Yes I see that but my question is why? I'm not my grandpa. My grandpa crewed bombers in WW2 for America. If it transpired he bombed a hospital full of babies I wouldn't feel the need to prove he was a good guy or something.

More of a question of human psychology than one I expect an easy answer to.

[–] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sorry I was being snarky to the redditor. I didn't mean to be snarky towards you.

It's the cognitive dissonance and/or backfire effect. People hate feeling wrong or evil, and they get emotional and defensive when some facts says "this dude is bad", even if the evidence is quite overwhelming.

I believe that leftists are less prone to this, although not immune. We spent time ridding ourselves of bad ideology that we picked up as kids. Liberals have a lot of cracks in their ideological armour, lots of places they're secretly afraid that they're wrong, but unwilling to admit to themselves.

Edit: what I mean to say is that the idea that this redditor is related to a Nazi, or himself a Nazi, is secretly quite painful to him.

[–] NinaPasadena@hexbear.net 6 points 7 months ago

Ya that makes sense and no worries on the snark. Didn't feel snarked at.

You are right that I think leftists necessarily (in the west atleast) have to unlearn lots of things to become avowed leftists. This means many of us have already done the work of accepting painful history. I know history so the idea that a normal historical person (even one that happens to be related to me) could be evil isn't strange.