“Here’s the thing,” Robinson said. “Whether you’re talking about Adolf Hitler, whether you’re talking about Chairman Mao, whether you’re talking about Stalin, whether you’re talking about Pol Pot, whether you’re talking about Castro in Cuba, or whether you’re talking about a dozen other despots all around the globe, it is time for us to get back and start reading some of those quotes.”
This is the Lieutenant Governor of a state (North Carolina) saying we can get gems from the quotes of genocidal maniacs. This is where we are now.
History books are secondary sources. Which are sufficient for the average person studying history. Perhaps even preferable, since they are written with historical context already supplied, although you do also get the inherent bias of the author.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for primary sources like Mein Kampf. Primary sources are the only thing that tells scholars what was happening in history at any given time, and history books can’t be written without scholars studying primary sources. So should Mein Kampf be required reading for middle schoolers? Of course not, no one is saying that. But it may absolutely be required for, say, a graduate level course in WWII history.
Blacklisting or stigmatizing a text serves no one except those that want others to remain ignorant.
What bias could there be about Hitler? That he was a bad guy? Are you saying it’s wrong to be biased against Hitler?
Historians need to read the primary sources. Like a lot of primary sources. So many primary sources.
But unless you’re an historian writing a paper then it’s not all that useful. Because most people don’t have the time to read so many primary sources to really understand what was happening in a given time period. It’s best to read the summary from historians that can spend many years studying just that one narrow time period. It’s feasible for them to read a broad selection of primary source from that time period. It’s not feasible for most people to do that.
If you’re picking just a few primary sources here and there and thinking you understand what was happening you’re going to have view of history that’s biased by the very small selection of primary sources that you’ve read. Remember that in the past people lied just as often as they do now. If you pick a few primary sources, how do you know if the ones you selected aren’t just straight up lying?
No one is talking about blacklisting anything, but are you really suggesting there is no stigma to Mein Kampf? Really?