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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

press.uchicago.edu

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Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#321

Post by imichael »

lisper wrote: post #223
panax wrote: post #142

The most chilling part is "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on th…

I was also struck by this: "Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had…

When I read that I immediately thought of social media and how it sucks up everyone's time and energy.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#322

Post by confidantlake »

slg wrote: post #234
the-dude wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which west? Which norms?

Just one recent example, this past presidential election was a resounding victory for Joe Biden. He has 306 electoral votes and is expected to win the popular vote by some 6 million people. Leaders around the world have all recognized this however the number of Republicans in federal office that have publicly acknowledged this can seemingly be counted on your fingers. A simple norm of acknowledging an electoral defea…

Any non fascist post is being brigaded by the fascists in the thread.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#323

Post by chordalkeyboard »

gfodor wrote: post #303
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free exchange of ideas falls prey to the paradox of tolerance.

Only if you don't understand the paradox.

Would you mind explaining it then? I feel like this is a major problem in society today and I'd be edified by exposure to a solution.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#324

Post by vkou »

haberman wrote: post #189
vkou wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what I'm talking about is the one that took place on CH, during the East Precinct protests, not the freeway. You obviously don't live in Seattle. The driver 'accidentally' turned, with speed, off an arterial, into the protest street, and despite having clear visibility of hundreds of people in his line of travel, kept driving, with people scattering out of his way. He stopped when he hit a blockade, shot at one p…

Enough with the "You obviously don't live in Seattle." The event described by _iyig really did happen and was described accurately (except the "high on pills" part, I haven't seen any report of that, news I saw said he took a field sobriety test and was found to be unimpaired). Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand…

> Unless you directly witnessed these events (which few people did, even amongst Seattleites), then you're getting your information second-hand just like everyone else.

I live here. I've spent weeks going to sleep to the sound of police grenades going off. I've been to CHAZ. I've watched, in bafflement, for weeks, at how news coverage - particularly national, but also local has painted an entirely different picture from what I've seen with my own two eyes.

The events he cites have taken place - but because of the superficial level of knowledge he has of the situation, he is omitting vital context.

I will absolutely gatekeep on this. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it's quite clear that _iyig has no first-hand knowledge, and only superficial second-hand knowledge of what he's talking about.

At least, that's my most charitable interpretation of the situation.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#325

Post by [deleted] »

mullingitover wrote: post #282
Digory wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's fair to say the President was outmatched by the job. If he wanted to be a dictator, he was incompetent. But the damage to the immediate office of the president is worth considering. No honest person wants to work close to this man, and that's new. 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. 3. The university and corporate culture is overwhelmed with demands for ev…

> 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. Which media are we talking about? There have always been left, neutral, and right-leaning media, but in the last four years the neutral media was painted as being biased against the president because they reported the facts. The facts, they're very unflattering. The president has brought the pro wrestling 'heel' character into…

[deleted]

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#326

Post by Digory »

mullingitover wrote: post #282
Digory wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's fair to say the President was outmatched by the job. If he wanted to be a dictator, he was incompetent. But the damage to the immediate office of the president is worth considering. No honest person wants to work close to this man, and that's new. 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. 3. The university and corporate culture is overwhelmed with demands for ev…

> 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. Which media are we talking about? There have always been left, neutral, and right-leaning media, but in the last four years the neutral media was painted as being biased against the president because they reported the facts. The facts, they're very unflattering. The president has brought the pro wrestling 'heel' character into…

On media, the NYT predicament seems clear: >“Philosophy schmosiphy,” wrote a researcher at the Times whose Slack avatar was the logo for the hamburger chain Jack in the Box. “We’re at a barricades moment in our history. You decide: which side are you on?”

The Times has always been liberal. But among liberals, employees at the Times think norms have eroded to a "barricades" moment, and perceive the old "he kept the paper straight" neutrality as a betrayal of progress.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-...

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#327

Post by leftyted »

aazaa wrote: post #122

Imagine you're living through the events described in the essay. You know exactly where things are heading and that the situation is dire. You're willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the inevitable from playing out. What's your plan and your next move?

> Imagine you're living through the events described in the essay. You know exactly where things are heading and that the situation is dire.

While your question is interesting, isn't this exactly the problem? People didn't know where things were headed.

> How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

We know things can go off the rails but we can't know when that process is occurring. We can only look back and decide that it has already occurred. If we manage to stay on the rails, we'll tell ourselves that we were never close to the edge.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#328

Post by Digory »

wnkrshm wrote: post #291
Digory wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's fair to say the President was outmatched by the job. If he wanted to be a dictator, he was incompetent. But the damage to the immediate office of the president is worth considering. No honest person wants to work close to this man, and that's new. 2. The media, in new and unusual ways, has abandoned the goal of neutrality in reporting. 3. The university and corporate culture is overwhelmed with demands for ev…

I don't think Trump damaged the office of the president or the institutions. He's actually a quality tester (or a malicious user), the flaws in the institutions were there before, he's the first to abuse them in this way. Security and anti-terror laws, as well as propaganda for the Iraq war and other militant and jingoistic opinions were the beginning of this. If the flaws aren't fixed, the US may get a competent dic…

Yeah, it's a both/and, I think.

The Q. was about changes to norms, and the Imperial President norm is just bad, not new.

But no one wants to limit it, in case they win next time.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#329

Post by bmmayer1 »

dang wrote: post #307
bmmayer1 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like I accidentally started a flame war here! Funtimes. My answer to some common replies: 1) "But the [left/right] is much worse": you're sorta making my point. Even if the other "side" may be worse now, if you're honest with yourself, I'm sure you can see where your partisans have crossed some lines, too. And the whole point of this piece is authoritarianism and fascism grows slowly over time, so "We're slight…

Please neither start nor perpetuate political flamewars on HN. We don't need fiery arguments about endlessly repeated details that are available everywhere else. We need thoughtful, curious conversation on non-obvious topics of intellectual interest. Political interest may intersect with intellectual interest but the two are not the same, and they become disjoint as passions rise. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsgui…

Hi dang -- I appreciate what you're trying to do, but please understand it was neither my intent to start one or perpetuate a flame war, nor was my comment inflammatory in any reasonable sense of the word. Seems unfair to single me out here, given how perfectly bland my comment was, especially when compared to other comments made in this thread.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#330

Post by lootsauce »

throwaway23452 wrote: post #179

The context of this being shared is obvious, but I want to point out that both sides of the American divide right now would likely instinctively identify the other (or their presidential candidate) as the Hitler in this scenario. I say this not to argue that one, or both, or neither, has no reason to make that connection. I say this to illustrate that it's easy to look at superficial signifiers - especially when satu…

Came here to make a similar point. Both political sides in the US can point to the observations in the excerpt as chilling historical illustrations of current and potential near-term events. That illustrates in my mind what is so terrifying right now. That there is something bigger going on than political ideology and I don't think anyone can stop it. In fact I would posit that thinking so makes it all the less likely to be stopped. This is because either side will identify a different source of the problem and both will be wrong.
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