I think I understand the Nazis and perhaps Hitler, too.

[psychoblast]

As I get older, I start to gain a deeper understanding of people who have wronged me in my personal life. And when I find myself fully understanding and appreciating why they wronged me (wrong from my perspective, to be fair), I find myself forgiving them and releasing that from my psyche. This has sometimes come with a simultaneous physical release (tears, or loosening of a knot in my neck that had been there for years), so I do believe our muscle tension is tied to emotional issues stored in our brain.

I'm no neo-nazi or white supremacist. Just the opposite, I believe in universal understanding, compassion and love. Which is how I came to understand the Nazi's.

This is a spin off of my thread on forgiving God, which raised the issue of Nazis and caused me to reflect and realize some stuff, which I think really deserves a separate thread since it is a distinct concept.

So, the rest is a bit redundant with what I put in that other thread, sorry if that annoys anyone:

Why did Hitler want to exterminate the Jews? Did he love pain and suffering? Or did he have a sick belief that it was the right thing to do? I think it's pretty clear it was a sick belief. This comes from a screwed up childhood.

Further, Hitler was the leader, but was he a dictator or a figurehead? Is he the only person who resented the Jews, or was he channeling the resentment of his people? I'm not saying the Jews deserved the Holocaust, but the fact is that their approach to life is incredibly disciplined, as you can imagine may happen if you are the runt of the litter growing up in the most hostile part of the world, which is what it was like for the Jews evolving their culture in the Middle East from 10,000 BC onward or whatever. Frank Herbert illustrates this concept in his Dune series, that ultimate hardship forge fierce discipline.

Now transplant that disciplined Jewish culture to the middle of Europe and what happens? No surprise they are discriminated against (as all minorities have been in any culture throughout history) and yet their discipline still allows them to find ways to prosper. They use their heads. They are sharp. They get into banking, medicine, law. Their studious and disciplined approach to life -- using intelligence rather than brawn -- has been highly successful. Asian minorities who emigrated to the US have had some similar success for similar reasons, but they are latecomers to the table and they have had the added problem that they look less white than the Jews.

How do people who have lived in a place their whole lives, family farming or blacksmithing or whatever, in Germany feel as they see the birth of modernization, industrialization, and the minority Jews are getting a disproportionate share of it through their hard work and intelligence, despite the discrimination they are facing? Huge resentment. And when the economy is in ruins such that people fear actual starvation, it becomes kill or be killed. So they follow a leader -- perhaps even RAISE a leader -- who will given them a unification through murder. Sinful, but what parent would not murder a stranger to save their child? (I'm not saying they all would, it is not exactly a rhetorical question, but is posed to make you recognize that this would be a difficult choice, so if its even 50/50, that's a lot of support for mass murder in desperate times.)

Have you ever heard of a new kid who moves into a new school and is super studious and wrecks the curve of all the other studens so they go from getting A's and B's to getting C's and D's? What do you think happens to that student in the schoolyard? It's not hard to imagine a scenario where this type of situation happens and the student in question gets a brutal schoolyard beating. Unjustified? Absolutely. Wrong? Yes. But understandable, arising from fundamental flaws in the human species, flaws in all of us. "There but for the grace of God go I."

So, the point is, no one is SUPPOSED to say, "Hey, I can see where there Germans were coming from with that whole Holocaust thing." No, it is POLITICALLY CORRECT to say it is an insane, unimaginable horror. Just like everyone you ask will say, "Hell, no, if I was in Germany, I would have been one of those putting my life on the line to save the Jews." Yeah. We are SOOOO different from those Nazi Germans.... (that was sarcasm) No, we are exactly the same! EVEN THE JEWS!!

The Jews are different not in their fundamental nature as humans, but in that their culture has taken a different path of evolution through history, an evolution that has made them value discipline and strength and studiousness and security (including financial security). Add all this up, and their values just make them frickin' dangerous to any other culture trying to compete with them. Add THAT to the fact that they are highly resistant to merging, and you have a troubling issue. With most cultures, you move in together, the new kids on the block marry into the old guard and they merge into a new strain. When a new minority now decides it is going to come in and NOT merge, but will still prosper at the expense of the old guard, that can be hard to swallow. I mean, what is the old guard culture to do, just sit back until it is financially enslaved due to its inability to match the discipline and drive and economic success of the new minority that will not merge with it and thereby implicity "share the wealth"?

I have nothing against the Jews, not anything against any Jewish person. However, if you take a step back, and you say, "How can we get all the people on the planet to embrace being one species, being one unified family working together," then it seems that one step that must follow is to dismantle that aspect of the Jewish culture that fights against merger. And let's not single out the Jews. They are just the most successful and, thus, most visible culture doing this. Other "fundamentalist" religiously-based cultures do this, such as some Muslims, I think. I think there are some Asian cultures that are still VERY tied to the notion of their own racial purity. These people need to just WAKE THE FUCK UP TO THE REALITY THAT WE ARE ALL THE SAME SPECIES. We can all mate and have babies with each other, and the world is growing smaller with every baby who is born, too small for people to try to carve out their petty racial puritanical views.

In fact, Hitler is castigated for trying to create a superrace, for calling Germans a superior race. He was RESPONDING, the Germans were RESPONDING, to the sense of superiority that comes from the JEWS decision to remain separate and to not embrace cultural assimilation (i.e., merger -- should have used this phrase above instead of merger, but just recalled it). It is the Jews who refuse to embrace cultural assimilation who are IMPLICITLY striving to maintain racial purity, putting a VALUE on racial purity.

And Koreans do the same thing to a large degree. I have known highly educated, raised-in-America Koreans who would still ONLY consider dating or marrying another Korean. How did they get that notion ingrained in them so deeply? I don't know. But I know it is counterproductive to where we need to steer our global evolution as a species if we want greater peace and brotherhood of man (sorry for the gender-biased phraseology).

So, I conclude that any culture that values racial purity is an enemy of a unified human species. Period. So while exterminating the Jews is horrible and wrong, I do think we need to exterminate the concept of racial superiority that is inherent in any culture that highly resists cultural assimilation. (Note, this does not mean we would all be alike. The world would be full of melting pots, all of which would have different combinations of flavors, evolving over time.)

I wish more people would trust truth and honesty enough to recognize that it leads to love, not hatred. Then maybe we can raise up a new figurehead and instead of being murderous, like Hitler, he (or she) will be loving, like my bi-racial wife perhaps.

~psychoblast~

 

[Giog]

In all honesty, I agree with some of the things you are saying, however I feel that it is an oversimplification of the situation (bare with me, my history knowledge is piss poor). Yes, the jews were resisting to blend with the germans, however, the germans (hitler & nazis) did not need to go to such extremes. The germans could of easily started discriminating the jews financially. I would of much rather had seen the Jews be discriminated, perhaps like the African American were, than to allow a genocide to take place. Plus, I am not sure exactly where eugenics plays a part, but Hitler believed in a superior race. That means that Hitler and his followers believed that there was a superior race and that the other races were inferior. This is exactly the same thought that the Jews (according to you) exuded by not assimilating with the germans.

I just think that there are different ways to go about these manners. Sure, the germans were desperate...but desperate times do not always call for such EXTREME measures. Imo hitler could of simply rised up as a leader who for example, taxed the jews until they went broke and left germany, instead of, a leader who exterminated the Jews. Perhaps by taxing jews and all sorts of other discriminatory games, the germans could of been financially better off.

Forgive me if I am just talking out of my ass... but I just wanted to add my 2cents to such an important historical matter.

 

[hiphophippy]

Your argument is hypocritical because you are stating everyone needs to adopt your culture based on the fact that you view it as superior.

I'm Vietnamese and Vietnamese beef noodle soup is vastly superior to Taiwanese beef noodle soup. I've know a few Taiwanese people who strongly disagree. But we all agree to disagree. Which seems to be a unique characteristic of Asian culture. It's why so many cultures and religions ect flourish there. But I do not expect you or western peoples to accept this culture either because I expect you and do not expect you to be any more than the ostentatiously stubborn and self righteous zealot that western culture celebrates.

 

[MyFinalRest]

German National Socialism was the ultimate "grassroots movement" of the 20th century. I don't know how much of it was really based on racial superiority and anti-semitism, but the Germans were made victims of conspiratorial style politics and were ready to rage on Europe for it.

 

[sssssssssss]

I find the holocaust fascinating and I think I can understand it as well. I find fascism to be a very masculine policy and communism to be feminine. A good example of this is a study that involved a group of people who worked on a project in which they would be compensated for. When they asked the women how the compensation should be divided, most of them wanted to give everyone in the group equal amounts. But when the men were asked to divide the money, they would match individual compensation with how much effort they put in such that the rewards were not equal and were agreed upon for the greater good of the group.

Anyways that's the difference in how men and women view equality: men are competitive and women are cooperative. This is because women are the choosers when it comes to finding mates. Germany has always been a very masculine country. You can see it in their language. Fire is a German word while flame is a french word, and incinerate is latin. The word fire is very blunt, direct and lacks elegant syllables. (Just try and speak German to yourself and you can see it)

Since men are competitive they are also insecure and have an unsatisfying need to rise to the top thinking they'll never be good enough to be accepted. (Because women are the choosers) This is where fascism comes in to play and their lust for the perfect race. Also, if you were to ask a man if he preferred a few very close friends or a network of not so close friends, he will almost always chose to network while a women will chose a the latter. (sports teams, giant corps, fraternities) Not saying that women arent capable; they just don't have the motivation for that because they don't need to. So sometimes I like to think of fascism as a team. Every player needs to do his part for the greater good or they will be placed on a pedestal to feel humiliated. This is why I think the citizens of Germany went along with the holocaust so smoothly, they wanted to be accepted. The ones that were against the greater good were ignored and therefore all of their thoughts didn't matter. Just like how no fucks were given to hippies and occupiers.

So as fascism is rising, the people are becoming happy with the effectiveness of a standard group think model. This mood lift generates a new profound patriotism towards their culture as their masculinity appears to become more satisfied. Since the jews didn't fit on their standard model, they had to go.

Kind of like how muslims, gays, and aliens don't fit in with america's. and for the record I don't think America is becoming fascist, we have a lot of socialist policies as well. and please leave america's perverted view of socialism out of my post. I dont feel like reading back over this post so sorry if its a bit scrambled.

 

[psychoblast]

ssssssssssss

You are making a false assumption as to that study on males versus females. Maybe the females wanted to divide the money evenly because they knew that dividing it by amount of work down would end up giving the men a greater share of it because they knew they would not do as much work (was it manual labor?). In which case each gender chose the way to divide the money that benefited him/her the MOST (i.e., both genders were being ultimately SELF-SERVING).

In some circumstances, an act motivated by complete selfishness may APPEAR to be cooperative because, at that moment, cooperation serves that person's self-interest. However, that same person can then show their true colors as soon as their self-interest diverges from a cooperative course of action.

~psychoblast~

 

[sssssssssss]

You are making a false assumption as to that study on males versus females. Maybe the females wanted to divide the money evenly because they knew that dividing it by amount of work down would end up giving the men a greater share of it because they knew they would not do as much work (was it manual labor?). In which case each gender chose the way to divide the money that benefited him/her the MOST (i.e., both genders were being ultimately SELF-SERVING).

In some circumstances, an act motivated by complete selfishness may APPEAR to be cooperative because, at that moment, cooperation serves that person's self-interest. However, that same person can then show their true colors as soon as their self-interest diverges from a cooperative course of action.

Yes. Exactly! It still compliments my point. It showed how they we're completely opposite in how they viewed distribution of compensation. I said their decision was based of motivation not ability to understand what the 'right' thing is. The men were motivated to distribute it unevenly to promote competition thinking that the guy who gets the least will try harder next time. The women were motivated to distribute it equally because they know they do not need to be as competitive as men in life. This boils down to the idea that it is much more difficult for a guy to convince a women to bear his children, because ultimately they usually have the final say in whether or not that penis goes inside them. This is why guys are bigger risk takers. We have to understand that to succeed, we have to take that risk because not assuming risk and failing are both equal to us. You do not see a bunch of women in history crafting boats to sail to unknown lands. They have to stay in a safe place because they are most important in keeping the human species alive. Guys are here to give us luxury, theyre the ones that compose great music, develop technologies, religion. In my opinion trying to set genders equal is a very perverted concept. This is also why you see mostly guys with top notch pay checks. The greater the risk, the greater the pay out. You can look at the bottom too and see that its mostly men that are in prison or homeless as well. Gender roles ARE in our biology! And feminists are evil people lol I am not demeaning women's capabilities in any way; I just believe they have different motovation and I wish they can leave the guy stuff to guys and well leave the women stuff to women and we can all be happy except for the brutes would would be unhappy either way (feminist).

 

[psood0nym]

While I don’t discount that some of the historical coincidences noted in this thread contributed to the inception of the holocaust, I have to think that in large part they are merely particulars, though it will take a short digression to explain why:

Ancestral genetic analysis combined with linguistic, anthropological, and archeological evidence indicates extreme interbreeding among humans of different geological and ethnic origins as nomadic clans traveled to find new lands and resources. A common explanation of this history is that, especially during our prehistory, human existence was defined by constant murder and rape of “out-groups”. Rape and murder helps to ensure that a part of one’s own genes survive while eliminating competition for woman and resources.

I’ve read that an almost universal feature of hunter gather cultures is a belief in ethnic and spiritual superiority. In a world of widely distributed traveling clans (the majority of human evolutionary history), these beliefs helped small societies cohere by contrasting them with out-groups. The beliefs also helped to rationalize and emotionally reconcile the destruction of other clans as well as the usurpation of resources and women *. Genocide had a strong evolutionary utility for the majority of our species’ existence. It is a natural expression of the human social instinct to power given the relative ignorance of hunter gatherers and the many threats to survival they presumably perceived – and of course as these circumstances have abated the instinct still remains.

To my understanding the holocaust is an expression of a human instinct to power rooted in evolutionary prehistory that has been distorted and filtered through the historically peculiar circumstances of mass society and civilization, and that’s largely and basically how it should be understood. The mass killing of Jews by the Germans can be seen as the most expedient way to rationalize acting on the instinct at the time. In my opinion, rather than being central motivators of the holocaust, the cultural/religious/etc. circumstances are mostly just what made the expression of the human social instinct to power relatively convenient and possible.

While it is of course important to identify the historical particulars surrounding Nazism to prevent them from reoccurring, I think actively seeking to feel yourself lusting for social power, conforming and identifying with in-groups, and trying to uncover and experience (sometimes nearly unconscious) prejudiced attitudes towards out-groups will go further toward understanding the motivations of the Nazis and Hitler than an analysis of how the various circumstances of the time period itself motivated genocide. Attending a professional sporting event is a good place to start (I'm not comparing sports fandom directly to Nazism obviously, but the professional sports industry [esp. stadiums] succeeds by exploiting social instincts. You can see, and maybe feel, extreme hatred and violence arising from an activity that is, in my opinion at least, utterly vacuous [as Nazism was]).

*It’s interesting to note that our closest animal ancestor, the chimpanzee, is the only other creature to actively hunt and kill adult members of its own species (I say “adult” and “hunting” because killing a male competitor’s young offspring is common among many animals). Chimpanzees are thought to do this to gain territory, resources, and access to females. It’s also interesting that the rhesus macaque, the second most successful primate on Earth after humans, lives in societies marked by extreme social hierarchy, violence, intimidation, nepotism, complex political alliance, sexual favors in exchange for social status, and marginalization of the less powerful (the weak are kept on the outskirts of territory as fodder for predators). Rhesus macaque societies thrive and multiply, as we did in prehistory, largely because they act on social instincts that are now perceived to be burdens to human civilization.

 

[psychoblast]

Psoodonym:

You use the word "coincidences" to decribe causal factors, which I think is misleading or represents sloppy thinking, since these are opposite ideas.

Your mention of genocide really brings this home: If two cultural groups share space and refuse to merge / culturaly assimilate with one another, genocide is probably inevitable. You've heard the expression "If you can't beat them, join them." Well, if they won't join you, then you have NO CHOICE but to beat them. Genocide is the only way to permanently beat them, or you just have to keep fighting them forever and ever.

Some may say you can have peaceful and separate coexistence. Separate but on the same soil? Separate, but in the same country? Sounds like the segregation they tried in America in the early part of the 20th century. "Separate but equal." How well did that work out?

We see the same thing with the Kurds in the mid-East. In fact, there have been numerous genocides, and every one I can think of involved a minority that was UNWILLING TO BREED AND CULTURALLY ASSIMILATE.

HipHopHippy: The fact that neghboring cultures can have some competetive ideas about whose version of noodles is better, in no way disproves my point. On some level, people appreciate a food because it has a nostalgia for them. So no one's spaghetti or fried chicken or whatever is ever going to be better than your mother's. That is not an objective truth, but a subjective bias. However, if you follow cooking, you will see there is a natural evolution of fusion of flavors. I myself cook quite often, and tend to blend cajun, asian and american flavors, and sometimes latin american. Lately, I have also started to blend in Caribean flavors (e.g., allspice and what not). There is already plenty of overlap in these things (garlic, onions, peppers). I have created dishes that I think could win a top spot in a Top Chef competition. But I don't write down my recipes, I just add what feels right on the particular day.

I'm not going to say my fried chicken is better than my mothers, because hers has some nostalgia component that does the trick for me. But I'm also very happy I have NOT stayed limited in my cooking to those ingredients and flavors that I was raised with. My openness to assimilating the flavors and spices of other cultures has led to many a culinary delight I otherwise could not have had.

I'm not saying we should get to one "best" noodle recipe that everyone must use. The natural process of evolution will keep us all developing new flavors, and people on different parts of the planet will naturally move in different ways, evolve in different ways. Like linguistic drifing (development of accents). But we do not stay separate and keep evolving away from each other until we are strangers who are committing genocide on one another. No, we need to be open to REASSIMILATION over time, looking back and seeing how others have taken other roads, evolved in other ways, we compare that to what we have evolved, we share our own evolution with them, both sides compare and share. If both sides are open and honest, they will see some beneifts from what the other has to offer and both will come away better for it. It's kind of like that show Wife Swap. No matter how screwed up a family may be, or how great the other family may be, there is always at least one hang up the great family had and did not realize until the screwed up family brought it into focus, and both families come away realizing where they have been stunted.

The Jews may very well have the best culture on the planet. If you judge by materialistic success or family loyalty or culture homogeny, I think that is probably the case. However, if you judge by ability to get along with others, to learn from others, to assimilate with others, to turn an honest eye to where others may have something better you may want to adopt in place of something you are diong that is stunted, or the ability to evolve spiritually toward a place of a unified humanity where we are all one family, then I think they are probably not the best culture on the planet. But even if they are the best, they still are not perfect, they can learn and improve, and they can add value to other cultures and to their own and evolve and help other cultures evolve, and give birth to some amazing new fusion culture if they would just let go of their obsessive distaste for culture assimilation and merger.

I get that at some point, that obsessive need to stay culturally unified and untouched may have been a saving grace, may have been the shelter that let them weather the storm, but it has served its purpose and they are now basking in the sunlight only they can't see the sun because that shelter has become a prison that keeps them isolated in the shadows.

Sorry, don't mean to pick on Jews. There's plenty of other cultures like this (I'm looking at you, Muslims), but those other cultures all tend to come from less educated, and more third-world type backgrounds, so it is natural it will take them more time to come up to speed and relax and "get down" with the Westernized world. However, the Jews are at the forefront of science and education and Westernized living, so what's their excuse?! The Holocaust?

Sure, from that perspective, it's pretty easy to see the Holocaust to the Jews was like a teen suffering a violent rape, which understandable fucked up the teens perspective on sex, making the teen frigid and wanting nothing to do with any potential lovers seeking merger. So, with time and understanding, maybe we can help the Jews get past this trauma. They were not at fault. It was not their fault. But at the same time, THEY MUST FORGIVE THE GERMANS AND EVEN HITLER. A sexual abuse victim MUST forgive his/her abuser to be truly freed from the effects of the abuse. Sorry, it just works that way.

I do think what we might all be able to do to help (us non-Jews) is to conquer them with kindness. I call upon every good non-Jew male to make it his mission to romance and marry a Jewish woman. And for every good non-Jew female to make it her mission to romance and marry a Jewish man. If we are all seductive enough and hot enough and enticing enough, we may ultimately be able to pry the Jews away from their destructive isolation and win them to cultural assimilation through love. (I obviously do NOT condone violence as the answer.)

~psychoblast~

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

I can see your point, but I'm not buying it. It feels awfully misguided to think that a culture of people isn't entitled to doing things their own way if the only possible negative effect is that they like to keep to their own. You're almost talking about a sort of systematic cultural envy where people should be forced to exchange their ways of doing things. There are no similarities with what you're talking about and Jim Crow because Jim Crow was forced upon black people who were forced to be here in the first place. The separation was purely on the part of the whites, who ruled everything, oppressing the blacks. The Jews, who had economic power, but not political power, were only as successful as the Germans (or any country they migrated to) could put up with.

Basically, you seem to be apologizing for hateful, jealous, ignorant, people. Again, I see your point clearly, and I just don't buy it. Sometimes people want to marginalize a group of people for xenophobic reasons, but when that group of people start to rise up and succeed in the face of these irrational barriers, the oppressors grow frustrated that their attempts at oppression aren't being taken lying down, so they ramp up their attacks. Sometimes people are just bad. That's something I think all people should realize or else you run the risk of sitting there trying to over-think something that's pretty damn simple.

 

[hiphophippy]

( y.-) your argument is still directly hypocritical.
and from your reply to psood0nym its painfully evident that you're an idiot. Have fun with that.

 

[psychoblast]

People are entitled to do things their own way. Hell, I ENCOURAGE people to do things their own way. NEWNESS RULES!!!

But newness comes through an individual merging past experiences which inspire that which is new. Without merger, if you stay separate and isolated, you stagnate and die and have kids with birth defects. Who in the world ever said, "I want to live the exact life my parents lived." No, we want to EVOLVE AND IMPROVE AND CHANGE. That is not a rejection of our parents, it is actually the opposite, it makes their sacrifice in having us (and I cannot think of any parents who did not make a sacrifice having kids) have meaning because we are advancing life in a positive way through our existence.

The other path is stupid nihilism, that we just should sit on this rock called earth until some catastrophe wipes us out and who the fuck cares what happened before that anyway, because it won't matter, so looking ahead you can see that none of this matters. DUH! But it does matter TO US. Because we are the ones who CARE. Matter comes from caring. Love creates life. Right now, the universe is expanding so love is expanding and life is expanding and we are riding that wave. Why not enjoy the ride?

How do you enjoy the ride? Not by stacking up lots of money in banks, but by being part of the process. What is the goal? To extend life into new areas and eons. This is our calling as a species. This is the calling of the entire planet. If you are on board with that, you feel fulfilled. You feel content. I'm pretty damn content (for an idiot).

You may think you are looking at the big picture but your only looking at the frame, you are not seeing the exquisite masterpiece in the middle of it.

~psychoblast~

 

[Alma]

You are wrong. Plainly wrong. I grew up in Berlin. Not a Jewish person, far from it. I did a research project for the local museum. Read hundreds of letters from high school kids from the 30s. More then half of them didn't know they were Jewish until they were required to register by the ss. The ones who lived Jewish life style in Europe were banned from cities they were always forced to live as outsiders long before hitler. Another proof that schooling in America sucks ass as it produces people such as your self. Educate yourself through actual schools, travel, learn.

 

[hiphophippy]

People are entitled to do things their own way. Hell, I ENCOURAGE people to do things their own way. NEWNESS RULES!!!

But newness comes through an individual merging past experiences which inspire that which is new. Without merger, if you stay separate and isolated, you stagnate and die and have kids with birth defects. Who in the world ever said, "I want to live the exact life my parents lived." No, we want to EVOLVE AND IMPROVE AND CHANGE. That is not a rejection of our parents, it is actually the opposite, it makes their sacrifice in having us (and I cannot think of any parents who did not make a sacrifice having kids) have meaning because we are advancing life in a positive way through our existence.

The other path is stupid nihilism, that we just should sit on this rock called earth until some catastrophe wipes us out and who the fuck cares what happened before that anyway, because it won't matter, so looking ahead you can see that none of this matters. DUH! But it does matter TO US. Because we are the ones who CARE. Matter comes from caring. Love creates life. Right now, the universe is expanding so love is expanding and life is expanding and we are riding that wave. Why not enjoy the ride?

How do you enjoy the ride? Not by stacking up lots of money in banks, but by being part of the process. What is the goal? To extend life into new areas and eons. This is our calling as a species. This is the calling of the entire planet. If you are on board with that, you feel fulfilled. You feel content. I'm pretty damn content (for an idiot).

You may think you are looking at the big picture but your only looking at the frame, you are not seeing the exquisite masterpiece in the middle of it.

~psychoblast~

Some people choose to be orthodox Jews and Muslims, that directly contradicts your whole position and invalidates what you are saying. You cannot "encourage" people to do things their own way and also demand that they do things your way. Well you ca, but it's called being an idiot or Reductio ad absurdum.

Which also permeates your point about nihilism not only in your ridiculously gracious Non sequitur, association fallacy (which is glaring evidence for why transcendental/existential/nihilistic thinking is superior) And your clear misunderstanding of what nihilism is.

 

[hiphophippy]

Lets get one thing straight, you're half way correct and cultural interfacing is something I value. It's the whole reason Vietnamese cuisine is better than all others the tantalizing flavors of the orient with the mastery and organization of flavors of the french. Your argument for ASSIMILATION is entirely hypocritical and wrong. Assimilation Involves the stripping of cultural history and well culture. It's why I don't like MLK's ideas. The American attitude is usually that it's okay to be your own culture as long as you do it privately or at little cultural events. I applogize for coming at you so agressively it's just a sensitive subject. I still think you need to be smacked across your smug little face but as a corrective measure and not an aggressive one.

 

[panic in paradise]

German National Socialism was the ultimate "grassroots movement" of the 20th century. I don't know how much of it was really based on racial superiority and anti-semitism, but the Germans were made victims of conspiratorial style politics and were ready to rage on Europe for it.

I agree with this in many ways.

The Jews were of as likely a choice as the preceding and previous ones.
The Germans only did it because they had the right fuel at the time,
the war machine is a calculator and numbers only need to add up to
long term fear and crisis, a man made plauge...this fear
is the greatest leader of the blind, because for themselves neither the dark nor the light exists.

The preemptive trigger is not what is complex, the after math is, and its left out of the Bible in the Dead Sea Scroll Text - The War Of The Sons Of Light And The Sons Of Darkness.

"The chiefs of the tribes and the fathers of the congregation shall be always in their places in the gates of the sanctuary."

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

People are entitled to do things their own way. Hell, I ENCOURAGE people to do things their own way. NEWNESS RULES!!!

But newness comes through an individual merging past experiences which inspire that which is new. Without merger, if you stay separate and isolated, you stagnate and die and have kids with birth defects. Who in the world ever said, "I want to live the exact life my parents lived." No, we want to EVOLVE AND IMPROVE AND CHANGE. That is not a rejection of our parents, it is actually the opposite, it makes their sacrifice in having us (and I cannot think of any parents who did not make a sacrifice having kids) have meaning because we are advancing life in a positive way through our existence.

The other path is stupid nihilism, that we just should sit on this rock called earth until some catastrophe wipes us out and who the fuck cares what happened before that anyway, because it won't matter, so looking ahead you can see that none of this matters. DUH! But it does matter TO US. Because we are the ones who CARE. Matter comes from caring. Love creates life. Right now, the universe is expanding so love is expanding and life is expanding and we are riding that wave. Why not enjoy the ride?

How do you enjoy the ride? Not by stacking up lots of money in banks, but by being part of the process. What is the goal? To extend life into new areas and eons. This is our calling as a species. This is the calling of the entire planet. If you are on board with that, you feel fulfilled. You feel content. I'm pretty damn content (for an idiot).

You may think you are looking at the big picture but your only looking at the frame, you are not seeing the exquisite masterpiece in the middle of it.

~psychoblast~

While some of your ideas are novel, the majority of what you're talking about seems just plain delusional. How does "enjoying the ride" equate in any way with what the Nazi's were about?

 

[psychoblast]

Thanks everyone who misread, misunderstand and is erroneously summarizing my points. You have proven that the anit-Holocaust hysteria makes rational minds unwilling to view this incident with true objectivity and instead you are contorting reason to try to justify the false premise that this attempted genocide was an abherrational product of insanity and evil rather than a natural response to certain society forces that could readily repeat if we choose not to learn from the past.

Alma: Your point is meaningless. Can't a pestocide designed to kill mosquitos also kill some flies? Does that prove the pestocide was not intended to kill mosquitos?

Coffedrinker: I never equated what the Germans did to 'enjoying the ride.' Just the opposite. I was explaining how we can all enjoy the ride INSTEAD of creating the cultural tensions that led the Germans to attempting genocide. The very fact you posted that shows you have some deepseated resistance to understanding my post.

hiphophippy: When did I ever demand people do things my way? I'm just point out the risks / benefits of different ways of living, if having a value system that resists cultural assimilation and merger of races compared to having a value system that embraces (or at least does not resist) this. What people choose to do -- even if they choose a path that will surely result in future genocides -- is up to them. Just know what you are fostering when you decide holding onto cultural solidarity is worth the risk of future genocides.

And I never demanded anyone give up anything great about their culture (unless you think a sense of cultural superiority and isolationism is great, that's about it). You can keep your cultural cuisine and holidays and festivals and clothing or whatever. I make a cajun, asian, Caribiean fusion fried chicken that is the fucking bomb, but I still ALSO make my mother's Southern style fried chicken, and it is a treat. I did not have to give up the great foods of my own culture because I was also open to seeing what great flavors could come from blending cultures. In the end, I do not recreate every dish my mother ever cooked. I recreate what were her BEST dishes, along with the best dishes I have found from a lifetime sampling other cuisines and sometimes thinking ways myself to merge cuisines. That is evolution and growth and improvement. That is the natural way. You fight against nature at your peril.

And so what if I misused the label "nihilism." I admit I never studied it. So take away the label and everything else still stands. The defeatist notion we are here to just survive without evolution and improvement until some future event happens, like extinction or the second coming of christ, is RETARDED AND POINTLESS. Embracing a belief we are heare to evolve and improve and nurture evolution, which means merge the cultures and let "survival of the fittest" determine which dishes will still be cooked in 200 years, because the best WILL survive, and amazing new dishes will come about, and we'll all wind up eating better than ever.

I cannot believe I am the one arguing against cultural stagnation and isolation inducing genocide and I'm the one being called stupid. This forum has really deteriorated since I moderated it.

~psychoblast~

 

[Shrooms00087]

Anyone who takes an interest into what happened in the raise of Nazism is going to come up to a brick wall, which is, the Holocaust. I say that it is a brick wall only to symbolize the impact of the holocaust in German history. So for instance once you find out that most of the world's "businessmen" were trading with whomever but most importantly Germany. In the 20's (around the time of the depression) bourgeoisie started planning for the War to come. Now I haven't read any of Britain's documents about the Round Table talks but I imagine it'd read about the same as the American business class/CFR/State Department were preparing. Which catered around topics like establishing a meta-narrative, resource allocation*, establishing a geographical sphere, then war planning, and post war planning. By the 40's most of the bedrock had been laid out and as far as their meta-narrative they knew they could count on one to two things: A) Germany wins over East (Japan was never even mentioned) B) Russia would win over the East. Both options required different tuning of the plans but insofar as B) won--the post war planning by the American business class was of a level far outreaching the State Department [since the 30's the S.D. has been a thorn to American business].

*During the war exports were all over the place often hidden or done by vessels but the biggest staple of the War was oil he who controlled it, controlled the entire theater. Which returns us to Japan not being considered by the American business class because they needed oil and they were going to be taking "our Dutch colonies". When the Government was put on notice by the business class it quickly started a narrative involving reasons, causes, consequences, and why we should defend the colonies. Well that narrative was never delivered over a microphone because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Germany then acted as a buffer through which business can deal with the Axis. Lucky for Germany we didn't drop two atom bombs on factory workers (after all power is seen not heard).


Now to pull the ends of the string--it isn't that a conspiracy launched America into the riches it meagerly enjoys; in fact Britain/Germany could have won if it weren't for America.....fucking the British with lend lease. However as it happened America/Russia won, with the accumulated wealth* both systems were free to direct movement of resources across the geopolitical spheres while remaining "cold" and keeping your population in check. The true conspiracy is not that of a global one (though possibly it does partially qualify) but of a domestic one, the typical one. Mobilize your disenfranchised (make more if need be) to do as your economy/business class wish. Returning to the Holocaust after reading what I typed your first instinct is to say, "Thank you Hitler. You saved Capitalism and countless Bourgeoisie" but then you see that horrendous brick wall which is so morbid, it steals focus from the apostate Ruskies while in the exact same instance it denotes Socialism much the same as Stalinism denoted Communism. War solves many problems and it is a grizzly End but if you take the problems of post-depression/industrialization--things like, overpopulation/unemployment, under-consumption (tested and solved), building a new economy (railways, roads, buildings, infrastructure), building new moneys, beginning a new History etc. All of this was solved and bound to be solved again, vertigo anyone?

In closing the Holocaust (in pure abstract critique) is a bad place to focus when wanting to learn about the Nazi's or WWI-II for that matter.

*I'd define wealth as differences of workforce/capacity, gender statistics, and power/militarization.

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

As I get older, I start to gain a deeper understanding of people who have wronged me in my personal life. And when I find myself fully understanding and appreciating why they wronged me (wrong from my perspective, to be fair)

This is where you lost me. This is what strikes me as delusional. This stance of yours that everybody has some deeper reason for being an asshole is just as un-objective as anything else. You run the risk of apologizing for everybody and everything. Sometimes people just want to take advantage of you, it's not even that rare of a thing. The desire to take more and get ahead of others is plenty of motive for most people, you don't need to explore deeper meanings that aren't there.

I'm all for assimilation if it's mutual and willing assimilation. I think you're using a poorly researched/understood example though, and it just makes your argument sound weak and kinda all over the place. You don't mention the detrimental effect of WWI on German society at all, and that was key to national resentment at the time. Jews were scapegoats for much larger problems. The whole maxim of divide and conquer was key here. Identify a scapegoat and focus all your energy and built up resentment on that in order to unite people for political power. Genocide isn't like a hot girl leading a date on and then getting raped. Genocide has more to do with the oppressor's ambitions than the people getting assaulted. They were just bystanders, and they looked physically different enough for people to be able to point the finger at them collectively.

I appreciate your attempts at understanding, but your argument seems half-baked at best.