At a party last weekend, I ran into an old colleague from my Philosophy teaching days. It was fun to reminisce about students and colleagues, or the courses we taught 20 years ago when he had just joined the faculty.

He told me that he used to use me as a kind of foil back then whenever students would complain about some of the more socially sensitive topics in his curriculum; in one of his courses that touches on sexuality he includes some writings of the Marquis de Sade, but there is always at least one student who questions the morality of teaching such ‘deviant’ topics — usually with a lot of alarm.

So he would respond, “well, one of my colleagues teaches ‘Mein Kampf’ – what do you think of that!”

Yes, in my Social and Political Thought course, as part of a survey of historically significant political writings I used to have students read excerpts from ‘Mein Kampf’, as well as Mussolini’s ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’, and Lenin, and Mao — all the big political ‘baddies’ of the 20th century. At least from the dominant perspective in Western democracies.

My understanding is that today, in the current academic and social climate, teaching these texts as a primary source would no longer be allowed. Mussolini, maybe, but certainly not Hitler.

I understand why; the ideas expressed in ‘Mein Kampf’ are disgusting, and to cover those ideas with sympathy and openness — as good philosophy demands — runs the risk of legitimizing or validating them.

What seems to be main concern, however, is that the damage done by Hitler’s words and actions continues persist to this day and is keenly felt by certain communities; we don’t need to wade through them again. A reasonable question is: what’s the point if reviewing these ideas benefits no-one, and potentially harms others?

So, if the ideas are so bad (in all senses), why cover them at all? My first response is that they are a significant part of our shared history. These ideas, as dumb as some of them are, directly shaped the world for the better part of a century, resulted in the slaughter of millions of innocent people, and continue to have reverberations nearly 100 years on.

I think it’s also important to note that Hitler’s ideas and reasoning are bad and demonstrably, even laughably, so. The premises are based on completely made-up and disprovable assertions, and the logic is just embarrassing. It’s a terrible book, and a frank and I am assured that open conversation about the ideas he shares can only result in their dismissal.

Furthermore, we all know ideas that are taboo become attractive. There seems to be a growing cohort today, most of whom lack the means to insulate themselves from hateful rhetoric, drawn to Hitler’s ideas and are eager put them in to action. If the rest of us are too scared to explore the foundations of intolerance and totalitarianism, we will be unequipped to confront those who rely on those foundations.

I would much rather expose young minds to bad ideas in a controlled, critical environment, than have these ideas discovered and promoted uncritically. Especially now in 2023 — when many of the world’s democracies are slipping toward populism and totalitarianism, and open support for Hitler’s ridiculous but dangerous ideas have been resurfacing — we need to provide critical tools that shine light on such ideas to expose them for what they are: juvenile, misguided, and ignorant.

I agree that we need to be intolerant of ideas that promote violence or harm to any group; but we should know why. If we don’t understand why the ideas are bad, we are less capable as a society to identify how and why those ideas form and take root .

All of this being said, if ever I am in a situation where I am being directed to not teach ‘Mein Kampf’, I would not fight it very hard. I’d express my concerns similar to the above, but I wouldn’t die on that hill. Hitler’s ideas generally aren’t misunderstood; his words and actions were clearly hateful, the damage done by them has been so horrifying it’s difficult to put into words. So they don’t really need to be trotted out regularly to be gawked at.

But the fact that we are seeing a growing number people readily admitting to being fascist and frankly opining that Hitler was misunderstood and ought to be a subject of sympathy makes it pretty clear that we, as a society, need to do a better job of fighting these ideas directly. We can’t do that without understanding the ideas themselves.