The Nazis had a black-and-white ideological viewpoint and seemed to believe themselves to be heroes fighting to save their people from evil Jews and their brainwashed minions. Do you see why those narratives are so dangerous now?
"What a pity Bilbo did not stab the vile creature, when he had a chance!
Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.
I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.
Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."
-The Two Towers
To be sure, there are situations where there is some genuinely complicated moral situation. But that doesn't mean we have to pretend to be moral morons and sagely nod our heads and say "Yes, but Nazis thought they were right too, hmm, hmm."
The problem, of course, is that belief. It’s catastrophically wrong. And it’s the sort of thing that black and white good vs evil thinking can lead you towards.
We can simultaneously say “the Nazis thought they were good” and “the Nazis were profoundly evil.” We can acknowledge the relativity of perspective without needing to apply a relativity of good and evil.
A necessary element of true goodness is a willingness to consider new ideas, a constant reevaluation of one’s beliefs, and an acknowledgment that the world is complicated and messy. Someone who does these things can justifiably conclude that they’re good and the other guys are evil, but you have to maintain that openness and reevaluation or you can slide into Good vs Evil where you can see no wrong on your own side, and that leads to disaster.
Normative language used as shorthand for current consensus for whether the conflict was justified given the likely alternative outcomes for not engaging.
is learning and changing hypocrisy?
Only when they are "narratives". When they are caution stories from historical facts we want to avoid repiting then they are not so stigmatising but a warnins.
Nobody should trow that storises again and again and some behaviour schamas should be always avoided. Unluckily that stories need to be reminded from time to time.
Even better: people should not only know about WWII-nazi-communism works but should know broad historical contects - what bring that evilness to Earth: communistic imperialism wanting to take over globe and using Germany poor situation (eg. sponsoring nazi party) after WWI to make attempt at concuering Europe (first).
Or maybe it was just another part of "Great Game" and reaults with using new technologies are worse and worse...