Maintaining a spirit of compassion and forgiveness in your thinking, even in the face of a monster, is positive. Wagging your finger and wrinkling your nose at the distaste that those who aren’t so forgiving of his absolutely horrific misdeeds is not. It pretends to be magnanimous while actually sniping at people who have good reason to be at peace with this man’s suffering.
I would argue that extending humanity to those who are less than perfect in their response to these horrors should be a higher priority than making sure nobody says anything nasty about someone as destructive as this particular individual.
I don’t agree with your assessment that I’m not “extending humanity to those who are less than perfect in their response.” It’s fine to want the guy out of office ASAP because he’s terrible. My point was simply that if one wants to maintain their own humanity, one should not celebrate the ailments of their enemies. Or, as Nietzsche said: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Calling their humanity into question when they see the downfall of someone who’s oppressed them and are glad of it isn’t exactly an action rooted in empathy and understanding. Is it?
Of course overly indulging the ugly parts of ourselves can have disastrous consequences, but do you think it’s more ‘human’ to deny the very real justice people feel when they see powerful and malicious people fall?
Personally, I think a big part of having humanity for ourselves and one another is not beating ourselves up for being human. We have to have compassion for ourselves and for others who suffer as well as for our enemies. To me, that extends to not shitting on their revelry when Dorothy drops a house on somebody.
