This text is related to my initial op-ed in the course ‘Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking’ from Harvard University on edX.
Hitler is Not Yet Over!
Which of us has not, at least once, heard about humanity’s wars over a supreme god? Which of us is unfamiliar with the painful and horrifying narratives of the Holocaust? Can we truly claim that the Hitler crisis is over?
I don’t believe that Hitler or his bloodthirsty predecessors, like Genghis Khan, are truly gone. Perhaps they’ve been tucked away in the lines of history books, but they’re still very much alive. Their worldview—one that drives people to build their material lives on an immaterial foundation—remains awake and alert. Does it matter what this foundation is? Is there any real difference between considering yourself superior due to your race or due to your religion? When these ideas encourage you to build walls between yourself and others, when they convince you that you belong to a higher realm, is there any difference between a devout Muslim and a Nazi? What truly distinguishes Hitler’s atrocities from the brutal massacres committed by Muslims against Christians?
My concern here is not about giving a historical lecture. I am not here to recount the bloody history of our world. I am here to reflect on the terrifying impact of the immaterial on the material world.
As humans, there are some things over which we have no control. We cannot choose our race, language, country, or religion at birth. These are all borrowed and intangible traits. But let’s take a brief journey through history: can you name a war that was not fought over one of these very things?
The problem with humanity is that we cannot live without meaning, for we are inherently in need of it. But the meanings we seek—and often derive from the immaterial world—sink so deeply into us that they distort our way of living, turning us into separate beings. Jews believe they are the chosen people, Arabs think they are the superior nation, Persian speakers claim they have the finest language, and white people believe they have the most noble race and skin color. But can we, as humans, truly be separated by such things?
With all this in mind, I present my argument in the following succinct form: I firmly believe that many of humanity’s crises stem from metaphysical beliefs and the neglect of the material reality of human existence. Sartre, as an existentialist, argued that humans are free to seek their own meaning. However, when this meaning is imposed from an external and especially immaterial source, it leads to a form of alienation. The deeper one sinks into this alienation, the less they can experience the authentic freedom of their own self. This freedom is what humanity truly needs today. Escaping the mire of immaterial ideologies will not only reduce crises but, with a materialistic perspective, likely encourage us to focus on the social and economic development of our societies.
Focusing on the material world and recognizing human beings as equals, without placing value on immaterial concepts like race or religion, is the path to overcoming humanity’s crises. Instead of enslaving ourselves to ideologies that arise from the immaterial, we should pay attention to material reality and our shared human needs. This return to the material can rebuild human relationships and help reduce conflicts and discrimination.
I will repeat once again: Hitler is still alive, Genghis Khan still breathes, and Attila the Hun, the Scourge of God, still swings his whip across the heavens. Unless we decide to finally and truly rid ourselves of these monstrous forces once and for all.