
It seems uncanny that Adolph Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt overlapped almost perfectly in their tenures as heads of state and that they both died in office, albeit under very different circumstances.
I wonder what a deep and objective analysis of their lives and characters seeking other similarities might find. A superficial analysis would probably conclude that they were both masters of political manipulation, tailoring their messages to their audiences and that they both often presented themselves as men of peace to international audiences to secure treaties, only to break them shortly after.
Interesting.
Of course, an objective analysis of either of them is improbable, especially one concerning Mr. Hitler although, given the changing attitudes towards genocide and ethnic cleansing and lebensraum, and concerning the propriety of violating human rights and of sneak attacks, etc., perhaps I’m mistaken.
I wonder what a human being melded from the two of them might be like? Then again, perhaps one is presently omnipresent and we’ve just failed to identify the components from which he’s composed. What if he exists and was born within a year or so of their deaths?
Hmmmm.
It’s a strange world nowadays although, it probably always has been. Truth has always been in the eye of the beholder, especially myopic beholders with astigmatisms, cataracts, glaucoma and other visual disorders, you know, the kind from which historians and journalists suffer when engaging in their professional duties.
Truth: not only relative but incoherent, as though quanta had something to do with it.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.