Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

press.uchicago.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 536 posts

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

#21

Post by dontlaugh »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #18
RangerScience wrote: post #6

> What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And…

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

I think you are correct precisely because both US major parties are on the same side, the side of capital.

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

#22

Post by rectang »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #18
RangerScience wrote: post #6

> What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And…

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

> Because they feel the same way about your side.

Yes, this is surely true.

> So maybe the issues are actually with both sides.

Not necessarily.

Is Russian resentment of Ukraine equivalent to Ukrainian resentment of Russia merely because both citizenries feel their own resentments passionately?

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

#24

Post by brigandish »

cyberlurker wrote: post #8
groby_b wrote: post #7

It is probably good to remember that this talks about the experience of a German, under Hitler's Nazi government. This isn't a text that refers to current events. It talks about what happened. How things progressed. Why everybody just ambled along. How it was possible that so many just went along. If you think there are parallels to current times, or if you feel this attacks you or your beliefs, there is value in thi…

I don’t see the call to action. It describes perfectly the feeling of hopelessness I’ve had for years now. The election was the last chance and everyone blew it.

There may be a tipping point, but as we can see by the comments here and elsewhere, and the intent behind writing and reading things like the shared article, being able to see it before it happens is the hard bit, maybe the impossible bit.

Certainly, I've heard the same apocalyptic messages about every big vote in the past 25 years, whether elections or referendums. Usually, not much changes, things happen in increments. Right now there's an incremental change going on in the opposite direction to the one that was happening, but the noise seems (to me) to outdo the reality.

As the dead (currently) sibling comment writes, it's a matter of perspective. Certainly, I hope you begin to feel some hope soon.

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

#26

Post by computerthings »

panarky wrote: post #20
RangerScience wrote: post #6

> What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And…

Fascism took over Germany not by foreign attack, not by domestic civil war, not by subversion or trickery. Fascism came with a whoop and a holler. It was what most Germans wanted, or came to want under pressure from both reality and illusion. They wanted it, they got it, and they liked it.

No, that's a gross simplification, and leaves out all the violence and constant deception. This is a good primer on just how far off the pop culture understanding of the Nazis is: https://archive.org/details/TheOriginsOfTotalitarianism/

"Without subversion or trickery" is flat out wrong. And it's also wrong for the US today.

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

#27

Post by BytesAndGears »

rectang wrote: post #22
BytesAndGears wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

> Because they feel the same way about your side. Yes, this is surely true. > So maybe the issues are actually with both sides. Not necessarily. Is Russian resentment of Ukraine equivalent to Ukrainian resentment of Russia merely because both citizenries feel their own resentments passionately?

I see your point, however, in this case the democrats and republicans are part of the same entity.

I am suggesting that the politicians’ interests are somewhat aligned, in regard to grabbing power. Their techniques are different, but the outcome is that we become more normalized to the behavior of “being ruled”, bit by bit.

Don’t forget the right-leaning protests in 2020 over democratic governors telling people they had to get vaccinated or fired, and they were not permitted to have their small businesses open or go to the gym. That was also authoritarian, regardless of how necessary some people thought it was at the time. You may not have agreed with them, but they were upset about the same things as you.

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

#28

Post by michaelhoney »

dontlaugh wrote: post #21
BytesAndGears wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…

I think you are correct precisely because both US major parties are on the same side, the side of capital.

But they are not the same. One party is weaponizing racism and ignorance to illegally destroy institutions that have taken decades to build.

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

#29

Post by michaelhoney »

brigandish wrote: post #24
cyberlurker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the call to action. It describes perfectly the feeling of hopelessness I’ve had for years now. The election was the last chance and everyone blew it.

There may be a tipping point, but as we can see by the comments here and elsewhere, and the intent behind writing and reading things like the shared article, being able to see it before it happens is the hard bit, maybe the impossible bit. Certainly, I've heard the same apocalyptic messages about every big vote in the past 25 years, whether elections or referendums. Usually, not much changes, things happen in increme…

I don't know what you would consider radical if you think what is happening now is incremental.

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

#30

Post by Intralexical »

cyberlurker wrote: post #8
groby_b wrote: post #7

It is probably good to remember that this talks about the experience of a German, under Hitler's Nazi government. This isn't a text that refers to current events. It talks about what happened. How things progressed. Why everybody just ambled along. How it was possible that so many just went along. If you think there are parallels to current times, or if you feel this attacks you or your beliefs, there is value in thi…

I don’t see the call to action. It describes perfectly the feeling of hopelessness I’ve had for years now. The election was the last chance and everyone blew it.

Vladimir Putin first took power in 2000, and never really gave it up. Russians were still holding large-scale pro-democracy protests over 10 years later.

Of course, that didn't go so hot for them. But Russian democratic culture was only 20 years old, and the fall of the Soviet Union had gutted their economy almost on the level of the Great Depression. They weren't really set up to win.

Poland has been doing comparatively better. PiS first took power in 2005 and then again in 2015, and began taking over the media, compromising the courts, and attacking the constitution. But even so, they lost their majority in parliament in 2023.

US democracy is as old as the country, and the US has the strongest economy in the world. You probably have at least one more chance in 2028, which will be shaped by how effectively the authoritarian movement can consolidate and how well opposition manages to mobilize.

Democracies, and countries in general, are big, lumbering, slow-moving things. They take a long time to die, and you never know if there's a surge of vitality that will shoot forth from somewhere hidden inside them.

Post reply on HN