Understanding is not endorsing: the Darryl Cooper history debate

The Short Version

Darryl Cooper's defense of his method is that you can't learn from history until you understand, from the inside, why its actors did what they did. "Understanding brings you right up to the brink of empathy," he says, and people mistake that for justification [1]. Historian Vejas Liulevicius doesn't reject that method. He uses a version of it himself, studying leaders' formative experiences and "horizon of expectation." But he calls Cooper's claims about World War II "a bunch of absurdity," because they leave Nazi ideology out of the explanation and misplace when the mass killing began [2]. Dave Smith defends Cooper as a storyteller whose empathy runs in every direction, including toward Jews and Israelis [3]. Michael Malice, who doesn't discuss Cooper directly, adds a boundary from a different angle: the Holocaust is singular, and cheapening it through comparison is its own kind of distortion [4]. Put together, the line between explaining and excusing falls in a clear place. Explaining means taking people's circumstances and beliefs seriously, including their ideology. It turns into excusing when context is used to make the ideology, or the intent behind an atrocity, disappear.

Table of contents

What They Said

Darryl Cooper: you can't record until you can stand in their shoes

Cooper, creator of the long-form history podcast Martyr Made, came on Joe Rogan's show just after his interview with Tucker Carlson set off accusations that he is an antisemite and a Nazi apologist [1]. Rogan opened by defending him. He called Martyr Made one of the very best long-form history podcasts, and said anyone who listens to the first hour of Cooper's Israel-Palestine series, Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, would see its author is not antisemitic [1]. Rogan also criticized a culture that reduces people to the worst reading of a single tweet: "The problem with calling everything racist and everything anti-Semitic when it's clearly not is that you diminish what that word means" [1].

Cooper's rule is simple: he doesn't record until he can put himself in the shoes of the people he is covering [1]. He argues that understanding, even of monsters, is good for individuals and for society. Taking the wrong lessons from events has real consequences. His example: the government read Jonestown as a case of waiting too long, and that reading shaped its aggressive approach at Waco [1]. His most provocative illustration is Uday Hussein, who was once a three-year-old who did not choose to be born into a world where his father reportedly brought him to watch torture sessions [1]. "Understanding brings you right up to the brink of empathy," he says, and people who see that mistake it for justification [1].

Rogan points out that this approach is accepted for Jonestown but raises red flags around World War II, where nuance disappears [1]. Cooper's Jonestown work shows what the method produces. Having listened to roughly a thousand hours of recordings recovered from Jonestown, he says he genuinely sympathizes with its members [1]. People get sucked into cults, he argues, "because their virtues get hijacked" [1]. Jim Jones founded a fully integrated church in Indianapolis around 1953, pressured businesses to desegregate, adopted a Black child and faced threats from the KKK: "if Jim Jones would have gotten hit by a bus in 1962 he would 100% be remembered today as like an early hero the civil rights movement" [1]. Cooper explains why about 75% of those who died were Black. He imagines an elderly woman who left Jim Crow Alabama, was widowed and isolated in a decaying Oakland neighborhood, and found a real family in the Temple [1]. None of this excuses the massacre, and Cooper also documents Jones's decade on amphetamines. What it does is make the members recognizable as people [1].

He applies the same method to Hitler, and this is where the controversy lives. Using Mein Kampf, read with a grain of salt, he traces Hitler's antisemitism to his time in Vienna. A middle-class boy from a small town with little awareness of Jews became destitute there, was shocked by the German underclass and came to blame Jews for its degradation [1]. Cooper suggests this antisemitism is what allowed Hitler to keep loving the German people, and that according to people who knew him it was largely abstract before World War I [1]. He then describes the trauma of that war: men who spent their formative years in trenches with dead friends rotting beside them, followed by the collapse of every government east of Germany and years of militias fighting in the streets [1]. Europeans, he argues, took the lesson that violence accomplishes goals and that the world will eventually accept the result. He cites Roosevelt normalizing relations with Stalin in 1933 despite the Ukrainian famine, and the world moving past the Armenian genocide [1]. He notes that Kristallnacht in 1938 provoked outrage in German cities, with Hitler telling Goebbels to stop because it was bad propaganda. For Cooper this is a reminder that Germans did not become demons for twelve years [1].

On the specific Tucker claims, Cooper admits he could have been clearer. He says he was partly needling Jocko Willink about Winston Churchill [1]. He is critical of what he sees as Churchill's role in turning the German invasion of Poland into a world war [1]. He argues that many critics effectively believe 40 million deaths were a price worth paying rather than any chance of de-escalation, a view he calls insane [1]. When Rogan asks whether that holds before or after the Holocaust began, Cooper clarifies that his points concerned the period a year before the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, where most of Europe's Jews lived [1].

He also lays out the limits of his own knowledge. Historical sources come from a tiny literate, adult, male, upper-class slice of society [1]. He reads only English, so his early Israel-Palestine research leaned on Zionist perspectives [1]. Objectivity isn't really achievable, he says: "the goals should be understanding" with humility [1]. His first outline for that series, written after about six books, turned out to be embarrassingly wrong once he had read 20 or 30 [1]. And he insists he is a storyteller rather than a historian [1]. He argues that making people radioactive for asking questions backfires. A young person who sees children pulled from rubble in Gaza, asks a sincere question and gets shouted down tends to wonder why, rather than stop asking [1].

Vejas Liulevicius: context yes, but not without the ideology

Liulevicius is a historian of Germany and Eastern Europe who lectures on the rise and fall of communism [2]. Lex Fridman puts Cooper's claims to him as they circulated: that Churchill was the chief villain of World War II, pushing Hitler to expand the war beyond Poland, and that the killing of Jews, Poles, Slavs and Roma in camps was essentially a byproduct of war [2]. Liulevicius calls it "a bunch of absurdity," serious in its implications [2].

His rebuttal has three parts. First, ideology: Nazi ideology looked toward world domination, and analyzing Hitler without his ideology, as described in Mein Kampf, is doomed [2]. Second, timing: mass killing began with the invasion of Poland, through Operation Tannenberg and the Einsatzgruppen, before the invasion of the Soviet Union [2]. That matters because Cooper framed his comments around the period before June 1941 [1]. Third, intent: drawing on his book The German Myth of the East, Liulevicius explains that the Nazis took the most dehumanizing stereotypes about Eastern Europe and made them dominant [2]. He describes the Generalplan Ost, with its highways to Crimea and German settlements across Ukraine, and Himmler's phrase that some Slavs would remain as "slaves for our culture" [2]. He also describes Hitler and Himmler's vision of a permanent war that moved the border east every generation, alongside purges of Germans deemed unfit, including people with disabilities [2]. On this account the killing was the plan, not a side effect of fighting.

What's striking is how much of Cooper's method Liulevicius shares. He says the key to understanding a leader is their prior background and formative influences: "the more one understands about their prior background and formative influences, the better a fix" you get on their expectations [2]. He uses the German idea of the horizon of expectation and applies it to exactly the figures in dispute: "in the case of figures like Churchill or Hitler, their experience of World War I shape their actions in World War II, their values were shaped in their childhood" [2]. He sees long causal threads between the wars too. Germany "between the wars, was full of people who were convinced that Germany had actually not lost the war," and "World War I and World War II have a lot of linkages like that" [2]. His general approach to regimes is openly anthropological: "take very seriously those people who avow that they are communist," and then "you have to say, well, let's look at the details" [2].

So the two historians agree that World War I trauma formed Hitler and that understanding formation matters [1][2]. The disagreement is over what gets included. Liulevicius insists that taking a regime seriously means taking its stated ideology seriously, and that the ideology is where the explanation for the killing lies [2].

His broader lessons from the century's ideological catastrophes fit the debate. He warns about the danger of certainty and the borrowed prestige of science [2]. He describes Hannah Arendt's point that totalitarianism is defined by its ambition for total control: "It was the ambition" [2]. And he says science's essence is "questing, not certainty" [2]. He shows how ideology and power can reinforce each other. He calls the question of whether Stalin believed in communism or merely used it a possibly false dichotomy, and he finds the idea that the two fed each other very scary [2]. His advice for young people is to read, because sustained reading builds empathy and protects against manipulators [2].

Fridman adds a steelman that Liulevicius accepts. The oversimplified Hitler template has been abused by warmongers to justify new wars, and both men agree that nuance, not oversimplification, is needed [2]. Fridman also notes that a Nazi victory over the Soviet Union, or Nazi atomic weapons, would have been far worse than what happened [2].

Dave Smith: empathy that runs in every direction

Dave Smith, a comedian and libertarian commentator who says he promoted Cooper's podcast early, argues the backlash misread him [3]. Cooper's remark that Churchill was in some ways the villain of the war was, Smith argues, framed as a provocation to a friend. It meant only that Churchill turned a smaller conflict into a larger bloodbath, not that he committed the worst atrocities [3]. He issued what he calls a "non woke challenge" to critic Constantin Kisin: listen to half an hour of Cooper's Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem on Jewish suffering and say whether a Jew-hating Nazi sympathizer could have made it [3]. The smear campaign failed, Smith and Rogan note, and only sent Cooper up the charts [3].

Smith, who is Jewish, gives the strongest evidence for Cooper's claim that understanding isn't taking sides. Cooper's series actually made Smith more sympathetic to Israelis, because it put the Nakba in the context of 1947 [3]. That was two years after firebombings, atomic bombs, the Holocaust and Stalin's mass expulsions of ethnic Germans [3]. He recounts that Zionist militias like the Irgun openly debated and embraced terrorism against the British, while Chaim Weizmann argued that "we can't achieve a Jewish state by un-Jewish means" [3]. Smith still considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians inexcusable and favors a two-state solution and ending US funding, but he values understanding the human beings on each side [3].

He supplies a psychological tool for understanding without excusing. He points to the scene in Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon's character chooses the wrench, just to spite his abuser, to explain why people act in ways that look irrational from outside [3]. The same logic, he says, explains angry young men told for years that their masculinity is toxic, and the rise of the Nazis after the humiliation of Versailles [3]. That's an explanation for a pattern of behavior, and Smith doesn't treat it as a moral defense.

He and Rogan also argue that suppressing debate creates a "third rail" that makes people more suspicious, feeding the very antisemitism it is supposed to prevent [3]. Smith says antisemitism is clearly real and has exploded since the Gaza war [3].

Michael Malice: the Holocaust is singular, and people are fragile

Malice, an anarchist author whose parents escaped the Soviet Union, is not discussing Cooper, but he addresses how history gets told and what the Holocaust should teach [4]. He objects to cheapening the Holocaust through comparisons, whether in debates about Israel or in calling George Soros a Holocaust survivor to shield him from criticism [4]. "The Holocaust as a historical event and the atrocities within it are just singular in history. And so comparing them, what's the utility?" he asks, and on using the term as a rhetorical brand, "I think it's shameless. And I think it's gross" [4]. For Malice, the Holocaust's lesson is how extreme things can get and how fast [4].

His view of human nature explains why that lesson matters. "I always say they're basically animals," he says, with most people "almost fundamentally deranged" beneath a veneer of civilization [4]. Lex disagrees and argues that the desire for good outweighs tribal hatred. Malice grants that humans are capable of profound goodness but thinks it is the exception [4]. He also says antisemitism differs from other bigotries because it openly calls for killing Jews, and that has actually happened through centuries of pogroms and the Holocaust [4]. His remedy for bigotry is what he calls an "ambassador program": knowing someone makes bigotry much harder [4].

On historians, Malice praises writers who turn data into something that reads like a novel, and names Arthur Herman, Victor Sebestyen, David Pietrusza and Ron Chernow [4]. He relied on Anne Applebaum's Soviet histories for his book The White Pill while noting she is controversial [4]. Lex admires Serhii Plokhy for writing about Russia and Ukraine with calm rigor despite strong feelings [4]. Malice also warns against a style of argument common in these fights: "If you've proven that someone else is stupid, that doesn't mean you're smart" [4].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Agreement that formation explains behavior. Cooper traces Hitler through Vienna and the trenches [1]. Liulevicius says Churchill's and Hitler's World War I experience shaped their actions in World War II and that their values were shaped in childhood [2]. Smith uses the humiliation of Versailles to explain the Nazis' rise [3]. No one here argues that understanding a perpetrator's background is itself wrong.

Agreement that nuance matters and oversimplification can be abused. Fridman and Liulevicius agree the simplified Hitler template has been used to justify new wars [2]. Cooper worries that critics treat 40 million deaths as a price worth paying rather than consider de-escalation [1]. Smith and Rogan argue that shutting down questions makes people more suspicious [3], echoing Cooper's point about young people shouted down for sincere questions [1].

Agreement on humility. Cooper admits his sources are narrow and his early outlines were wrong [1]. Liulevicius says science's essence is questing, not certainty, and warns against total confidence [2]. Malice says it's fine to admit you don't know something and ask to hear more [4].

The core disagreement: what the context is allowed to replace. Cooper's critics, as Fridman summarizes them to Liulevicius, heard him say the camp killings were a byproduct of war and that Churchill was the chief villain [2]. Liulevicius rejects both. The ideology aimed at world domination, the killing began in Poland in 1939, and plans like Generalplan Ost show intent [2]. Cooper's own clarification limits his claims to the period before June 1941 and to Churchill's role in widening the war [1]. Smith says the Churchill line was a provocation that meant only that Churchill turned a smaller conflict into a larger bloodbath [3]. Liulevicius's point about Operation Tannenberg and the Einsatzgruppen cuts directly against that framing, because mass killing was already underway in the earlier period Cooper singled out [2].

Why each side holds its view. Cooper and Smith are reacting to a culture they see as punishing questions and flattening history into good versus evil, which they believe produces bad policy and more hatred [1][3]. Liulevicius is reacting to the opposite risk. If you explain Hitler without his ideology, you end up treating deliberate extermination as circumstance, which is a factual error with serious implications [2]. Malice's concern is a third one: that the Holocaust's singularity gets diluted when it becomes a rhetorical weapon [4].

A difference in role. Cooper and Smith both stress that Cooper is a storyteller, not a historian [1][3]. Liulevicius speaks as a specialist whose book is on exactly the Nazi vision of the East [2]. That difference helps explain the clash. Cooper sets out to recreate how events felt to the people in them, while Liulevicius holds the account to what the documents show.

Human nature. Cooper's view is that people's virtues get hijacked [1], and Malice's is that most people are animals under a thin veneer [4]. They reach the same practical conclusion by different routes: ordinary people can be led into atrocity, so atrocity can't be explained by monsters alone [1][4].

Why It Works

Why does understanding help, and where does it tip into excuse? The sources suggest several mechanisms.

Wrong lessons produce real harm. Cooper's Jonestown-to-Waco example shows that misreading one event can shape the next one badly [1]. Fridman's steelman that the Hitler template has been used to sell new wars is the same mechanism on a larger scale [2].

Explanation needs all the causes, including belief. Liulevicius's method of looking at formative experiences and taking avowed beliefs seriously [2] captures both circumstance and ideology. His warning that analyzing Hitler without his ideology is doomed [2] identifies how explanation fails. When circumstance crowds out belief, deliberate policy starts to look like accident.

Ideology and power reinforce each other. Liulevicius's point about Stalin, that belief and the lust for power may feed each other [2], explains why "he was just reacting to events" is rarely the whole story. It also explains why absolute certainty, with no transcendent limit left, produced repression [2].

Virtues and grievances can be hijacked. Cooper's line that people's virtues get hijacked [1] and Smith's wrench example [3] show how good impulses or wounded pride become fuel for movements. Understanding this helps prevent it. Excusing it would mean treating the grievance as a license.

Suppression breeds suspicion. Cooper says shouting down sincere questions makes people wonder why [1]. Smith and Rogan say treating a topic as a third rail feeds the antisemitism it's meant to prevent [3]. Rogan argues that overusing labels drains them of meaning [1].

Singular events lose force when used as brands. Malice argues that loose Holocaust comparisons trade on the event's weight while emptying it [4]. The same mechanism works in reverse. Minimizing the Holocaust as a byproduct of war also empties it, which is why Liulevicius treats that claim as serious [2].

Reading and knowing people build empathy. Liulevicius says sustained reading builds empathy and protects against manipulation [2]. Malice says knowing someone makes bigotry harder [4]. Cooper's listeners describe the same effect: an Israeli soldier who changed how he treats Palestinians, and a young Palestinian woman who realized a Jewish girl in Tel Aviv might be just like her [1].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

The "understanding is not endorsing" principle applies well to ordinary people caught up in movements, such as Jonestown members [1], German citizens [1], Irgun fighters and Palestinians [3]. It also applies to the formation of leaders [1][2], and to any case where the lessons we draw will shape future policy [1][2].

It stops applying when understanding is used to swap out the documented facts. Cooper's own rule is to understand how actions made sense to people in their own time [1]. Liulevicius shows that for the Nazis, what made sense to them included an ideology of domination and extermination that was stated openly and acted on from 1939 [2]. Understanding them means understanding that. It also doesn't apply as a shield for loose comparisons, as Malice notes [4]. And the principle is weakest when the storyteller's sources are narrow. Cooper admits he reads only English and once leaned on one side's perspectives [1], which is a reason to check an empathetic narrative against specialist scholarship like Liulevicius's [2].

Finally, the sources disagree about how much of the backlash was fair. Rogan and Smith see a smear [1][3]. Liulevicius sees serious factual errors whatever the intent [2]. Both can be true: someone can be neither an antisemite nor right about the history.

What To Do With It

1. Try Cooper's test before judging historical actors. Ask how their actions made sense to them in their own time, and don't stop until you can answer [1]. Then remember that understanding brings you "to the brink of empathy," not past it [1].

2. Include the ideology in the explanation. Follow Liulevicius: take seriously what people and regimes say they believe, then look at the details of what they did [2]. An account of Hitler that leaves out Mein Kampf's worldview is, in his word, doomed [2].

3. Check the timeline and the sources. When a claim hinges on a period, such as "before June 1941," verify what was already happening then. Liulevicius points to Operation Tannenberg and the Einsatzgruppen in Poland [2]. Specialist documents like Generalplan Ost are the test of intent [2].

4. Separate the storyteller from the historian. Enjoy narrative history for what it does well, but know its limits. Cooper himself says his sources are narrow and he is a storyteller [1][3]. Read a specialist alongside it [2].

5. Separate the person from the claim. Smith's challenge to listen to Cooper's work on Jewish suffering before calling him a Nazi sympathizer is a fair test of motive [3]. It doesn't settle whether his World War II claims are accurate [2].

6. Don't use atrocities as rhetorical weapons. Avoid loose Holocaust comparisons, which Malice calls shameless [4], and avoid reflexive labels, which Rogan says dilute the words' meaning [1]. Keep in mind that the Hitler template can be abused to sell wars [2].

7. Respond to sincere questions with evidence, not exile. Shutting people down makes them more curious and more suspicious [1][3]. Offer the documents and the specialists instead [2].

8. Extend understanding in every direction. Apply the same empathy to all sides of a conflict, as Smith says Cooper's Israel series did for him [3]. And meet the people you're tempted to caricature, since knowing someone makes bigotry harder [4].

9. Read deeply and hold conclusions humbly. Read full books rather than summaries [2], and be ready to find your first outline embarrassingly wrong after the twentieth book, as Cooper did [1].

Sources

1. Darryl Cooper · The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Vejas Liulevicius: Communism, Marxism, Nazism, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler · Lex Fridman Podcast
3. 2299 - Dave Smith · The Joe Rogan Experience
4. Thanksgiving Pirate Special · Lex Fridman Podcast