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Help[Opinions] Ha, you mentioned it!
in reply to a message by Tippins
Joseph!
I've been worried about it for a long, long time. I think I even wrote once about my problem with the large number of jerks named Joseph - McCarthy, Göbbels, Stalin... Many names are as popular as Joseph, but not every of them has such a list of people I, um, dislike.
Joseph is a name a name many Nazis had. It is also one of the most Jewish-considered names in Russia.
(Much OT, but I find that important, when it comes to discussing "Nazi" names, too.)
Being honest, I am tired of the whole Nazi-issue. It seems to be that people associate everything bad with Nazism and think of it as it was a fairy tale gotten real for a few seconds and then disappeared – they’re scared of it, but see only a few of its many attitudes.
By thinking about Nazism as kind of evil force and so getting far away from even trying to understand it’s causes, we lose the possibility to notice anything that could end up with Nazism in today's world, because as everything evil and “not quite real”, Nazism is in the past. Mm, how to explain… Why do people like watching photos where something horrible happens? Right, because a photo is always past and you can’t do anything to change the situation in it. You just watch and feel sorry that happened – that’s even nice because you don’t need to take any responsibility. The same thing is with Nazism.
And, by associating Nazism with Hitler, swastika, solider uniforms, and German language you forget the idea that was behind it - and, again, you will not see Nazi attitudes in today's world. And, this is a question that has always interested me - if there weren't any concentration camps, would people still think Nazis are bad? That bad? They were actually near to sterilize Jews instead of killing them. Would everyone consider Nazis better if they just sterilized them?
I find that very scaring. Nazism is much more than Holocaust and Hitler. And by underlining those things we get more and more far away from recognizing Nazism, and it will have the new chance to come. It is not about Hitler (and not even Himmler, who I find much worse than Hitler), it is about the people who are ready to support him.
I've been worried about it for a long, long time. I think I even wrote once about my problem with the large number of jerks named Joseph - McCarthy, Göbbels, Stalin... Many names are as popular as Joseph, but not every of them has such a list of people I, um, dislike.
Joseph is a name a name many Nazis had. It is also one of the most Jewish-considered names in Russia.
(Much OT, but I find that important, when it comes to discussing "Nazi" names, too.)
Being honest, I am tired of the whole Nazi-issue. It seems to be that people associate everything bad with Nazism and think of it as it was a fairy tale gotten real for a few seconds and then disappeared – they’re scared of it, but see only a few of its many attitudes.
By thinking about Nazism as kind of evil force and so getting far away from even trying to understand it’s causes, we lose the possibility to notice anything that could end up with Nazism in today's world, because as everything evil and “not quite real”, Nazism is in the past. Mm, how to explain… Why do people like watching photos where something horrible happens? Right, because a photo is always past and you can’t do anything to change the situation in it. You just watch and feel sorry that happened – that’s even nice because you don’t need to take any responsibility. The same thing is with Nazism.
And, by associating Nazism with Hitler, swastika, solider uniforms, and German language you forget the idea that was behind it - and, again, you will not see Nazi attitudes in today's world. And, this is a question that has always interested me - if there weren't any concentration camps, would people still think Nazis are bad? That bad? They were actually near to sterilize Jews instead of killing them. Would everyone consider Nazis better if they just sterilized them?
I find that very scaring. Nazism is much more than Holocaust and Hitler. And by underlining those things we get more and more far away from recognizing Nazism, and it will have the new chance to come. It is not about Hitler (and not even Himmler, who I find much worse than Hitler), it is about the people who are ready to support him.
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Replies
It's very strange about Joseph. It's my dad's name and his dad's name, and I've always been "meh it is nice sounding" towards it - and suddenly icky Goebbels makes it simply poisonous. You are right though, thinking about it - I think Stalin and McCarthy have built it up in my subconscious as being kind of poisonous.
I am really interested by what you are saying. By associating Naziism with the symbols and not the emotions we forget that it could happen to us. The symptoms are a lot easier to avoid than the reality. This idea has been slowly crystallizing in me especially over the course of this semester. (Something about obsessively studying genaeology while feeling totally removed from the Nazis strikes me as a bit poisonous. I don't quite know what I mean but it happens to a lot of people.) There is an entire basic mentality that is important to overcome before distancing ourselves completely from the Nazis. You are entirely right that it's not about Hitler. It's about the people who voted for him. Hitler's soul is not a very interesting soul. It is nasty but I can't imagine it was -- or is -- entirely unique. My professor has mentioned several times how odd he finds the Hitler cult. And people in my class still ask these very strange and not very relevant questions - strange specificities of Hitler's life, where would the Americans fall in the Nazi racial hierarchy, what exactly do all of those symbols on that Chart Of Acceptable Or Not Acceptable Jewishness mean. (My professor does not like those questions very much.)
I don't know. It's very strange. The question you raise is very interesting. Now that you raise it, I do not think people would think Nazis were as bad. They would be racist and awful, as well as a frightening dictatorial regime, but of course there would be a couple people who would give them credit for lifting Germany from the depression or whatever, and the taboos around it would not be nearly as great. What if there weren't concentration camps, just the mass killings of Ukranians and things that happened as the Nazis stomped through Europe? or the killing of retarded children? or mass sterilization, like you said?
I am really interested by what you are saying. By associating Naziism with the symbols and not the emotions we forget that it could happen to us. The symptoms are a lot easier to avoid than the reality. This idea has been slowly crystallizing in me especially over the course of this semester. (Something about obsessively studying genaeology while feeling totally removed from the Nazis strikes me as a bit poisonous. I don't quite know what I mean but it happens to a lot of people.) There is an entire basic mentality that is important to overcome before distancing ourselves completely from the Nazis. You are entirely right that it's not about Hitler. It's about the people who voted for him. Hitler's soul is not a very interesting soul. It is nasty but I can't imagine it was -- or is -- entirely unique. My professor has mentioned several times how odd he finds the Hitler cult. And people in my class still ask these very strange and not very relevant questions - strange specificities of Hitler's life, where would the Americans fall in the Nazi racial hierarchy, what exactly do all of those symbols on that Chart Of Acceptable Or Not Acceptable Jewishness mean. (My professor does not like those questions very much.)
I don't know. It's very strange. The question you raise is very interesting. Now that you raise it, I do not think people would think Nazis were as bad. They would be racist and awful, as well as a frightening dictatorial regime, but of course there would be a couple people who would give them credit for lifting Germany from the depression or whatever, and the taboos around it would not be nearly as great. What if there weren't concentration camps, just the mass killings of Ukranians and things that happened as the Nazis stomped through Europe? or the killing of retarded children? or mass sterilization, like you said?
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