We are vulnerable to fashions and movements that cause tremendous suffering, such as the Thirties in Europe.
Using Hitler's playbook we know that human nature can be misrepresented and conditioned into robotic bodies to serve a political fantasy such as racial superiority. Using different words I might say the men of Europe were asked to give up their reality, their health, their livelihood, their intelligence, for an imagined glory, which meant death.
Nations of people starved so that money could be invested in global killing machines. The mental health of these "Aryan" people was battered by trauma. We lost limbs and lives, husbands and sons, fathers and mothers, wives and daughters, for the glory of war.
It meant that arguments, doubts, conversations and worry about the future were temporarily wiped out for the beat of the goose step. It meant that people no longer had to solve human problems because they could hollow out their minds and replace them with propaganda. There were only two choices to make - obey the rules and die, or be tortured to death.
Does that look like highest attainment for humanity? Does that feel like a celebration of life?
This either/or scenario didn't begin with Hitler or the Nazi's and the social conditions that were causing men to give up hope and turn to hate, began through other men who had power over the people. Those who dictated the rules of austerity were not the ones who would go hungry.
You don't have to be a scholar to know that glory is about sacrificing life for power. Life is presented as a burden, and the only true achievement is the ability to control the lives of others.
This is not new and has been said more profoundly by Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, Noam Chomsky, Margaret Atwood, and millions of poets whose work is mostly ignored.
The culture of Europe was destroyed in politics, wealth, life and health while a few got rich. Now this hate has been ignited by North American opportunists to defend capitalism against the human conscience.
What did Hitler achieve for the world? A brutal example of how low humanity could sink and the proof of our capacity for cruelty. But also a warning to us all about what it is we need to fight against. Not the stranger but the shadow in ourselves.
White supremacy is about turning human souls into vacuous puppets in order to destabilize and destroy civil society and ultimately create a smooth path for megalomaniacs to do as they please without criticism or obstruction. Is this what we want?
No comments:
Post a Comment