he himself became a sick soon after, taking quinine was suddenly OK.
Gandhi was a fanatical opponent of sex for pleasure. But just because he didn't do intercourse didn't mean he was not sexually active. For all his celibacy, he had a harem of teenage girls who fought hysterically for the opportunity to sleep naked with him and hold him. Those same girls also gave him his daily enema. He was in today's terminology into 'assplay' and practiced erotic sexual denial with underage girls.
In the case of Gandhi it's not just the current criteria. Even during his time people saw him as a shitty person. It's good that we stop worshiping great men.
Rabindranath Tagore saw him as a nihilist with fierce joy of annihilation. Many Dalits (untouchables) saw Gandhi as the enemy. While he worked alongside them in some aspects, he was patronizing towards them. Ambedkar said that Gandhi did not deserve to be called mahatma.
Gandhi was monster towards his family. He denied education for his family and tried to force his sons to celibacy. He was against giving his wife penicillin to safe her life for religious reasons and she died. When he himself became a sick soon after, taking quinine was suddenly OK.
Gandhi was a fanatical opponent of sex for pleasure. But just because he didn't do intercourse didn't mean he was not sexually active. For all his celibacy, he had a harem of teenage girls who fought hysterically for the opportunity to sleep naked with him and hold him. Those same girls also gave him his daily enema. He was in today's terminology into 'assplay' and practiced erotic sexual denial with underage girls.
>He was against giving his wife penicillin to safe her life for religious reasons and she died.
This is one of those debunked smears that instantly disqualifies whatever else the speaker says. We're talking Elders-of-Zion level smear.
(This is where somebody will post as a source the Commentary article from 1983, where the author hears this from somebody at a cocktail party who heard it from someone else.)
This is one of those debunked smears that instantly disqualifies whatever else the speaker says. We're talking Elders-of-Zion level smear.
(This is where somebody will post as a source the Commentary article from 1983, where the author hears this from somebody at a cocktail party who heard it from someone else.)
This is one of the TILs that I could gladly have skipped.
I mean, sometimes you'd rather have a wrong, but more peaceful picture of the world, than live with the impression that literally everyone out has a very dark side to them...
I mean, sometimes you'd rather have a wrong, but more peaceful picture of the world, than live with the impression that literally everyone out has a very dark side to them...
Luckily, none of it is true. Or at least a gross exaggeration. As one example, yes, many untouchables didn't support him (there were 300 million people living in India then), but many more did.
Ignorance is bliss. If you want to be an adult, you must take the red pill.
You can't weigh person by subtracting the negative from positive. Gandhi was still a great man despite his failings.
You can't weigh person by subtracting the negative from positive. Gandhi was still a great man despite his failings.
Not specific to Gandhi, but I prefer to accept the fact that bad people can accomplish good things worth remembering. And that's OK.
And equally, good people can be vilified for choosing the best of two bad options.
Also, we put too much blind faith in historians.
And equally, good people can be vilified for choosing the best of two bad options.
Also, we put too much blind faith in historians.
Sad but true. Enough internet for today I think...
citation needed
Well you could read up on Ambdekar, or on Gandhi's hunger strike against untouchable representation. Or his documented letters promoting segregation, also between Indians and Africans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar
Gandhi already didn't meet the criteria for acceptable behavior during his lifetime though. It's just that people didn't know.
Such a person is always a person of extremes. The past just allowed for things to be hidden more then they can be now.
> Gandhi already didn't meet the criteria for acceptable behavior during his lifetime though.
That is always a matter of context. If you ask the British at the time no aspect of his met the criteria of acceptable behavior.
> Gandhi already didn't meet the criteria for acceptable behavior during his lifetime though.
That is always a matter of context. If you ask the British at the time no aspect of his met the criteria of acceptable behavior.
Speaking of the British, it is funny how Indians question Gandhi's legacy based on his personal life and contrast it to the English people who voted Sir Winston Churchill number one in 100 greatest Britons.
I could name a few influential persons of the previous century on spot who were not persons of extremes in the Ghandi sense.
Exactly. Else we might as well consider anyone who ever said anything more than ten years most likely a bigot, sexist and generally horrible....which with todays context is probably accurate.
Perhaps that also says something interesting about today's mores, unless one thinks we have already achieved perfection.
This is hardly recent. I remember hearing this exact conversation about Gandhi at least 25 years ago.
For the things he is applauded for he should be applauded for and remembered. His life holds valuable lessons for everyone.
For those things that are not applaud worthy, taking those aspects into focus only serves to dismiss the good parts.
No one is perfect in all aspects.
For those things that are not applaud worthy, taking those aspects into focus only serves to dismiss the good parts.
No one is perfect in all aspects.
> His life holds valuable lessons for everyone.
Completely agree with this. All of his life holds valuable lessons for everyone. The good and the bad.
I don't think it's healthy to treat someone's bad sides as forbidden topics that should not be discussed because the good sides need to be preserved.
Completely agree with this. All of his life holds valuable lessons for everyone. The good and the bad.
I don't think it's healthy to treat someone's bad sides as forbidden topics that should not be discussed because the good sides need to be preserved.
>I don't think it's healthy to treat someone's bad sides as forbidden topics that should not be discussed because the good sides need to be preserved.
Except this doesn't happen in isolation. Every has their own agenda and bias. For example with Gandhi, his fiercest critics are among the Right Wing Hindu Supremacists, who see Gandhi as a traitor to his people. They blame Gandhi for allowing the Partition to happen, and agitating to give Pakistan a fair share of resources. They blame him for the death of Bhagat Singh and the other militant nationalists. The criticisms go on.
In India, you will rarely find the sort of fair discussion about historic personalities. People strongly identify with these heroes, and to cast any aspersions is tantamount to insulting their cultural identity. Try and have a balanced discussion about Ambedkar, and you'll find yourself in jail for a hatecrime.
Except this doesn't happen in isolation. Every has their own agenda and bias. For example with Gandhi, his fiercest critics are among the Right Wing Hindu Supremacists, who see Gandhi as a traitor to his people. They blame Gandhi for allowing the Partition to happen, and agitating to give Pakistan a fair share of resources. They blame him for the death of Bhagat Singh and the other militant nationalists. The criticisms go on.
In India, you will rarely find the sort of fair discussion about historic personalities. People strongly identify with these heroes, and to cast any aspersions is tantamount to insulting their cultural identity. Try and have a balanced discussion about Ambedkar, and you'll find yourself in jail for a hatecrime.
I think we currently are in a phase of moral panic again and that always involves finding flaws in others to push off some of the guilt. The more these flaws are contrasted by otherwise noble achievements, the better.
Yeah some of his earlier stuff was never very PC eg.
>At a speech in Mumbai in 1896, Gandhi said that the Europeans in Natal wished “to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”
>At a speech in Mumbai in 1896, Gandhi said that the Europeans in Natal wished “to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”
And it’s a trend now to highlight those aspects/speeches and not highlight the change in his beliefs and maturity- essentially Gandhi is a story of someone who overthrew the stereotypes of race shackling his mind.
But if you present only the first part of the story though, it’s easy to diminish him as racist.
But if you present only the first part of the story though, it’s easy to diminish him as racist.
he said that in his twenties, when he was loyal servant to the british crown. Freedom movement, ahimsa, indepedence etc all came later. Much, much later.
There are lot to hold Gandhi accountable for - things he believed and did after he became the mahatma/saint. His own fundamentalist believes (religious and other unscientific irrational backward believes), his tolerance of islamic fundamentalism even when it was killing thousands for restoring the caliphate that British eliminated post WW1(for the sake of unity against british), his actions that worsened the hindu-muslim relations that resulted in even more riots and deaths, him considering and treating his wife as his personal property and denying her life saving meds due to his belliefs in quack science, his belief in the caste system (even though he fought for the rights of the lower castes, he believed in the varna system and held on to the theory that it's misused), how he acted like a dictator and sidelined anyone who didn't toe his line, his irrational believes in life after death resulting in misplaced advices on taking ones on life when faced with genocide/murder (he gave the same advice to jews facing nazis and the poor hindus facing mass murder in noakhali - apparently non violence is so important, even self defense should not be), his decisions (such as quit india movement) that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of poor indian nationalists while he just watched away unmoved with their deaths/suffering - many more. I would start with Ambedkar's writings/exchanges on/with Gandhi to get details.
As an Indian, he is no saint to me, but I see why people consider him one. Having said that, it's beyond laughable to condemn him for what he said in his twenties when he was loyal servant to the british and compare that to what he became later.
There are lot to hold Gandhi accountable for - things he believed and did after he became the mahatma/saint. His own fundamentalist believes (religious and other unscientific irrational backward believes), his tolerance of islamic fundamentalism even when it was killing thousands for restoring the caliphate that British eliminated post WW1(for the sake of unity against british), his actions that worsened the hindu-muslim relations that resulted in even more riots and deaths, him considering and treating his wife as his personal property and denying her life saving meds due to his belliefs in quack science, his belief in the caste system (even though he fought for the rights of the lower castes, he believed in the varna system and held on to the theory that it's misused), how he acted like a dictator and sidelined anyone who didn't toe his line, his irrational believes in life after death resulting in misplaced advices on taking ones on life when faced with genocide/murder (he gave the same advice to jews facing nazis and the poor hindus facing mass murder in noakhali - apparently non violence is so important, even self defense should not be), his decisions (such as quit india movement) that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of poor indian nationalists while he just watched away unmoved with their deaths/suffering - many more. I would start with Ambedkar's writings/exchanges on/with Gandhi to get details.
As an Indian, he is no saint to me, but I see why people consider him one. Having said that, it's beyond laughable to condemn him for what he said in his twenties when he was loyal servant to the british and compare that to what he became later.
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What's the difference between discussing and 'taking down'? Is there any way to talk about this without disturbing you, or would you rather that this topic not be discussed at all?
Well, they literally took down a statue of Gandhi. I wonder if we just won't be able to have statues any more? Or, we can only have statues of people whose lives are largely inscrutable or unknown to the public.
The University of Ghana removed a statue of Gandhi last year, that had been there since 2016, after several professors petitioned for its removal. Is this the takedown you are referring to, that makes you fear about all statues in general?
Why would you represent my viewpoint as a fear about statues futures, unless you were intentionally trying to misrepresent my point in order to make your own point. Do you honestly think I am fearful about the future of statues?
I must have misunderstood you then, sorry. Can you explain better what you meant by "I wonder if we just won't be able to have statues any more?", if it was not fretting over the future of statues?
I'd rather live in a world with meaningful public discussion of controversial topics than a world with statues, if that's really the choice we face.
You don't think those statues catalyse the discussion?
No - they tend to catalyze a different discussion about the statues themselves, they encourage emotionally entrenched positions (the whole point of a statue is to stir up emotion), and they do nothing for discussion about the people or events without a statue.
I think that’s debatable. I don’t think you can reasonably argue that constructive discussion can’t be had in the presence of statues. I also think people are going to be emotional when discussing controversial historical figures whether the statues are there or not.
We laude past figures with our current criteria for acceptable behavior. Why not criticize?
There's a difference between giving past figures a pass for horrible things, and invalidating them via nit-picking.
Life is not black and white, so wanting to see saints instead of flawed humans who made the world a bit or a lot better is probably not a great approach. Everybody will have some flaw if you look hard enough. People can also change. Maybe they would have benefited from growing up in a different environment. Breaking out of the way everybody around you thinks is hard enough in one area.
Judging someone as a whole is pretty tricky, too. Generally this is left to deities. Is it possible to celebrate the good things someone has done without it being a full endorsement of everything they ever did and said?
Life is not black and white, so wanting to see saints instead of flawed humans who made the world a bit or a lot better is probably not a great approach. Everybody will have some flaw if you look hard enough. People can also change. Maybe they would have benefited from growing up in a different environment. Breaking out of the way everybody around you thinks is hard enough in one area.
Judging someone as a whole is pretty tricky, too. Generally this is left to deities. Is it possible to celebrate the good things someone has done without it being a full endorsement of everything they ever did and said?
Is it possible to celebrate the good things someone has done without it being a full endorsement of everything they ever did and said?
I guess that depends if you're the injured party. If not, that might make criticisms seem "nit-picking".
I guess that depends if you're the injured party. If not, that might make criticisms seem "nit-picking".
The good parts and bad parts matter because of their contrast with the prevailing mores of their time.
to be unhappy that all of their views were not ahead of their time is to fail them for not being a moral singularity.
Such criticism is illogical, as it’s imposing an unfair and unreachable standard on all people.
to be unhappy that all of their views were not ahead of their time is to fail them for not being a moral singularity.
Such criticism is illogical, as it’s imposing an unfair and unreachable standard on all people.
That is a very interesting way to look at this, one I hadn’t yet considered.
Because we laud them for their undeniable achievements.
Criticizing with current criteria of acceptable behavior is just an ad hominem.
Criticizing with current criteria of acceptable behavior is just an ad hominem.
It's a seldom-acknowledged fact but ad hominems run both ways.
If saying that he can't have been that good for his bad actions is an ad hominem, then saying he can't have been that bad for his good actions is surely also an ad hominem.
For however we define good and bad.
If saying that he can't have been that good for his bad actions is an ad hominem, then saying he can't have been that bad for his good actions is surely also an ad hominem.
For however we define good and bad.
I think it's quite healthy to be able to discuss say, a person's legacy, from different angles rather than restrict discussion to only the good parts.
Christopher Hitchen's reporting on Mother Teresa comes to mind.
We laud past figures for their achievements in past.
I would argue both lauding and condemning are problematic practices in most cases.
My history professor in college used to cite the old adage that 'the past is a different country', meaning that one shouldn't pass judgment on the practices of the past just as one wouldn't pass judgment on foreign customs. From a practical standpoint, withholding value judgment is part of intellectual diligence - it allows us to draw interpretations of history and people that don't play on our inner biases. That attitude has tangible benefits for ordinary people in a pluralistic democracy as much as it has for academics - it forces us to dissect the sources of opinions we don't necessarily respect as well as the ones we cherish most, and that dissection is key to understanding (and hopefully solving) the root causes of social problems. Having no one above reproach or below respect - or more simply, having no heroes and no villains - makes us a more mature society.
From a more theoretical standpoint, Edward Carr wrote a famous essay in 1961 (http://abuss.narod.ru/Biblio/eng/carr.pdf) that demonstrates that the most significant work of historians is, like modern scientists, model-building: historians generate narratives about the past, linking this causative factor to this specific result, just as modern scientists construct hypotheses by turning correlated phenomena and causative mechanism. Unlike the physical sciences, however, history, does not have the benefit of falsificiationism or Bayesian confidence - because you can't repeat or vary the same historical incident in controlled conditions, you can never "prove" a narrative incorrect or increase your trust in a historical narrative's prediction the more times it agrees with the facts. Consequently, any historical conclusion we make is always an interpretation of, and not a reliable insight into, how humans and societies behave.
The somewhat upsetting conclusion from this walk down the foundations of historiography is that you can never have historically-vindicated criteria for acceptable or unacceptable behaviour - any criteria we adopt now can't point to a historical narrative for validity, and must seek more robust epistemological foundations (controlled experiments, metastudies, etc.). Until you have such criteria, both lauding and criticizing would, at least to me, rest on unjustifiable beliefs.
(Examples of behaviour criteria that relies on historical narrative for validity and thus shouldn't be applied as value judgments per the chain above: "Treat group X as evil, because group X did so-and-so in the past and we're better than that." or, equivalently, "Advocating for democracy is good behaviour because it directly led to improvements in quality of living in all the Western countries that had it.". These are not my beliefs, mind - just examples of beliefs that rest on historical foundations.)
tl;dr value judgments can't use history as a valid justification because of how history is actually practiced, so applying judgments that do use such justification is iffy. Also, trying to avoid value judgments makes us better at understanding how systems interact, which (hopefully) makes us better at solving social problems.
My history professor in college used to cite the old adage that 'the past is a different country', meaning that one shouldn't pass judgment on the practices of the past just as one wouldn't pass judgment on foreign customs. From a practical standpoint, withholding value judgment is part of intellectual diligence - it allows us to draw interpretations of history and people that don't play on our inner biases. That attitude has tangible benefits for ordinary people in a pluralistic democracy as much as it has for academics - it forces us to dissect the sources of opinions we don't necessarily respect as well as the ones we cherish most, and that dissection is key to understanding (and hopefully solving) the root causes of social problems. Having no one above reproach or below respect - or more simply, having no heroes and no villains - makes us a more mature society.
From a more theoretical standpoint, Edward Carr wrote a famous essay in 1961 (http://abuss.narod.ru/Biblio/eng/carr.pdf) that demonstrates that the most significant work of historians is, like modern scientists, model-building: historians generate narratives about the past, linking this causative factor to this specific result, just as modern scientists construct hypotheses by turning correlated phenomena and causative mechanism. Unlike the physical sciences, however, history, does not have the benefit of falsificiationism or Bayesian confidence - because you can't repeat or vary the same historical incident in controlled conditions, you can never "prove" a narrative incorrect or increase your trust in a historical narrative's prediction the more times it agrees with the facts. Consequently, any historical conclusion we make is always an interpretation of, and not a reliable insight into, how humans and societies behave.
The somewhat upsetting conclusion from this walk down the foundations of historiography is that you can never have historically-vindicated criteria for acceptable or unacceptable behaviour - any criteria we adopt now can't point to a historical narrative for validity, and must seek more robust epistemological foundations (controlled experiments, metastudies, etc.). Until you have such criteria, both lauding and criticizing would, at least to me, rest on unjustifiable beliefs.
(Examples of behaviour criteria that relies on historical narrative for validity and thus shouldn't be applied as value judgments per the chain above: "Treat group X as evil, because group X did so-and-so in the past and we're better than that." or, equivalently, "Advocating for democracy is good behaviour because it directly led to improvements in quality of living in all the Western countries that had it.". These are not my beliefs, mind - just examples of beliefs that rest on historical foundations.)
tl;dr value judgments can't use history as a valid justification because of how history is actually practiced, so applying judgments that do use such justification is iffy. Also, trying to avoid value judgments makes us better at understanding how systems interact, which (hopefully) makes us better at solving social problems.
LP Harley wrote "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” at the beginning of his novel 'The Go-Between' with a brilliant film version in 1971.
I personally believe that bringing revered heroes back down to earth is beneficial in the long the run. This humanizes them and hopefully will make the common folk realize that whatever they achieved, they can also achieve. And if more people will have that mindset, I think human progress will accelerate.
I don't see anything disturbing there. In fact, having double standards is far more disturbing to me, a mindset which can allow a lot of self-justifiable amoral behavior.
Historical figures are what they are - part of history, nobody is/should be changing that. But if one wants to look up to somebody these days, have them as some sort of role model, well then they better be up to current (and ideally even future) standards.
This way, life and morals are relatively simple, pure and hard to bend. Which might not serve some types of personalities very well, but that's another topic and frankly their own (self) fight
Historical figures are what they are - part of history, nobody is/should be changing that. But if one wants to look up to somebody these days, have them as some sort of role model, well then they better be up to current (and ideally even future) standards.
This way, life and morals are relatively simple, pure and hard to bend. Which might not serve some types of personalities very well, but that's another topic and frankly their own (self) fight
> But if one wants to look up to somebody these days, have them as some sort of role model, well then they better be up to current (and ideally even future) standards.
Unless the person looking for a role model is insane, they will look at the parts of the person that they admire to emulate. Not every aspect and behavioral trait.
Unless the person looking for a role model is insane, they will look at the parts of the person that they admire to emulate. Not every aspect and behavioral trait.
I've been rewatching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air recently, and from some of the protagonist's behaviour and script, I'm surprised Will Smith hasn't yet drawn the ire of the perpetually offended. Of course, we know that moral standards aren't applied equally…
Martin Luther argued for the holocaust after starting the reformation.
Nelson Mandela was involved in the terror attacks that burned political enemies alive.
Abraham Lincoln despised the black population (certainly moreso than Robert E Lee) and argued against any steps toward social or civic equality.
Nelson Mandela was involved in the terror attacks that burned political enemies alive.
Abraham Lincoln despised the black population (certainly moreso than Robert E Lee) and argued against any steps toward social or civic equality.
Fairly rubbish article. It didn't go in depth about any such allegations. Yes, Gandhi in his earlier years would have been a racist by today's standards. And he did evolve as his views on humanity evolved.
This is a far better article on his "racism" https://m.telegraphindia.com/opinion/how-gandhi-shed-his-rac...
This is a far better article on his "racism" https://m.telegraphindia.com/opinion/how-gandhi-shed-his-rac...
If anyone is looking to understand more about the Gandhi phenomenon, I recently read (and highly recommend) Arundhati Roy's meticulously referenced introduction to "Annihilation of Caste". She does a terrific job of identifying the motivations of Gandhi and his supporters
https://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Caste-Annotated-B-R-Ambe...
https://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Caste-Annotated-B-R-Ambe...
Kind of amusing that Gandhi was attacked from the establishment, imperialist side by Churchill, and is now under attack from the opposite side. Poor Gandhi can't win.
somehow i feel it's the same side. The "establishment" uses whatever is the trendy means. He is a human, not a saint. It's good that people point out stupid things he believed in/did/said - it only humanizes Gandhi.
Can we not be allowed to have heroes without someone mentioning that they go to the toilet the same as us?
Of course. Does all heroes need to be saints? I think not.
I notice this also. I wonder whether it's part of the general policy that seems to be prevalent of keeping the public in an ongoing state of confusion.
>Poor Gandhi can't win
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/10-11/30/enacted
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/10-11/30/enacted
I don't know enough about Gandhi's views on race to comment here, but his views on sex have to be seen in the context of the Indian society at that time.
This historical revisionism is so absurd. It expects people to be isolated from their social context.
This historical revisionism is so absurd. It expects people to be isolated from their social context.
Worth reading:
The Gandhi Nobody Knows
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-gandhi-nobod...
The Gandhi Nobody Knows
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-gandhi-nobod...
I highly recommend Joseph Lelyveld's book[0] to anyone interested in reading a generally unbiased biography of Gandhi.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soul:_Mahatma_Gandhi_and...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soul:_Mahatma_Gandhi_and...
I would actually hold him up as an example of how to move from being racist to becoming a fighter against racism.
either way his development of non-violent resistance is still invaluable
either way his development of non-violent resistance is still invaluable
Revolutionaries are ordinary human beings with real character flaws and struggles. A lot of them have been people looking for redemtion or with nothing left to lose.
As with many historical figures, I feel we need to separate the person from their legacy & achievements more. Yes Gandhi was a dick, but the fight for a free India and the end of the caste system seems a good cause to me.
That doesn't mean it was 'all worth it' or 'ok, beacuse...'; it means the person and the effects they had on the world are not the same thing. A terrible person can do good & a good person can commit heinous acts.
The other way around the ridiculousness is more obvious: The nazis fixed the German economy and saved the country from collapse; so the whole genocide and war thing are no longer relevant?
That doesn't mean it was 'all worth it' or 'ok, beacuse...'; it means the person and the effects they had on the world are not the same thing. A terrible person can do good & a good person can commit heinous acts.
The other way around the ridiculousness is more obvious: The nazis fixed the German economy and saved the country from collapse; so the whole genocide and war thing are no longer relevant?
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