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Remembering pop culture is fun but these are serious times.
When I look at the news, I feel the need to issue a sobering reminder of how the N*zis used the Big Lie and grievance politics to get into power through local legislatures. I must repeat: they didn’t just pop into Berlin one day; they started locally.
The Germans liked to think of themselves as Das Land der Dichter und Denker (the nation of poets and thinkers) but as the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus pointed out, after 1933 Germany became instead Die Deutschen -- das Volk der Richter und Henker (the people of judges and hangmen).
How does this happen, that thoughtful people become at least tacit supporters of fascism and genocide? This question has concerned me throughout my adult life because history can repeat, unfortunately.
When it comes to fighting fascism, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Perfectionism prevents the creation of big tent coalitions and the ability to find a story that unites us. Because the Right knows how to manipulate the media through a type of political storytelling based on simplistic ideas and slogans which are then pounded into public consciousness through mass media.
Currently we have one party roaring straight out of the id while the other murmurs from a remote superego. No mediation in the middle by an ego made wise from experience. Rejection and frustration with both ends of the political horseshoe results in alienated people who burn out, don't fee like they matter, and eventually give up on politics and discussions. Freud (whose books were banned and burned and who had to emigrate from Austria) had terms for the structure of the mind. After the N*zis burned books and stomped on freedom of expression, the Germans developed a term for the withdrawal from a political situation: inner emigration.
I wish Americans cared more about democracy. It is beyond frustrating to have the background that I do and to witness what’s happening. I know gas is expensive and the pandemic measures curtailed our lives to an extent. But the Allies landed in Normandy and Patton crossed the Rhine for bigger reasons and principles and that’s what I want to live by.
When I look at the news, I feel the need to issue a sobering reminder of how the N*zis used the Big Lie and grievance politics to get into power through local legislatures. I must repeat: they didn’t just pop into Berlin one day; they started locally.
The Germans liked to think of themselves as Das Land der Dichter und Denker (the nation of poets and thinkers) but as the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus pointed out, after 1933 Germany became instead Die Deutschen -- das Volk der Richter und Henker (the people of judges and hangmen).
How does this happen, that thoughtful people become at least tacit supporters of fascism and genocide? This question has concerned me throughout my adult life because history can repeat, unfortunately.
When it comes to fighting fascism, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Perfectionism prevents the creation of big tent coalitions and the ability to find a story that unites us. Because the Right knows how to manipulate the media through a type of political storytelling based on simplistic ideas and slogans which are then pounded into public consciousness through mass media.
Currently we have one party roaring straight out of the id while the other murmurs from a remote superego. No mediation in the middle by an ego made wise from experience. Rejection and frustration with both ends of the political horseshoe results in alienated people who burn out, don't fee like they matter, and eventually give up on politics and discussions. Freud (whose books were banned and burned and who had to emigrate from Austria) had terms for the structure of the mind. After the N*zis burned books and stomped on freedom of expression, the Germans developed a term for the withdrawal from a political situation: inner emigration.
I wish Americans cared more about democracy. It is beyond frustrating to have the background that I do and to witness what’s happening. I know gas is expensive and the pandemic measures curtailed our lives to an extent. But the Allies landed in Normandy and Patton crossed the Rhine for bigger reasons and principles and that’s what I want to live by.