Perhaps one could say, "It was clear who was right and who was wrong--whichever side you were on, that side was right and the other side was wrong" whichever struggle is being considered. Whichever faction you identified with was right, just like now.
Even just looking at the Cold War period, this still doesn’t quite cover the complexities. There was an entire anti-war movement full of folks who thought the US should pull out of Vietnam without necessarily supporting the other side of that conflict/war.
Thinking of every side as equivalent is to overly simplify history. Many older Germans were scared as fuck by the fascist’s brutal tactics taking over the country. They spent a great deal of effort indoctrinating young people, but used fear to control older age ranges. The country was seriously unpleasant even if you fit their ideals.
It’s not that one side was some paragon of virtue and the other pure evil. Stalin wasn’t a nice fella just because he was fighting Nazi. However, there was significant differences between American interment camps and their German or Japanese equivalents. Given a choice people would definitely chose being in a British POW camp vs a Soviet POW camp.
> simplifying [World War 2] down to right/wrong is too simplistic.
That is some truly incredible mental gymnastics.
Re:WW2 Meteorology
by circlemaker on Friday July 14, 2023 @04:27PM
(#36729463)
It doesn't take mental gymnastics to understand nuance and complexity
I think depended on which side you were on, as it wasn’t always simple. I’m sure many of those on the wrong side didn’t see it how you do.
Follow Russia’s course through the war, or France (keeping in mind that the Vichy existed). There were factions all over the place and simplifying it down to right/wrong is too simplistic.