...we have the institutions of our world war enemy and every night in the news we hear about one horrible thing after another, and the reporters are asking what went wrong? Why are these terrible things happening? They are clueless about the fact that the US has imitated Germany in every significant way... — Athena
The US adopted the German model of bureaucracy that shifts power from the individual to the state and the corporation. In 1958 the National Defense Education Act replace the US liberal education with the German model of education for technology for military and industrial purpose. That is to say, we have the institutions of our world war enemy and every night in the news we hear about one horrible thing after another, and the reporters are asking what went wrong? Why are these terrible things happening? They are clueless about the fact that the US has imitated Germany in every significant way so now we are what we fought against, and Trump is our Hitler complete with thugs, not because Trump is who he is, but because a large percentage of the citizens what such a man to rule over all of us. — Athena
However, racist white Americans were/are prone to be anti anything non-white, whereas the Nazis targeted Jewish people. — creativesoul
Now we come to Richard M. Brickner M.D. description of Germany as paranoid. He defines this paranoia as excessive need to be superior and in control. And I want to mention here that with the change in education came a change in popular philosophers with Hegal and Nitsche replacing the Greek and Rome philosophers. Those philosophies may have remained harmless if it were not for the Prussian control of Germany and its superior bureaucracy and education for technology. What we call the German model of bureaucracy and the German model of education began as Prussian management of Germany. — Athena
Texas really shocked me by making a law that encourages people to report on their family or neighbors, or anyone they think might be suspect of helping in an abortion. These things were the horror of fascist Germany. We seem to be blind to this insidious perversion of our democracy and liberty. — Athena
Is Germany Incurable? — Athena
Why are these terrible things happening? — Athena
This is overstating the case. At least it seems that way from where I sit. Sure, there were at the time. and there still are Americans who sympathize with the idea of 'white racial superiority'. However, racist white Americans were/are prone to be anti anything non-white, whereas the Nazis targeted Jewish people.
The history behind how this all came to be is complex, for sure, but rest assured that there is always one deep seated mechanism at work:The systematic dehumanization of the 'enemy', whomever it may be. It's much easier to live with oneself when treating others cruelly or killing them outright, if those being treated as such have been previously devalued to the point of worthlessness in the mind(s) of the one(those) causing injury. That's the key core element common between Nazi Germany, the everyday affects/effects of the systemic racism inherent to The United States, and serial killers. We've not emulated Nazi Germany to the extent you suggest.
Babies and bathwater...
Americans were in awe of Germany's modes of manufacture and production, as well they ought have been. The Germans knew/know their shit when it came to such things. Given our post war economic boom was centered around manufacturing, it made good sense to emulate Germany in that regard, for they've always been very good at it. There were Nazi scientists brought on board in order to acquire their knowledge/expertise on rockets and nuclear dynamics as well.
All this being said, circling back to the OP...
American news outlets, today, are driven by profit. Profits come from advertising revenue. Advertisers want to reach as many potential customers as possible. Therefore, advertisers will pay the highest amount of revenue to the channels whose timeslots have the largest viewing population.
Shock sells.
In the seventies, the rock group KISS put on a constant theatrical production meant to shock conservative American values, particularly religious values and mores. The attention paid to them, much of which was by those avowed to somehow rid the country of their influence, made them global rockstars. The attention...
Shock sells.
Trump just said out loud what many Americans had been saying in private for a very long time. Sadly. Sadder still, is how utterly inept the opponents of such norms have been. Then there is the deep seated issue of who decides the narrative put into the public domain.
Point is that it's not so simple as to say that The United States is in trouble because we copied Germany. — creativesoul
What America Taught the Nazis in the 1930s - The Atlantichttps://www.theatlantic.com › archive › 2017/11 › what...
Nov 15, 2017 — In the 1930s, the Germans were fascinated by the global leader in codified racism—the United States. — Ira Katznelson
Many people, even those with no more than a passing interest in sport, have heard of Jesse Owens, the American athlete who ruined Adolf Hitler’s moment in the sun. For there can be no question that Hitler saw the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin as the ideal platform from which to amplify Nazi propaganda and demonstrate his white supremacist ideology. But Owens, the grandchild of a slave, shattered that illusion. — The Guardian
Making the problem of our slave history, and prejudice, forbidden school subjects will for sure promote the problems, and here is where Germany has far surpassed the US. Germany teaches their immoral actions against others in schools and publically makes everyone aware of the wrongs with signs and monuments. Shame on US for making change impossible. Like it is okay to make a person of color feel terrible but we must not say something that makes Whites feel uncomfortable? Perhaps a philosophy forum can deal with this better than our nation has? — Athena
I appreciate that this brings up the idea that Nazi Germany used segregationist and eugenicist United States as the model for its anti-Semitic ideal of an Aryan Germany.
I do think that there is a detrimental puritanical ideal of human society and behavior that permeates American society. I couldn't say if Germany suffers the same "super-ego" oppressive tendency.
However, I am reminded of an interesting element of American society provided by some writer I can't remember that observed the behavior of temperance rallies back in the early 20th century in my homeland of Appalachia. People would spend days railing against the evils of demon liquor and then afterwards would pick up moonshine from the local stil'.
So, the Puritanical streak in America was always something that made transgression more enjoyable.
I do think that the implicit fascist urge goes back to puritanism or the idea of purity. That there is some preordained pure position attainable by human beings. However, I also think that Americans at least - if not Germans - also tend to rebel against that. Which is why the shadow of fascism always hovers over America but never descends. — ASmallTalentForWar
By the third century B.C., the Celts controlled much of the European continent north of the Alps mountain range, including present-day Ireland and Great Britain.Nov 30, 2017
Who Were Celts - HISTORY — History Channel
How different is present America from the segrationist America would be more interesting.How different are we from fascist Germany? — Athena
I do need to point out that the correct names are Hegel and Nietzsche... Those philosophers were never very popular in the US actually. Nietzsche bore a deep mistrust of nationalist Germans. Your vew is overly cultural deterministic. Every nation is prone to fascism. Italy was a fascist country despite its Roman heritage. The US was an inch away from electing a president with fascist sympathies before the war. There is no such thing as evil Europe and benign US. the question whether fascism takes root has to do with trust in institutions, resentment of the population towards foreigners , fear of the the loss of status and longing for times gone by during which everything was supposedly better... Whether one reads Hegel or Mill does not matter as both are not widely read anyways. Fascism creeps in through the mass media, through appeal to emotion rather then reason in times of economic crisis.
It is of course always good to remain watchful. Everywhere surveillance is being strengthened and that is a worrying development. So indeed be watchful of intrusions of privacy and of the massing of state power. No state is immune, I think that is a wise lesson. However, I do not share your cultural explanation. — Tobias
In the past, personal and political liberty depended to a considerable extent upon governmental inefficiency. The spirit of tyranny was always more than willing; but its organization was generally weak. Progressive science and technology have changed all this completely. — Aldous Huxley
After having thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having molded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules, which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot break through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupifies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. — Tocqueville
Not too different. The National Socialists, Italian Fascists, and New Deal liberals developed surprisingly similar systems to inspire and control their citizens. A good book on this subject is Three New Deals by Wolfgang Schivelbusch. — NOS4A2
How different is present America from the segrationist America would be more interesting.
Totalitarian states actually give the perfect reason for people to adapt to it: it's simply survival. Yes, you can be a hero and fight the system, but you can easily pay the ultimate price, or your loved ones, without anyone even knowing about it.
Nazi Germany and post-war Germany are so different as the Third Reich collapsed so totally. In it's death throws it was genuinely destroying itself and the defeat was so bad that you really had a collective understanding that it didn't work and that it was utterly bad. This created the rare example of a country truly looking at it's past and condemning it. And that of course makes it so easy to hate.
In other countries, especially in Spain and Portugal, the fascist past is more problematic. It wasn't defeated in war. Spain just eased off the era of Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar's Portugal the Estado Novo, basically ended with the Carnation Revolution.
Quite different are the totalitarian systems which still have their supporters around who are respected "contrarians" and ideological minorities. — ssu
That's indeed the red pill of the deepest red! Great thread. And we let our children still go to school? To turn them from colorful, playful little humans into brainwashed and programmed grey objectively thinking copies of the schemes the powers have in mind? Dear mother of gods... — Hillary
White supremacist or Nazi? Hatred of Blacks and Jews, racism equal to the German past? American exceptionalism, or German superiority? Hail Hitler or Hail Trump? Reactionary politics and civil rebellion. culture wars, the threat of Evangelical control that is no better than being forced to live with Shia law, because both religious groups are driven to control. How different are we from fascist Germany? — Athena
I am not a big fan of Trump or Evangelicals, but perceiving them as Hitler and Nazis is outright delusional. America has lots and lots of problems, but most of them come from the left trying to keep people angry and fearful, be it climate, covid, blm, Trump, etc. — M777
The Conservative Revolution (German: Konservative Revolution), also known as the German neoconservative movement[1][2] or new nationalism,[3][2] was a German national-conservative movement prominent during the Weimar Republic, in the years between World War I and Nazi Germany (1918–1933). — Wikipedia
Plunged into what historian Fritz Stern has named a deep "cultural despair", uprooted as they felt within the rationalism and scientism of the modern world, theorists of the Conservative Revolution drew inspiration from various elements of the 19th century, including Friedrich Nietzsche's contempt for Christian ethics, democracy and egalitarianism; the anti-modern and anti-rationalist German Romanticism; the vision of an organic and organized society cultivated by the Völkisch movement; a Prussian tradition of militaristic and authoritarian nationalism; and their own experience on the front line during World War I, escorted by both irrational violence and comradeship spirit. — Wikipedia
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