Wednesday, January 29, 2003 :::
 

Not so great dictators..
I like this from markshea.blogspot.com.

.....you find contemparies like Tolkien referring to Hitler as "that ruddy little ignoramus" and that "ignorant cad". He is, for the generation that defeated him, but a puny little humbug.

But as the Holocaust and the full depth of Hitler's evil has taken root in the imagination of passing generations, something has happened that is
not altogether healthy, I think. He has acquired the status of an evil demigod. Attempts to humanize him, that is, to remind us that he sprang from the stock of Adam, and not from the pit of hell, are now condemned as attempts to make him a sympathetic figure.

Reminds me of C.S. Lewis's advice about the devil:

• There are two equal and opposite errors into which
  our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve
  in their existence. The other is to believe, and to
  feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.
  They themselves are equally pleased by both errors
  and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
  

::: posted by Joel at 1:14 PM