> Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice This fact has been the downfall of every utopian ideology, and ignoring creates a vacuum that fascist regimes readily fill. I wonder what…
it might be a start to actually archieve "comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense" for all. Then we can see if they still want struggle and self-sacrifice. There may be some dispositions of the human mind that are susceptible to this sort of thing, but for now, I find it somewhat remarkable that this supposed need for struggle and self sacrifice is almost always empl…
It's a statement that people don't actually want what they say they want, all they want is attention and drama. The logical way to respond is by not acknowledging anything they say, and enforcing the behavior that you want to see, by force if necessary.
The real problem is that improvements in general comfort are difficult, and require lots of force to be organized and applied in a rational way. It's easier just to insure that you and your friends stay comfortable, and to silence or redirect elements that may intrude on that comfort. Ultimately, though, the failure mode on that is catastrophic. Once discontent overwhelms the institutions created to suppress it, the institutions shrink or convert while the discontent grows. Very soon, the discontent becomes the new, young establishment, and if you haven't joined yet, you're now the problem that the new institutions are intended to eliminate.