Indeed- or that the concept is a little more nuanced and when it comes to understanding history vs. Memorizing it, we have to step away from some concept that nations are a singular entity that is binary good or bad.
The larger lesson is often that it only takes a few bad individuals and then those who allow it to end up on the wrong side of history.
What we are almost always looking at in history is self interest. People are trying to survive and trying to have comfort and wealth and happiness and control to maintain those things.
How far someone will go and over what- killing thousands to end a war that could kill millions isn’t morally clear cut but all but the staunchest pacifists would likely say it is not as “bad” as starting a genocide so that a handful of officials can keep their positions in the next elections.
No single person in known history acts exclusively for the good of others and even at that a persons ideas on morality and what is good for others may seem horribly evil to others. Few atrocities in history weren’t committed by people who considered themselves “the good guys” or making sacrifices for a “greater good.” I am not excusing or sympathizing with perpetrators of such acts, but it is true that simple survival is a weighing of lives and suffering. To eat and to drink and to even have the most basic of needs met means that a human being must cause suffering or death. Weighed against the millions or billions of micro organisms in a drink or water or against the life of a bird or a plant most humans will place ours or our peoples lives above that other life.
When we start getting into human interactions- where one group has a hunting ground or living space that provides for their people and another group wants to share those resources- the first group may aggressively assert their “ownership” over those resources. The second group, in absence of other options, might then aggressive attempt to to take control.
If there is one well in the desert and it can only provide water for 100 a day, if two groups of 100 both live there… no matter what someone dies. If each group sacrifices 50 of their own to share the well, 100 people die, people who likely did not want to die. If the groups war for the well, at least 100 people most likely die, but either group in theory has a better chance of each individual member of that group keeping their life. Who lives is not based on some lottery or group decision concerning the value of each member etc. it is decided by one’s ability and deeds in a person to person contest of wills and fighting potential.
If one group seeks to take another’s freedom or some other ideological battle begins, that is another case that isn’t strictly always based in survival but where men will often fight to the bitter end to ensure that the world left to the survivors is the sort of world they’d want to live in. The USA like many countries has at times done awful things. Sometimes with the intention of protecting and sometimes misguided or malicious reasons. A government is made of people and what is done by a government isn’t always a reflection of that nation but a reflection of certain powerful persons using their positions and power not for the government or people but to shape a world to their individual will.
So we can’t always label the actions of a larger entirely as it’s actions because we have to remember that these things aren’t living entities. “The market is unforgiving..” there is no stock market. It isn’t a person or an organization or an AI or a bull that lives in a skyscraper. It’s the collective will and actions of those controlling it. It’s a system governed by the rules set in place for it.
It’s people. Sometimes when a nation does horrible things the majority of its people know and support those things. Other times they tacitly supported it. In other cases the people of the nation at large are just as upset at that horrible thing done in their name and don’t want to be a part of such actions.
So there are layers and complications and considerations. Life isn’t a cartoon and seldom are countries ran by a single person or directly controlled by the people. That doesn’t mean people don’t have indirect culpability at times in things or that we can pin any wrong on the abstract concept of government or a few bad eggs- but at the very least the concept of “bad guys” comes down to specific situations and contexts. Or we could argue that no government and no group formed for the self interest of people and likely no people are truly “good guys.” There are our intentions and our means. What we are trying to do and why and how we do it.
The larger lesson is often that it only takes a few bad individuals and then those who allow it to end up on the wrong side of history.
What we are almost always looking at in history is self interest. People are trying to survive and trying to have comfort and wealth and happiness and control to maintain those things.
How far someone will go and over what- killing thousands to end a war that could kill millions isn’t morally clear cut but all but the staunchest pacifists would likely say it is not as “bad” as starting a genocide so that a handful of officials can keep their positions in the next elections.
If there is one well in the desert and it can only provide water for 100 a day, if two groups of 100 both live there… no matter what someone dies. If each group sacrifices 50 of their own to share the well, 100 people die, people who likely did not want to die. If the groups war for the well, at least 100 people most likely die, but either group in theory has a better chance of each individual member of that group keeping their life. Who lives is not based on some lottery or group decision concerning the value of each member etc. it is decided by one’s ability and deeds in a person to person contest of wills and fighting potential.
It’s people. Sometimes when a nation does horrible things the majority of its people know and support those things. Other times they tacitly supported it. In other cases the people of the nation at large are just as upset at that horrible thing done in their name and don’t want to be a part of such actions.