Instigator / Pro
16
1500
rating
13
debates
42.31%
won
Topic
#3031

Mein Kampf is the most evil and incoherent book to have ever been written

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
18
Better sources
6
12
Better legibility
5
6
Better conduct
5
3

After 6 votes and with 23 points ahead, the winner is...

Bones
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Two weeks
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Six months
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
39
1763
rating
29
debates
98.28%
won
Description

Is it possible to find another stack of pages filled with more violence, brutality, deceit, falsehoods, and run-on sentences than the "Bible" of Nazi Germany? Count for count, Mein Kampf contains more lies, calls to violence, blatant falsehoods, and incoherency than any other book ever to have been penned by mankind. Or is it possible my opponent can find yet a worse example?

Round 1
Pro
#1
I will try to directly quote as much as possible from either the Michael Ford or Thomas Dalton translations, but in certain cases for the sake of common decency I may paraphrase only. Additionally, I shall replace all the offensive references to "The Jew", etc. with "Jewish people", in an effort to be slightly less offensive, since the book is replete with unnecessarily derogatory synonyms for Jewish people. If I feel it is appropriate, I may occasionally completely censor the word using underscores.

Of course, my opponent is free to quote anything directly themselves if they feel I am misrepresenting or exaggerating something just to score a point.

1. Hatred

It goes without saying that Mein Kampf is seething with hatred. But just how much? Is hatred even quantifiable? Here's a start:

  • Chapter I: "[I had] a profound hatred for the Austrian state."
  • II: "Gradually, I began to hate Jewish people".
  • III: "The longer I stayed in the city, the hotter my hatred burned for [Jewish and Slavic people]".
  • VII: "During those nights, hatred grew — hatred for the Jewish people".
  • XI: "The dislike of the Jewish people gradually rises until it becomes open hatred."
  • XI: "In times of great public distress, we see the hatred and rage against the Jewish people surface."
  • XII: "Hatred is more long lasting than mere dislike."
  • "They must not try to avoid the hatred"
  • "they should embrace that hatred."
  • XIII: "national spirit of ... manly defiance, and wrathful hatred"

2. Violent

  • Chapter II: "[Reading Jewish newspapers] made the blood rush to my head."
  • XI: "The democratic Jewish person, the popular Jewish person, becomes the “Bloody ______ person”"
  • I: "my gift for speaking was developing more or less through violent disputes"
  • II: "I had to fight my most violent battles ... for months [against Jewish people]"
  • V: "The moment there is any hesitation and violence alternates with mercy, the doctrine being overcome will not only recover, but it will gain new value from each following persecution."
  • "The only way to achieve success is through a constant and regular use of violence."
  • "As in everything else, victory is decided in the attack, not with the defense."
  • XII: "The most effective tool for them to use at these times was always terrorism and violence."
  • "Terrorism is not overcome by intellect, but by terrorism."
  • "I took the floor. Within a few minutes, there was a flood of interruptions from shouts and there were violent episodes in the hall."
Violence is a typical side effect of Hitler's speeches, as we shall see.

  • XV: "12,000 or 15,000" Jewish people should have been killed with "poison gas".
  • Volume II Chapter VII: "The best defensive weapon is attack."
  • "our control troops should have the reputation of being a desperately determined fighting fellowship and we were not a debate club. "
  • "Unfortunately, it rained all morning, which made us reasonably afraid that the weather would cause many people to stay at home rather than hurry through rain and snow to a meeting where there might be violence and killings."
Hitler acknowledges that there might be "killings" just because he was giving a speech.

3. Untruthful

  • Chapter III: "The Democracy of the West today is a forerunner of Marxism, and without it, Marxism would be unthinkable. It alone gives this plague the surface on which to grow."
This is a lie because Hitler also says Russia became Marxist despite being a monarchy ruled by a czar.  Both statements cannot be true.

  • Chapter X: "the true principle that within a big lie, a certain fraction of it is always accepted and believed"
Here Hitler is describing how his propaganda operated, on the big lie.

  • Chapter XI:  "[Jewish people are liars] and this is uniquely proven in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”".
But these had been proven to be forgery over a decade before. Hitler is deliberately promoting a false conspiracy theory.

4. Incoherent

  • Chapter XI: He calls Jesus Christ the "Great Founder" of Christianity, completely ignoring the fact that Jesus was Jewish himself.
  • Chapter XI: Hitler says the Protocols prove Jewish people are liars, and the Protocols are proven to be real because Jewish people say they're fake, meaning the Protocols are real because the people saying they're fake are liars, as proven by the Protocols.
I don't know about you, but I am already dizzy from this circular reasoning.

  • Chapter XII: Hitler says Nazism is "by nature and inner organization anti-parliamentarian", yet Nazism was a political party in parliament. This implies Nazism was anti-Nazism, another strike on the incoherency scoreboard.
  • "Terrorism is not overcome by intellect, but by terrorism."
Need I say more?  Almost all of this is just from the first volume (Mein Kampf has 2 volumes). 


Con
#2
Thx Puchu

==

Definitions 

Resolution and win condition

  • RESOLUTION: Mein Kampf is the most evil and incoherent book to have ever been written
    • In order to win my opponent has multiple things they have to do. First, their BoP is to prove that Mein Kampf is the most evil and incoherent book to have ever been written. Proving simply that it is evil alone is not sufficient, likewise proving it is simply incoherent is not sufficient. However, I as CON only needs to prove either or one of these characteristics in order to win. Even I agree that Mein Kampf is the most evil book but show that it isn't the most incoherent, I will have deconstructed my opponents BoP. Moreover, my opponent states that following in the debate description. 
  • MY OPPONENTS STATES: Is it possible to find another stack of pages filled with more violence, brutality, deceit, falsehoods, and run-on sentences than the "Bible" of Nazi Germany? 
    • Challenge accepted. If I can successfully show that there is a book which contains more violence, brutality, deceit, falsehoods or run-on sentences than Mein Kampf, then I will also win this debate. Quite frankly, my opponent has created a huge scope of victory for me, as proving any of these one characteristics will result in a win for me. 
    • INREPRETED RESOLUTION: Mein Kampf is the most evil, incoherent, violent, brutal, deceit and false book written in history. 
I.I Mein Kampf is not the most incoherent book authored in history

I.II The Voynich manuscript is a hand written script and scribed in an unknown and possibly meaningless writing system. The manuscript was studied by cryptographers, including codebreakers from WW I and WW II, all of whom were unable to decipher the text. 

I.III Consider this compared to Mein Kampf. Though Hitler's manifesto is certainty plagued with evil ideas, it expressed in a way that is clear and coherent. Historians reading the book can understand it with reasonable ease, thus it is unreasonable to assert that the book is expressed in a way that is not clear. It is clear, for all purposes and intents. 

I.VI Consider the following syllogism. 

  • p1. The Voynich Manuscript is not understood by historians and not expressed in a way which is clear
  • p2. Mein Kampf is understood by historians and expressed in a way which is clear
  • p3. The Voynich manuscript is more incoherent than Mein Kampf
  • c1. Mein Kampf is not the most incoherent book to have ever been written. 
II.I Mein Kampf is not the most violent book. 

II.II Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is crowned the most violent work of literacy fiction.  The following is the review left by Emily Temple

We are informed, on the book’s very first page, when we have our first glimpse of our protagonist (only a child) that “in him broods already a taste for mindless violence.” The violence to come in this book is indeed mindless (for most), and constant and intense. The kid is violent, and so is the gang he joins, whose members are ostensibly collecting the scalps of Apaches, but are really happy to murder anyone and everyone they encounter, and so, of course, is the terrifying and hairless Judge Holden, the only character whose love for bloodshed is intensified by philosophical surety. “War is at last a forcing of the unity of existence,” he says. “War is god.”
The following is are excerpts of a summary of Hogg, by Samuel R. Delany, also a novel highly regarded for its horrific violence. 


"Hogg also reveals a bit about himself and his personal history, painting a picture of his overall persona, which is one of extreme sociopathy, violence, and sexual sadism"

"During the third rape scene, Denny absconds to the family's kitchen where he decides to pierce his own penis using a nail. Soon Denny's penis begins to bleed, swell and pus, seemingly infected."

"The quintet of rapists set out to complete their jobs, which grow in succession from a single woman, a woman and her wheelchair-bound daughter" 
II.III What about I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison set a post-apocalyptic world, where a sentient and super-intelligent AI spends every second of its existence torturing the last few human survivors, healing them, then torturing them again? Surely that is more disturbing than Mein Kamf?

II.IV My opponent provides some violent scenes from Mein Kampf. For voters, I will put the worst that my opponent has provided next to some passages that I have found. 

  • MEIN KAMPF XII: "The most effective tool for them to use at these times was always terrorism and violence."
    • WIND UP BIRD: “It is a very special knife, designed for skinning, and it is extraordinarily well made. They can take a man’s skin off the way you’d peel a peach. Beautifully, without a single scratch.” 
  • MEIN KAMPF II: "[Reading Jewish newspapers] made the blood rush to my head."
    • HOGG: "Blood shot out of its ears and itslammed to the ground so hard that one of its forelegs broke under it with a dull snap"
      • NOTE: At the time Hogg was written, no one would publish it due to its graphic descriptions of murder, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape.
  • MEIN KAMPF: ""As in everything else, victory is decided in the attack, not with the defence."
    • HOGG: "His neck had been broken and his head hung straight down and it flopped over strangely when they let him onto the ground"
With this highly graphical quotes that I have provided, I am sure that voters can establish which book is more violent. Thus Mein Kampf is not the most violent book to have ever been written in history. 

III.I TO VOTERS: I urge any readers too, for the duration of this reading this debate, seperate Mein Kampf from the Holocaust. As is stated in the resolution, this debate is simply about the "Nazi bible", its "stacks of pages" and the words within. To remove bias, it would be useful to "forget" that Hitler was the author of this book (even Hiter's name is able to make anything attached seem brutal) and view it with an analytical eye. This debate simply concerns the authors ability to create violent and brutal scenes. Imagine that a low profile author has written this and is asking you the question "is this the most violent book to have ever been written in history?". 



Round 2
Pro
#3
My opponent has presented some seemingly convincing arguments, but I will demonstrate that this impression relies mostly on shock value and upon closer examination completely crumbles into nothing.

Incoherency

The Voynich manuscript cannot be an example of incoherency just because we have yet to decode it.  Even my opponent is careful to use the qualifier "possibly" in describing it as "possibly meaningless".  In fact, Wikipedia states that "The structure of these words seems to follow phonological or orthographic laws of some sort."

With one fell swell swoop I have thus obliterated my opponent's entire argument on the point of incoherency, and they have not even dared to touch my own.

Before moving on to the next point I want to emphasize that just because "Mein Kampf is understood by historians and expressed in a way which is clear" does not mean there is no incoherency in it.  It is completely possible that it contains incoherent ideas that are expressed clearly.

Consider this incoherent statement: "I have squared the circle." An incoherent sentence, yet crystal clear!

Violence

This debate is not about the most "perverted" or "disgusting" book, so it is unclear why my opponent has cited so many grotesque quotes.  If we put these aside for the moment (hopefully, forever), there is not much substance to their arguments.

They stated they would "put the worst that my opponent has provided next to some passages that I have found," yet completely ignored the quote about gassing 15,000 Jewish people to death.

Scalping a few people in guerilla warfare is not more violent than mass murder, and keep in mind that in order to be less offensive I did use censoring and paraphrases instead of direct quotes, while my opponent exerted no such efforts.

I assume my opponent has conceded the "Most Hateful" and "Most Untruthful" points.


Con
#4
thx Puachu

==

  • OBSERVATION:
    • My opponent does not rebut the interpreted resolution, thus the resolution of the debate Mein Kampf is the most evil, incoherent, violent, brutal, deceit and false book written in history. 
==

Mein Kampf is not the most incoherent book authored in history

The Voynich manuscript cannot be an example of incoherency just because we have yet to decode it.  Even my opponent is careful to use the qualifier "possibly" in describing it as "possibly meaningless".  In fact, Wikipedia states that "The structure of these words seems to follow phonological or orthographic laws of some sort."

Consider the following from vocabluary.com

(Incoherent) specifically means unintelligible due to a lack of cohesion, or sticking together.
Consider the Oxford languages definition of incoherent 

Incoherent = expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way; unclear.
Thus we can conclude that the terms incoherent and factually incorrect is are not to be conflated. Consider the following syllogism. 

  • p1. The Voynich Manuscript is expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way: unclear. 
  • p2. Mein Kampf is expressed in a  a comprehendible way; clear. 
  • c1. The Voynich Manuscript is more incoherent than Mein Kampf. 
In your response, please directly refer to the above. 

==

Mein Kampf is not the most violent book. 

This debate is not about the most "perverted" or "disgusting" book, 
RECALL: RESOLUTION = Mein Kampf is the most evil, incoherent, violent, brutal, deceit and false book written in history.  

If I can demonstrate that there is any another book written in history which has more violence or brutality than Mein Kampf, I will have deconstructed my opponents BoP. As my opponent has not rebutted the passages that I have provided, they have essentially conceded this point. 

They stated they would "put the worst that my opponent has provided next to some passages that I have found," yet completely ignored the quote about gassing 15,000 Jewish people to death
My opponent makes the mistake of conflating the effects that the book has and the literacy within its pages. In the description, my opponent clearly stated that "Is it possible to find another stack of pages filled with more violence etc" . We are debating about the violence within the page, not the violence it has caused. 

To use an example, if I published a children's book about a yellow duck which for reasons beyond my knowledge, became the bible of psychopaths and sprouted mass killings, the book is not violent, the results are. This difference is not to be conflated. Again, this debate purely concerns the book, not its violent results. 

My opponent seems to have missed what I stated last round 

RECALL: 

III.I TO VOTERS:
 I urge any readers too, for the duration of this reading this debate, seperate Mein Kampf from the Holocaust. As is stated in the resolution, this debate is simply about the "Nazi bible", its "stacks of pages" and the words within. To remove bias, it would be useful to "forget" that Hitler was the author of this book (even Hiter's name is able to make anything attached seem brutal) and view it with an analytical eye. This debate simply concerns the authors ability to create violent and brutal scenes. Imagine that a low profile author has written this and is asking you the question "is this the most violent book to have ever been written in history?". 
Round 3
Pro
#5
Incoherent

My opponent is trying to argue the Voynich Manuscript is incoherent based purely on the fact it's written in an unknown language. 

But by "incoherent" I meant "nonsensical", not merely "difficult to understand".

Violent

"My opponent makes the mistake of conflating the effects that the book has and the literacy within its pages."
This is incorrect.  In Mein Kampf, the author literarally expresses a desire that "15,000" Jewish people were to have been gassed to death.  This can easily be confirmed by finding either of the two English translations I cited in the first sentence of this debate, pressing CTRL and F at the same time, and searching for the word "15,000" which will bring you right to the passage in question.

I do believe that asking voters to "forget" who wrote Mein Kampf becomes counter-productive the more it is insisted upon.

Con
#6
Thx Puachu

==

I.I Mein Kampf is not the most incoherent book authored in history

My opponent is trying to argue the Voynich Manuscript is incoherent based purely on the fact it's written in an unknown language. 
OBSERVTION: My opponent ignores my syllogism. To recall, consider the following. 

  • p1. The Voynich Manuscript is expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way: unclear. 
  • p2. Mein Kampf is expressed in a  a comprehendible way; clear. 
  • c1. The Voynich Manuscript is more incoherent than Mein Kampf. 
Repeating your statement again without rebutting what I actually said will not get you anywhere.

But by "incoherent" I meant "nonsensical", not merely "difficult to understand".
My opponent has attempted to rebut my definition without providing a dictionary to support their claim. Nevertheless the word "nonsensical" is still compatible with my syllogism. 

  • p1. The Voynich Manuscript is having no meaning; making no sense.
  • p2. Mein Kampf is expressed in a which gives it meaning; makes sense. 
  • c1. The Voynich Manuscript is more nonsensical than Mein Kampf. 
Nevertheless, I am sticking with the resolution of the debate. 

RECALL: Mein Kampf is the most evil and incoherent book to have ever been written

  • p1. The Voynich Manuscript is expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way: unclear. 
  • p2. Mein Kampf is expressed in a  a comprehendible way; clear. 
  • c1. The Voynich Manuscript is more incoherent than Mein Kampf. 
The definition I used to define incoherent comes from the Cambridge definition. Unless they can make an argument why a different definition should be used, Cambridge is sufficient. 

==

II.I Mein Kampf is not the most violent book. 

This is incorrect.  In Mein Kampf, the author literarally expresses a desire that "15,000" Jewish people were to have been gassed to death...

...I do believe that asking voters to "forget" who wrote Mein Kampf becomes counter-productive the more it is insisted upon.
I feel like I am repeating myself. 

To use an example, if I published a children's book about a yellow duck which for reasons beyond my knowledge, became the bible of psychopaths and sprouted mass killings, the book is not violent, the results are. This difference is not to be conflated. This debate purely concerns the book, not its violent results. This debate about how violent each passage is, not the effect which the passage had on the real world. I hope you understand the difference. 

There are many reasons why voters should seperate Mein Kampf from it's author. This debate is simply about the literacy, the webbing of words of Mein Kampf. It is about each passage and the contradictions and violence. To add the name Hitler into the mix biases people to think that it must be evil. We must consider the book from an unbiased point of view. Think, if an anonymous author wrote this book, you would think that they are crazy, but you wouldn't call it the most violent book written in history. 

As I have stated, consider a passage from Mein Kampf next to some true literacy violence. 

  • MEIN KAMPF XII: "The most effective tool for them to use at these times was always terrorism and violence."
    • WIND UP BIRD: “It is a very special knife, designed for skinning, and it is extraordinarily well made. They can take a man’s skin off the way you’d peel a peach. Beautifully, without a single scratch.” 
  • MEIN KAMPF II: "[Reading Jewish newspapers] made the blood rush to my head."
    • HOGG: "Blood shot out of its ears and itslammed to the ground so hard that one of its forelegs broke under it with a dull snap"
      • NOTE: At the time Hogg was written, no one would publish it due to its graphic descriptions of murder, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape.
  • MEIN KAMPF: ""As in everything else, victory is decided in the attack, not with the defence."
    • HOGG: "His neck had been broken and his head hung straight down and it flopped over strangely when they let him onto the ground"




Round 4
Pro
#7
If you, the voter, accept the weak definition of "incoherent" that my opponent put forward earlier ("unclear"), then you can skip the rest of this debate and just cast a vote in their favor.

But by "incoherent" I mean literally "senseless".  This is the colloquial definition of the word, dictionaries be damned.  As an English speaker I can confirm nobody would ever call someone "incoherent" just because they didn't understand what they said (I recommend a helmet with a visor for any trailblazers).  This word is so strong it is reserved for when you have judged someone's statements to be either devoid of logic, or worse, cannot even be parsed as anything beyond a meaningless sequence of words or other utterances, and carries the implication that the accused is either stupid, drunk, or in some other confused state of mind.

Since the Voynich Manuscript is written in an unknown language or code, no judgement whatsoever can be made regarding its coherency, until it is decoded.

My opponent provided this syllogism:

p1. The Voynich Manuscript is having no meaning; making no sense.
p2. Mein Kampf is expressed in a which gives it meaning; makes sense.
c1. The Voynich Manuscript is more nonsensical than Mein Kampf.
The first premise (p1) is unfounded.  My opponent does not even know what the Voynich Manuscript says, so how can they judge it as "making no sense"?

This debate purely concerns the book, not its violent results.
I've never spoken of any result of Mein Kampf, violent or otherwise.  In fact I tried to clear up my opponent's confusion on this point last round, so what we have here is a case of my opponent beating on a dead horse.

Even I were to concede that the 3 quotes from my opponent are more violent than the corresponding ones they matched up against from Mein Kampf, the quote about killing 15,000 people still remains unaddressed. 

A passage about killing 15,000 people is more violent than a passage about skinning a hypothetical man, or a passage about the gorey death of one animal or person.


Con
#8
OPPONENTS CONCESSION: 

If you, the voter, accept the weak definition of "incoherent" that my opponent put forward earlier ("unclear"), then you can skip the rest of this debate and just cast a vote in their favor.
I'll explain why this is a concession. My opponent has essentially stated that "I'm not convinced, but if you are, vote for CON". This reflects two things. 

  1. My opponent does not have a rebuttal for my syllogism. 
  2. The choice is now on voters.
Through this statement, my opponent is trying to draw the potential voters opinion into the debate. However, debates are not about the voters opinion. They are not about whether voters can see holes in the arguments presented. Debates are about an interaction of two individuals, with voters voting on on what they believe is correct, but who displayed better debating techniques. Thus, my opponent saying "if you accept the weak definition ... vote in their favour", this should not be an invitation for voters to think "well I have X stance on this topic so even if CON debated better, I'll vote for PRO since they invited me to do so". My opponent has resorted to asking rhetorically for the voters help. To better demonstrate the trap that my opponent has fallen into, consider the following. 

I am currently participating in an abortion debate. Assume that I am truly stumped by my opponents argument. Would it be wise to say "If you, the voter, accept the weak argument presented by CON, then just vote for them"? Of course not. Asking if the voters will accept the argument is very different from asking who debated better. If this were the case, then I could simply pull this "what's your opinion" trick and get all the pro-lifers to vote for me. However, this is not how debates work. Clearly, If I am able to put my opponent in a situation in which they do not reply to my argument, but ask if the voters are convinced, the only logical thing to do is to vote CON. 

==

Nevertheless, all this hypothetical talk about how my argument is inaccurate is false. My opponent continually makes the complaint that I use a "weak definition". However, you will find that the dictionary I use is none other than the Cambridge Dictionary, thus allegations that I am building my argument on shaky grounds are unfounded. 

the quote about killing 15,000 people still remains unaddressed. 
Volume of death does not equate to level of violence. Nevertheless, consider the starwars book series, one of which involves Alderaan, a planet with a population of 2 billion (95% human) being blown into a ball of fire. If you wish to make this a battle of who has more deaths, than there you go. 

Nevertheless, though I provide this statistic, I personally do not think it is important. In a book, saying "and a million people died"  is not as violent as "blood shot out of its ears and its lammed to the ground so hard that one of its forelegs broke under it with a dull snap". Violence is literacy does not necessary mean violence in quantity. Otherwise, I could go onto a word doc and type "infinity people died" and be crowned the authors of the most violent passage. 
Round 5
Pro
#9
What can I say?  I agree with everything my opponent just said.  As much as I would like to take a last stand and fight to the bitter end (these tend to encourage more interesting RFDs than just "full concession"), my opponent has exploited my failure to use precise definitions from the start., and I can't come up with any further arguments that wouldn't scream of absolute desperation.  I find myself in a hole from which I cannot escape, and I must concede the win to Con.
Con
#10
I agree with everything my opponent just said...

and I must concede the win to Con.
I thank my opponent for their concession and a good debate. 

VOTE CON