The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 156
How in the world did people become Nazis? How could it have happened? These are questions we grew up with and, maybe, always hoped against hope we wouldn’t be able to answer. There’s a comfort in them remaining mysterious, but in that comfort we’re vulnerable. How can we possibly make good on “Never Again” if we do not know how it happened? Sadly, today we’re threatened with the same menace. Sadly, today, we’re learning not how it could have happened, but exactly how it happened because it’s happening again around us. More and more of us know, with our stomachs sunken, that it is now time to speak up, but that raises another question: how? We don’t even know how it happened, much less what could have stopped it. Enter Melita Maschmann, former Nazi, and her admirable book (at least so far as I’ve read!), Account Rendered: A Dossier on My Former Self (1964). In this book, written in the form of a long letter to her teenage best friend, who was Jewish, she endeavors to explain how it could have happened to a good, respectable, well-off, conservative girl like her who went on to join the Hitler Youth and become a Nazi. She wrote it so we can know how it happened. She wrote it because “Never Again” means never. She wrote it in case “Never Again” ever again becomes now. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay introduces the book and reads a few poignant excerpts with ominous parallels to today. Join him, just in case “Never Again” really is now.
Subscribe to the New Discourses Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, Rumble, Odysee, or by RSS.
Additional episodes of the New Discourses Podcast are available here.
5 comments
”The Other Greg ” <<<<<<< James.
You only come out to ankle bite over grammar or integration James. The way only that tempts you out for a moan shows some considerable lack of confidence. Why not talk about fascism @ new atheism HQ ?
”You need meds”
You are someone its getting to ?
Where are you going to be in any debate then ? = Not Present.
If you were i’d take your argument apart & whoever you are to take the trouble to be upset knows that.
‘@ 42.55 / and on = ” accept uncritically the immoral maxims of national socialism” ( and on ..)
Dear James
I’m the only bone fide offspring of a real POW you are likely to encounter. Not quite likethe others, this POW was white / female/ british / a civil servant / and at the leisure of the japanese imperial army in Batavia. This was still WW2 and was due, though least immediately, to the 3rd Reich. Merely via the japanese the WW2 business arrangement run by the european aristocracy ( usually refered to as ‘Hitler’ ) differed since this was an asian monarchy fora change, not any of the collaborative european forces of evil who had conspired to appear invaded by themselves all except Germany.
”accept uncritically the immoral maxims of national socialism”
INTERNATIONAL! – a 4th Reich process took place and still conceals an enormous anomaly today just because what happened is referred to as ‘National’. Do you not see ? Even now the fundamental fatigue point for schism is hidden this subtle difference. Thus it is unlikely those responsible for the continental sized lootng operations known as WW2 are actually identified correctly. The narrative restricts the range to ‘National’ and ‘Germany’ & therefore has minimised who did it. Did we ever know the size of these crimes when some countries allowed themselves to be invaded and house death camps ? There is a common denominator style tribe of elite that exist across the nations involved. Only THEY could be at the root of matters now & their ruthlessness is the stuff of legend.
So – for example – say you wanted to know the phenomenological sense of the place when it comes to national socialism, as per chance a label according to historians, which much to embarrassment would require a revision to ‘International’. Not good – much the peoples pushback concerns anti revision, yet here we are requiring a PEOPLES REVISION. We see from this just one snippet of the phenomenon of being fucked from the onset here right ? So ask yourself how did they do that.HOW on earth did they know to implant the narrative so quickly and so early ? You’ve often reeled in the irony of the approved narratives exploiting contradiction, but you’ve never followed phenomenology through in order to uproot it. Reasonably speaking? – in reality the people you now call the woke right are in a continuous loop of propaganda inherited via the middle classes since the 3rd reich. So look – lets assume this could be factual, via a sociological phenomenon just for a moment. Lets even restrictit to Germany. =? The basic denomination /currency / smallest number I.E mutable liquid meme from then till now = ‘The National’
That is the coin thats restricted the rest of the worlds understand concerning how WW2 was done. I put it here ( in this post ) in a form of absurd ‘meme coin’ thats value can be exchanged for labour on these abstract levels. I would also put it to you that there was never Gnosticism / Religion / Nationalism @ the levels of cognition you’ve examined James. Your mistake was to expect the human psych to be aware of its capability to support ( just say ) – HITLER – ( for the ease of it now ). It does not work like that in fanaticism, fanatics of anyone ( Dawkins included ) – live a separate dream from that of the ‘ICON’ facing it all up. Therefore these people ‘see’ one thing but understand another the art of manipulating the masses being a skill with abstractions that enables fanatical affect using psychological artifacts which appear to be alien / incomprehensible / incoherent. Mixing words for the consumption of large numbers of people differs greatly from speaking with just 1 person. These people understand this & know also that masses of people listen with a different neuron assemblies armed. Typically this manipulation is made ready by instilling existential FEAR. For instance white people as able to be manipulated altogether differently ( compared to pre anti white racism days ) since robin de angelos ‘white fragility’ enabled certain fear neurons to become aroused. From that position, white people will be further ‘sorted’ via Intersectionality. However ALL of this sht is far more ancient than Marx. In fact you were meant to blame him James – just part of the trip that.
Do you see DiAngelo in those terms James ? – NO & few will have so do not worry. And recently its like you’ve been reaching out in these episodes struggling to understand how matters so grossly abstract can and drawn together into coherence. With your intellect you could understand this but were never trained to. WORSE – your kind of education often cheats by using fake focussing tools which deny abstractions. < Is that wrong ? NO not everything fake is bad. Natural selection in terms of mass humam psychology ( sociology ) is somewhat like the counter intuitive manner in which colours mix to form different ones.
The part you do not understand ( have called gnosticism ) is that these people ( Nazi's ) view humanity as a Field of energy potential. They then concentrate soul on the nodes that trigger that field. It starts off innocently but natural selection gets out of hand and genocide eventually results. A Nai's will then explain that natural selection as responsible = the MOTHER of ''it wasn't me'' syndromes fucking happen. Humans can know that if X Attitude is allowed to be global then Y incidents are likely to result. The 3rd Reich decided they didn't care. Furthermore somewhere along these lines should define a Nazi for it isn't simple is it ???????? NO it isn't. A Nazi should 'know' thats what they are but never do except during the golden periods when the only thing to be is a Nazi – for a period the 3rd reich were the sexiest thing on earth to all the investors. Anyone that was anyone wanted to sleep with / do business with the Nazi's. But what are they ? – is it obvious ?
NO it isn't. Even in developed western democracy we have a poor ability to give an accurate oral history of them. To understand we'd need to see how they walked a hall of self determination mirrors. In that sense a Nazi takes no responsibility for the outcome of natural selection I.E their ultimate answer is that they should not have been obeyed / humans who obeyed were really making capital themselves out of natural selection. So ( James ) – theres two things here :
They blame Human Nature. << Thats TWO as its misathropy blaming natural selection.
= A NAZI.
To be a Nazi you need to be an Atheist ideally and most acted as though they were. It would be a cheap shot to define atheism completely that way, these there is logical incongruence possible. In any case human nature is a mystery as deep as the cosmos & theres no sense in pairing atheism implicitly with nazism just because it seems the case, or because current new atheists act like nazi fascists. Current new atheists act exactly like Nazi's, but for a definitions sake it just isn't accurate enough to parallel them with godlessness just because it IS NAZI to draw up scientific hate against people based on rumours in the way that new atheism has. For example if this was WW2 new atheism might well have attacked the British. New Atheism attack of a peaceful religion so that a violent one could take over was an act of crypto fascism // its fair to say Dorkins et al could have attacked Britain in WW2 if the price was right. Frustratingly though we are no closer to 'A Nazi' – because theres no such thing as one. Its impossible to be 'A Nazi' simply as Nazism is only possible en masse. From that position its somewhat like voyager craft searching the universe for meaning.
The scientific position is clear if we allow it to be but we rarely do. The cause of hate is a paradox that is hard to pinpoint because as soon as we see we fight due to selection, we deny using either religion or philosophy as a mass. Alternately it could be true to say that only individuals do phenomenology simply because technically at least its impossible to be a non historical mass who can all appreciate the same abstraction's in the present. Therefore phenomenologists tend to restrict exchanges to historic musings.
And heres something which only someone trained in phenomenology could say to you James : You needed to see that theres never a current group conversation in phenomenology in order to appreciate its value. If you can understand what that <<< means you can understand a NAZI does not exist until they all & when they do they'll just say that natural selection put them where they are 'today'. Ok look you lot have wanky things like hitchens razor that are BS, but move weak minds so try this.
Is Richard Dawkins is an Atheist or does just think he is to suit his fascism ?. Can the evolutionist explain natural selection in terms of Nazism. Yes he can but he won't as forces of fascism forbid him to.= In real terms hes not even an evolutionist since he will not act like one for humanity. We still don't understand what a nazi is because its an abstract group phenomenon not an individual one. Dawkins is supposed to be the nosey busy body expert on metaphysical law does he know ? – NO. But somehow he decided to evaluate who should be allowed to be Christian.
What individually is a dork ? – someone who thinks everyone around them loves their ideas when they don't. When the whole would is one dork who'll stop at nothing to be admired = Nazi. What causes the whole world to do this ?
Ironically the search to be – ADMIRED – though by no means the lone suspect is high on the list. Note how counter intuitive that is in terms of 'being admired' for perpetrating human holocaust. Our best lead is thus that we do not now what we are caable of as a collective of empire building beasts and should not thus build them.
May i remark crudely as a mere londoner ?
MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS 'The EU' or 'W.E.F.' or whatever the F you are. Its YOU lot again ( its offspring ) causing global disruption wih this thing you cannot control.
You need meds.
Go take them. And then come back here and try, *try* to make your point coherently.
”You need meds”
You are someone its getting to ?
Where are you going to be in any debate then ? = Not Present.
If you were i’d take your argument apart & whoever you are to take the trouble to be upset knows that.