On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944) • Hacker News Board

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#21

Post by fractallyte » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

This is the key quote: "For as long as there are people on the road and victims in the thicket, divided by dream barriers, this will remain a phoney civilisation."

Of course, people throw up their hands in helplessness. Or, for some, there is helpless guilt. But it needn't be so. It was Adelle Davis who once wrote: "It is part of my creed — of my religion if you like — that when you have the ability to help your fellow man, that ability ceases to be merely an ability and becomes a responsibility."

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#22

Post by wybiral » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

benwerd wrote: post #15

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

That's an interesting contrast to the increasingly non-interventionism sentiment around here, but I agree.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#23

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

cfmcdonald wrote: post #12

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #7

>> On Disbelieving Atrocities >> Arthur Koestler (Jan. 1944) I wondered if the author is the Arthur Koestler, but Wikipedia tells me he was born in 1905, so if I read the following sentence correctly (i.e. meaning that the writer is 62 at the time of writing, in 1944), then the piece was written by another author of the same name, because the best-known Arthur Koestler was 39 in 1944: >> "I know" that, the average st…

I believe the . is a typo, and it's 27 years. That also lines up with the date he gives for his death, in 1970.

Duh. You're right, simplest explanation.

Cheers :)

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#24

Post by emmelaich » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

cgriswald wrote: post #4

ArtWomb wrote: post #2

Crystal clear writing. With cogent argumentation. This is how you persuade. Parallels with contemporary climate deniers is stunning.

> Parallels with contemporary climate deniers is stunning. You're right. I agree with you. But–and I say this with all respect and no judgment–I think the insight here is not to point at one's perceived opponents and say, "Yes! This describes my experience with them perfectly!"; but to ask oneself who are the screamers in ones own life who get one's own glossy-eyed stare. It is very difficult and often impossible to…

Regarding Arhur Koestler and bubbles popping ... apparently he was a rapist and narcissist.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/21/arthur-koestle...

and convinced his healthy wife to commit suicide with him.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#25

Post by NeedMoreTea » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #8

anonymouzz wrote: post #3

At first nobody believed because there really was no concrete evidence. This was changed by Witold Pilecki: > During World War II, Pilecki volunteered for a Polish resistance operation that involved being imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to gather intelligence and later escape. While in the camp, he organized a resistance movement and informed the Western Allies of Nazi Germany's Auschwitz atro…

Pilecki was one tough dude. I always thought he got in, looked around and quickly left. But his biography describes how he participated in camp life for more than 2 years like other prisoners and with the same risk to his life. This guy was a true hero.

> This guy was a true hero.

Absolutely. Nor did he stop. Having left Auschwitz he volunteered to fight in the Warsaw uprising. He hid his rank so fought as a private but later took command of a unit. At war's end he tried to rebuild his network to seek evidence of Soviet atrocities in Poland. That eventually resulted in his capture, show trial and execution.

There are very few of his mould.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#26

Post by sitkack » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

I believe in spiral nebulae, can see them in a telescope and express their distance in figures; but they have a lower degree of reality for me than the inkpot on my table. Distance in space and time degrades intensity of awareness. So does magnitude. Seventeen is a figure which I know intimately like a friend; fifty billions is just a sound. A dog run over by a car upsets our emotional balance and digestion; three million Jews killed in Poland cause but a moderate uneasiness. Statistics don't bleed; it is the detail which counts. We are unable to embrace the total process with our awareness; we can only focus on little lumps of reality.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#27

Post by balfirevic » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

benwerd wrote: post #15

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

Yes to all, and I think it’s our responsibility as democratic citizens to be aware of them. What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say? If everyone buries their head in the sand or only considers domestic issues, we don’t really have democracy. It becomes a charade that helps us feel reassured that we have…

That just seems to be redefining the word "democracy" so that it produces the outcomes you desire. I don't think that's helpful. It is important to realize that democratic process and following the will of people can result in bad and unjust outcomes.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#28

Post by sitkack » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 5:54 PM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #5

> These limitations of awareness account for the limitations of enlightenment by propaganda. People go to cinemas, they see films of Nazi tortures, of mass-shootings, of underground conspiracy and self-sacrifice. They sigh, they shake their heads, some have a good cry. But they do not connect it with the realities of their normal plane of existence. translated from Hannah Arendt in "Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Her…

Thanks

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#29

Post by intralizee » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

Atrocities happen because the systems encompassing us are not perfect. Problems arise because we humans decide to live under the imperfect systems; vastly different by where on earth you happen to be. Metaphorically it's like when you travel, you're navigating into a new realm and where the game rules are completely rewritten for whatever the outcome will be and with whatever consequences. My intuition thinks this is a problem. The differences keep the world beautiful but separate us fundamentally in how things are handled.

I've been a victim of of a situation, that would not have happened if I had not been where I was and had been in a different country. I know it was an atrocity and in 100 years I could easily see people not believing it had happened & even today I've seen doubts.

Individuals are prone to question every possible situation with vastly different personal ideas. It's how great things come about. Disbelieving is also a result for some individuals and maybe it's dangerous but it's part of the equation. My assumption is energy should be focused towards making the systems around the globe more similar with trying to keep culture intact. Although the world may be safer for everyone without culture and just one nationality.

Lastly I think we have people disbelieving atrocities because compassion is piss poor compared to what we're capable of. People will focus only on themselves when the systems don't care about societies health (depending on where you live) and results in people being delusional or disbelieving what's in fact reality.

Re: On Disbelieving Atrocities (1944)

#30

Post by lkrubner » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #14

The trouble with this - I can sympathize with the frustration of watching atrocities happening in your homeland and not being able to get people in another country far away to care. But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives and not wallow in every tragedy that happens around the world. Because there's quite a lot of things happening all the time, even n…

"But I can also sympathize with the ordinary people in these countries far away wanting to live their lives"

Are you sure that "sympathize" is the correct word? I agree that it happens a great deal, but is this behavior something you regard as moral? Because the way people fail to engage with atrocities around the world meets most of the ordinary definitions of immoral. Their apathy is what enables evil.