Sunday, May 13, 2007

Joe Hitler

Let's say one's name was Joe Hitler. It could be short for Josephine or Joseph either way you were born with the surname Hitler. Exactly like the infamous madman. What would you do if you were in such a situation? Would you live with the name, abbreviating it to "H" like some Kafkaesque character, changing it to something explosive like Joe Dynamite, or would you do something to completely change the meaning of the name forever? Let's say you chose this option and cured cancer...why then there would be a Hitler University, Hitler Prizes, Hitler Streets, Hitler Day, all named after you, with the unfortunate last name also being shared by a genocidal maniac. Despite this it would be like the bastard had won the War, so much bearing his last name. Now his reputation would remain, so I guess your actions would never be able to totally cleanse the name, but you could make it worthy of being filled out in full on a sticker with a permanent marker at some convention or other. You would never be refered to as "the" Hitler, but you would open the door for other people to take up the name and do things with it, you would free the whole family from the burden of Adolf's legacy.

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