the following is the result of googling the popularity of Neitzche in the US.

Despite that, for more than a century Nietzsche has been a hugely popular—and surprisingly influential—figure in American thought and culture. In American Nietzsche, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen delves deeply into Nietzsche's philosophy, and America's reception of it, to tell the story of his curious appeal.

American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas ... — Amazon

When Hintz professed her reverence for Nietzsche in 1913, the American “Nietzsche vogue” (as it was referred to at the time) was only in its infancy. Indeed, what looked like a fleeting intellectual fashion in the 1910s proved so durable that by 1987 it had accomplished, in the words of University of Chicago classics scholar Allan Bloom, nothing less than the “Nietzscheanization” of the American mind. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom surveyed the wreckage of late-20th-century “value relativism” in American culture and traced it back to the 1930s and ’40s, when German-speaking intellectual émigrés fleeing Nazism brought Nietzsche’s philosophy with them as they found refuge in the American academy. According to Bloom, though they introduced Americans to Nietzsche’s terrifying insights into the bankruptcy of Western thought and morality, these refugee scholars also instructed them in the larger European cultural framework from which they had come. But as his philosophy made its way from the academy into the radicalized culture of the 1960s, it became transfigured into a blank check for late-20th-century “nihilism, American style.” — JENNIFER RATNER-ROSENHAGEN

There's nothing American or German about governance/politics. All we have to remember is that when we make a choice, it's not the best of the best but the best of the worst (least worst).

The racist thing is a distraction from the wanting a totalitarian system and I am so glad you brought in the rest of the world. Through the internet, I know a Portuguese man and the brutality of fascism is still with him. Why not go with what works? Except as you said. in Germany, it was clear it did not work. But exactly what piece of it did not work? — Athena

I think it was evident to everybody when every large city or town was bombed and the country was occupied. The corrupt Nazi organization couldn't (and wouldn't) take care of the people once the fighting came inside Germany's borders. The absolute collapse could also be seen that there wasn't any resistance afterwards the surrender: no large scale Werewolf units continued the fight afterwards. You don't hear about nazi-insurgents fighting on and being captured in the 1950's or 1960's in either East or West Germany. The Third Reich just evaporated into thin air afterwards and became just an idea.

It is mind-boggling that people could want Putin in charge, but in the US many people want Trump in charge and I can't explain this. But somewhere in this soup of thoughts is a burning need to be superior and in control, and to have no qualms about exploiti8ng or crashing others.

Why is being a Nazi attractive to some? — Athena

For many Russians, Putin seem to bring back stability to Russia and someone to contain the robber barons that had stolen the largest companies of Russia. Of course what Putin did was start his rule by killing innocent Russians by staging a terrorist attack in order to get the Chechen war going again (as the last had ended in humiliating defeat) and then put his friends and basically the St. Petersburg mafia in charge. And until now (at least), starting wars has made him extremely popular.

For many Americans, Trump seemed to be the perfect middle finger to the ruling elite, even if the guy was part of that elite, and simply went for his rhetoric and basically didn't care how inept the guy was as a leader.

Stability and security is what all authoritarians proclaim. And usually they portray every opponent of theirs as being against this and that those before them were evil and had no desire to serve the people, unlike them (the populism). The situation is so dire, that tough measures are needed. And many fall for that.

The Prussian military model means that even if all your generals are destroyed, the war will proceed as planned. Every detail of the operation is planned. Every job is planned in detail so everyone who does the job will do it the same as the person before. Kings die, but bureaucracies never die. — Athena

Actually, the Prussian Model is not that every detail is planned. Actually quite contrary: It's that lower leaders will take initiative as they understand what the intention of their commanders is and can use their own judgement to achieve those goals. Every detail, especially after the initial stage, isn't planned as no plan survives contact with the enemy. What is taught is a method of warfare and hence lower commanders, even soldiers, can use their own thinking and their own initiative.

In fact it's more of the Russian way of thinking where every detail of the operation is planned and total obedience is demanded from lower commanders. Hence you have had the situation (now in Ukraine) where high ranking Russian generals have had to command the troops from the front (as otherwise nobody wants to take responsibility) and hence they have been killed in large numbers. Even I myself was told in training that if you can take out the commander of a Russian force prior to it's attack, the unit will likely not continue it's operation.

But of course this is just a sidenote. When you have soldiers / bureaucrats who are not only following just orders, but using a method to operate even without given orders from above, then you have a situation where "kings die, but bureaucracies never die".

Well your information is different from mine and it is a nice sunny day and I don't think I care as much today as I do on other days. However, all that talk about war isn't what people who study bureaucracy talk about. This is how people who study bureaucracy understand the organization used in Germany and adopted by the US.

The Weberian Model
The classic model of bureaucracy is typically called the ideal Weberian model, and it was developed by Max Weber, an early German sociologist. Weber argued that the increasing complexity of life would simultaneously increase the demands of citizens for government services. Therefore, the ideal type of bureaucracy, the Weberian model, was one in which agencies are apolitical, hierarchically organized, and governed by formal procedures. Furthermore, specialized bureaucrats would be better able to solve problems through logical reasoning. Such efforts would eliminate entrenched patronage, stop problematic decision-making by those in charge, provide a system for managing and performing repetitive tasks that required little or no discretion, impose order and efficiency, create a clear understanding of the service provided, reduce arbitrariness, ensure accountability, and limit discretion.[8
[https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/amgovernment/understanding-bureaucracies-and-their-types/

Weber was a sociologist and very influential. He was born in Prussia. I like many of his thoughts.

Now I am going to join a neighbor and work on my garden on this lovely sunny day. I hope you are also enjoying your day.

Referring to the Prussian military model I really didn't think about Max Weber, actually. After all, there are different models and ideologies that are German / Prussian. Starting from the fact that Karl Marx was born Prussian! (But for some reason we don't look at Marxism as part of the cultural heritage Prussia has given to the World)

But yes, Weber is also one of my favorites and his views have been very influential. Indeed in his works on bureaucracy are important as it's been a framework on how bureaucracy has been studied. It's not only that Americans have adopted Weber, it's quite universal at least in the West. The faceless Weberian bureaucrat has been seen an antidote antidote patronage, nepotism and corruption. Of course as person living in the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries he didn't live to see what modern bureaucracies developed into (someone as smart as Weber could have made interesting observations) and for him modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world. We have to understand that a professional, impartial and meritocratic government bureaucracy have been the exception throughout history. In Weber's time there was in Germany still the Kaiser and when you do have an autocrat, bureaucracy can be passed by going directly to the monarch. Hence sociologists that lived in the late 19th Century had still much things around from the past like the last remnants of feudalism in their day to day life.

ssu
5.8k
↪Athena Referring to the Prussian military model I really didn't think about Max Weber, actually. After all, there are different models and ideologies that are German / Prussian. Starting from the fact that Karl Marx was born Prussian! (But for some reason we don't look at Marxism as part of the cultural heritage Prussia has given to the World)

But yes, Weber is also one of my favorites and his views have been very influential. Indeed in his works on bureaucracy are important as it's been a framework on how bureaucracy has been studied. It's not only that Americans have adopted Weber, it's quite universal at least in the West. The faceless Weberian bureaucrat has been seen an antidote antidote patronage, nepotism and corruption. Of course as person living in the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries he didn't live to see what modern bureaucracies developed into (someone as smart as Weber could have made interesting observations) and for him modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world. We have to understand that a professional, impartial and meritocratic government bureaucracy have been the exception throughout history. In Weber's time there was in Germany still the Kaiser and when you do have an autocrat, bureaucracy can be passed by going directly to the monarch. Hence sociologists that lived in the late 19th Century had still much things around from the past like the last remnants of feudalism in their day to day life. — ssu

Oh I think I love you!

:kiss: Now this discussion can flower. This is the first time in many years on many forums that someone has said something that can move the discussion forward. :grin:

Yes, the government programs we have today would not be possible without this bureaucratic order. I don't see the number for post? On the first page about halfway down I give quotes from Huxley, Tocoquiville, and Tagore

Athena
2k — Athena

(click on Athena to see the thread) that draw our attention to the problems with this bureaucracy.

I believe everyone understands our change from the past as the consequence of technology, without considering bureaucratic technology. My argument is the change in bureautic technology is essential to programs such as Social Security, but it also has social, economic, and political ramifications. This would not be as true as it is, if we had maintained education for good citizenship and independent thinking and if we continued to transmit the culture we had.

With the change in bureaucratic order, came education for a high-tech society with unknown values. Now may I draw your attention to Eisenhower's farewell speech warning to not rely too much on the experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY We replaced education for independent thinking with "group think" and the best way to become aware of this social change is to compare Star Trek, Kirk with Picard. Kirk is the John Wayne of outer space and Picard is the "Group Think" generation.
If you can get this and then think about Trump and Biden you can see the importance of social change.

However, The change is not all bad. Eisenhower praised the Germans for their contribution to democracy and that is to have your point of view of what is good, without realizing the problems. Sorry for being so wordy, but we have culture wars and we are ripping ourselves apart right now. An end to racism and greater equality for women are good things but they do not come without problems. Perhaps you can name a few?

In the 1970's we announced a national youth crisis and my son and daughter were caught up in it just as many in my generation were caught up in being hippies. This led to my grandchildren being made wards of the state and I learned more about tranny than I ever thought possible in the US. I hope we can get into this. I hope we begin screaming about Texas paying people to report anything related to abortion and what went wrong in Nazi Germany, where the witch hunts began, and what can we learn about this evil of reporting family and neighbors to "authority".

Agent Smith
4.3k
There's nothing American or German about governance/politics. All we have to remember is that when we make a choice, it's not the best of the best but the best of the worst (least worst). — Agent Smith

To make a choice people must be informed and they are not informed. People are totally clueless about the bureaucratic changes that have been made and what this has to do with our children having a very different education since the 1958 National Defense Education Act, ended the transmission of the culture we had. They are completely unaware that because of these changes we value each other differently and this is a huge change in how we experience ourselves.

Welcome to the Borg. Please verify who you are with official ID and tell us what is your IQ and what is your area of expertise.

@Athena

In my humble opinion, the ills of the political system that are around are not unique to either the US or Germany.

What are using to form your opinion?

And you appear to be ignoring information. — Athena

:blush: Yep, you're on the mark. It's just it doesn't feel right to attribute anything to a particular group of people or to a country as a whole. When we do that, we do it for the sake of simplicity, but there's the real and deadly risk of oversimplification.

Agent Smith
4.3k
And you appear to be ignoring information.
— Athena

:blush: Yep, you're on the mark. It's just it doesn't feel right to attribute anything to a particular group of people or to a country as a whole. When we do that, we do it for the sake of simplicity, but there's the real and deadly risk of oversimplification. — Agent Smith

I was hoping to change my post before anyone responded to it. I should not have made a "you" statement.

@SSU is the only person I have come across in many years of trying to have this discussion who knows enough about bureaucratic choices and organization to have something interesting to say. I think most people find the subject of bureaucracy just too boring to bother learning anything about it and that leaves them powerless. Understanding very little they are easily manipulated.

Long before Hitler gained real power, he became a speaker for the National Socialist party. The party
surveyed people to find out what made them the angriest and then they rented places for speakers who would talk about what made the people angry and how they would change things so they would be happy voters instead of angry voters. Trump took that route to the presidency. He even came to my small city and used the fairgrounds and told us over and over again what I great community we have. There was no substance to what he said, only people-pleasing comments. He did that all across the country. Of course, he is not the only one to do that but these speeches and TV ads were not always the work of professionals who find out what we want to hear and how to package their message so we will vote for them. People who really do not have a lot of information vote for someone who makes them feel good. You talk about "it doesn't feel right", and I think you agree you ignore the information. THIS IS NOT HOW TO HAVE A DEMOCRACY! THIS IS NOT WHAT EMPOWERS THE PEOPLE.

Reactionary politics is all about feelings. Since we ended education for independent thinking and left moral training to the church, we have developed the reactionary politics that as @SSU pointed out resulted in a complete collapse.

Stability and security is what all authoritarians proclaim. And usually, they portray every opponent of theirs as being against this and that those before them were evil and had no desire to serve the people, unlike them (the populism). The situation is so dire, that tough measures are needed. And many fall for that — ssu

But reactionary politics destroy everything because people are acting on their feelings, not their knowledge. They know they do not understand and do not have the power and they seek a leader who will take good care of them.

Education is vital to democracy and that is not education for technology.

how they would change things so they would be happy voters instead of angry voters. — Athena

The simplicity mon chéri, the simplicity! :up:

Reactionary politics is all about feelings. — Athena

Hear! Hear!

Good points!

I spent this morning in a mandatory meeting and we were told why the organization is having so many problems and why our superiors can do nothing about them.

A major problem is the organization I am in is dependent on other organizations and those other organizations have no interest in what our program is doing other than the list of rules. Those who make the rules for how we serve elderly people have education in public service but not gerontology (the study of aging). That is, the rules are being made and enforced by people who do not know the population we serve. This is a huge problem because being over 70 is nothing like being 35. We are working with dependent and vulnerable people and the people making the rules have no understanding of what it is like to be one of them.

The organization could be doing a lot better if it were a religious organization with a focus on giving compassionate care, instead of a hierarchy of power and legalities and rules. And leave the volunteers free to do what needs to be done. Being American used to mean being our own authority and being trusted to do the right thing but today's bureaucracy has changed all that.

Neitzche — Athena

Nietzsche!!! :D

The post does not say much. Nietzsche might be popular in the US but only in some circles, literary criticism, as a progenitor post modernism maybe. Nietzsche is abused, used, held as a conservative and a revolutionary. But anyway, I think Nietzsche would be on your side in this debate. He abhorred mediocrity and 'herd spirit'. He admired the ancient thinkers just like you do. He abhorred democratization in the sense of populism because it made men ripe for tyrants. Nietzsche does not seem to be your target. I would recommend you to study him. Take your eyes from wikipedia and videos about the Prussian education system, and read Nietzsche. I thin you will find it wonderful.

I also do not think bureaucracy is a European disease. The US have their own fair share. Fordism, Taylorism... We are not living in the 19th century anymore, however if you want to understand it correctly, study the 19th century and study Germany, because it was the German golden age. If Germany is your enemy you have to get to know him and know the US as well. Nazism was only one side of the German coin...

Neitzche
— Athena

Nietzsche!!! :D

The post does not say much. Nietzsche might be popular in the US but only in some circles, literary criticism, as a progenitor post modernism maybe. Nietzsche is abused, used, held as a conservative and a revolutionary. But anyway, I think Nietzsche would be on your side in this debate. He abhorred mediocrity and 'herd spirit'. He admired the ancient thinkers just like you do. He abhorred democratization in the sense of populism because it made men ripe for tyrants. Nietzsche does not seem to be your target. I would recommend you to study him. Take your eyes from wikipedia and videos about the Prussian education system, and read Nietzsche. I thin you will find it wonderful.

I also do not think bureaucracy is a European disease. The US have their own fair share. Fordism, Taylorism... We are not living in the 19th century anymore, however if you want to understand it correctly, study the 19th century and study Germany, because it was the German golden age. If Germany is your enemy you have to get to know him and know the US as well. Nazism was only one side of the German coin... — Tobias

I strongly recommend you be respectful and stop using your too soon drawn conclusions as the base of your arguments. God, you really pissed me off. You make another comment like your Wikipedia insult and that will be the last time I read your post.

Ohhh I did not intend to be disrespectful, but I see now why it seemed that way. I apologize. We had discussions before and you also pointed me to some of the links, which I indeed watched. I think they are interesting and insightful, I watched them with pleasure, but I also think you know enough about them. You have seen what there at least it seems to me and I think that when delving into the subject of the philosophy behind it, it would be better to actually read them. Wiki will not teach you anything new I think because you have that material already at your fingertips. When commenting on Nietzsche I think it is really preferable to read him yourself and I actually think you will truly enjoy. Again, I meant no disrespect.

The organization could be doing a lot better if it were a religious organization with a focus on giving compassionate care, instead of a hierarchy of power and legalities and rules. And leave the volunteers free to do what needs to be done. Being American used to mean being our own authority and being trusted to do the right thing but today's bureaucracy has changed all that. — Athena

My analysis is not that this is 'Prussian', or maybe it is Americanized Prussianism. Such emphasis on 'targets', 'rules' and feedback is often linked to New Public Management thinking. See this Wiki ;) link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Public_Management

NPM Public services should be ran like a company and be as efficient as possible, To do that managers needed control over the company and organization and control over the individual within it. As a management philosophy it was pioneered in anglo saxon countries and is not part and parcel of any modern German model, though it is introduced there too. However, I wonder if the Germans can be blamed for that, in general it is considered an outgrowth of the Thatcher / Reagan years.

Here is an article about NPM in Australia, though I did not read it, it did seem to be a lot like you described. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1440783309346477?journalCode=josb

Thanks to @Banno for one of the most important defenses of those caught up in Naxi Germany, that I have ever seen. https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil

The Nazis in general were not evil people but people educated to be controlled and were controlled by the bureaucracy above them. Almost the same conditions as the US today because the US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and the i958 National Defense Education Act replaced domestic education the US had with Germany's model. The US has a different history with a constitution that assured human rights, but I don't think that history will continue to move the US in a different direction than Germany took. As many pointed out in this thread, some of the evils done were an imitation of what started in the US, such as putting native Americans on reservations, and eugenics.

We are no longer teaching national values when we enter wars and I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies.

My argument is the change in bureautic technology is essential to programs such as Social Security, but it also has social, economic, and political ramifications. — Athena

This is so true. For a modern public sector to operate you do need that modern bureaucracy. When this bureaucracy is professional and doesn't fall into the pitfalls of corruption, favoritism or nepotism etc. things work well. This also has an impact on the populace: they trust and depend on the government in a totally different manner. Literally one's social safety net isn't anymore family (as it has been for thousands of years), but your public sector employee.

This would not be as true as it is, if we had maintained education for good citizenship and independent thinking and if we continued to transmit the culture we had. — Athena

I think this is very much American thinking, where individual freedom is promoted. And as it's a huge country without real enemies lurking at the border (Canada and Mexicon don't impose a threat), American thinking has differed a bit from Europe. The collective isn't so important and seems to be something leftist. In a small country as mine where people understand that the existence of the people hasn't been and isn't self evident. Hence the collective thinking of "us" and it's link to the country and government is far closer than in the US. The government isn't a threat, it's something that people actually also voluntarily work for free. There's voluntary defense training, voluntary fire brigades, voluntary rescue and so on, which is controlled and lead by the government/public sector. It's far different from ordinary charity work in this case.

Education is vital to democracy and that is not education for technology. — Athena

A very good point. Participation of educated, informed people is absolutely essential for any democracy or democratic process. Otherwise that "common sense" that people do have simply won't show itself in elections. At worst, politics can become so absurd and violent that "ordinary" people don't want to have anything to do with it.

In a way in our societies, the at least adequately functioning bureaucracy can carry any kind of elected leadership, however bad it is, to the finish line. Social security checks are sent, the health sector functions, the armed forces and the police operate, however clueless or bizarre people are elected to political leadership positions. The bureaucracy will implement the whims of the leadership as it has understood that it's not the role of the bureaucracy to challenge elected leaders. Authoritarianism can creep in easily to a democracy, as the bureaucracy will just mildly oppose it. Only if the laws are openly broken is there opposition to this from the government itself, otherwise the government bureaucracy will go where the leaders want them to go.

In fact this was crucial even to Hitler. When he came into power, the German military was small, limited in various ways by the peace agreement, yet a selected and an extremely professional volunteer force that had thought for a long time what had gone wrong in the Great War and what should be corrected. Hitler started the rearming and enlargement of the military and the generals obediently followed him. Straight until the end. Yet without that post-WWI German military, Hitler would have utterly failed in creating his Wehrmacht as the Nazis themselves didn't have the ability to create anything more than thugs that could harass political opponents and Jewish vendors. Hence the German military in WW2 gave a stellar operational performance (thanks to that Prussian military model and culture), but abysmally failed in it's strategic objectives. The simply fact is that conquering the World is an insane objective. Even trying to conquer the Soviet Union in 100 days is ludicrous. And it should be noted that other branches of the German bureaucracy, like the judicial sector, did follow Hitler obediently until the end. Hence Germany including it's bureaucracy had some soul searching to do after the war (at least in West Germany).

the US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and the i958 National Defense Education Act replaced domestic education the US had with Germany's model. — Athena

Directly contradicts...

I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies. — Athena

The 'culture [you] had' was the one which decided to 'adopt the German model of bureaucracy and replace the domestic education the US had with Germany's model'.

If the 'culture you had' was so great as to lament its loss, then how come it made such a 'terrible' choice? It was clearly either stupid, or unethical, neither worthy of lamenting the loss of.

We are no longer teaching national values when we enter wars and I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies. — Athena

I do not now your age exactly, but culture is no monolithic entity. My mother is born directly after the second world war. She grew up in the 60s and lived in the 70s... there were so many cultural strands, the rise of the left, flower power, pacifism, conservatism, militant anti- communism... Which 'culture' would it be when your generation is gone? I think the culture you refer to has been taken down already by a double punch: flower power from the left and chicago school shareholder capitalism from the right...

I am quoting from Wikipedia to ask a question.

The full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (English: National Socialist German Workers' Party) and they officially used the acronym NSDAP. The term "Nazi" was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backwards farmer or peasant, characterising an awkward and clumsy person, a yokel. In this sense, the word Nazi was a hypocorism of the German male name Igna(t)z (itself a variation of the name Ignatius)—Igna(t)z being a common name at the time in Bavaria, the area from which the NSDAP emerged.[11][12][/quote

The link may say even more important things, but what jumps out at me is "Nazi" was a derogatory word meaning backward farmer or peasant. Trump appeals to these people. He was a Wrestlemania star
It is a total humiliation to have a president who behaves like this, and he still has a large following. — Wikipedia

Hitler began in the countryside, not in the cities. We have a growing conflict between sophisticated, cosmopolitan people and those who are not, those who favor their religious beliefs and those who favor science. Some people are strongly opposed to opening our borders to immigrants, while some are in favor of immigrants and even see them as a wonderful addition to our diversity. Some want to hide the shame of slavery and discrimination and others want to resolve these problems. You mentioned being community-minded and I think country folk are community-minded, but we didn't live close together in little towns and live separate from our farms as Europeans did. We lived on our farms and separate from each other. We have been proudly independent. We had church charity and to this day many people in the US are opposed to government services. Especially Mormons are opposed to relying on the government. The whole Republican Party puts the concern for the budget before concern for saving lives. These are strong conflicting ideas of right and wrong and this kind of conflict can beg for a Trump or a Hitler to take control and end the conflict.

Then comes covid those who accepted isolation and wearing masks and those who did not. Many saw the scientific point of view as just government spinning out of control and wanting to control us, instead of science and wanting to get control of a virus. This is a life and death matter with serious economic ramifications and therefore it is not easily ignored. Add to this global warming and a war that demands our attention and it is like being in a pressure cooker.

What are the characteristics of good citizenship? What are the characteristics of good leadership? I was amused by this last election. For the first time, we had candidates promoting themselves as people of science, and my vote was based on my faith in science and fear of those who vote as their minister tells them to vote. When we fear our neighbor's decisions are harming us, it is hard to have a good sense of community. The different reactions to covid were life-changing. I have become intolerant of Christians and this really bothers me. Is Europe more secular than the US? I think this has very strong education and political ramifications. If we did not rely on the churches for moral education perhaps we would return to education for citizenship. I think this is essential.

↪Athena Referring to the Prussian military model I really didn't think about Max Weber, actually. After all, there are different models and ideologies that are German / Prussian. Starting from the fact that Karl Marx was born Prussian! (But for some reason we don't look at Marxism as part of the cultural heritage Prussia has given to the World)

But yes, Weber is also one of my favorites and his views have been very influential. Indeed in his works on bureaucracy are important as it's been a framework on how bureaucracy has been studied. It's not only that Americans have adopted Weber, it's quite universal at least in the West. The faceless Weberian bureaucrat has been seen an antidote antidote patronage, nepotism and corruption. Of course as person living in the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries he didn't live to see what modern bureaucracies developed into (someone as smart as Weber could have made interesting observations) and for him modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world. We have to understand that a professional, impartial and meritocratic government bureaucracy have been the exception throughout history. In Weber's time there was in Germany still the Kaiser and when you do have an autocrat, bureaucracy can be passed by going directly to the monarch. Hence sociologists that lived in the late 19th Century had still much things around from the past like the last remnants of feudalism in their day to day life. — ssu

I do see Marx and Prussian as complimentary. The military takes care of their own. There was a shift from the military being rather limited, and certainly, the officers were an exclusive group of people above the peasants, to a greater equality created by technology and wars that involve everyone as a military-industrial complex. Economic decisions are vital to the military-industrial complex. Communism is also about economics and the well-being of everyone. These concerns are not like apples and oranges but what kind of apple do you like best. German had workers' compensation, and a national pension plan, and a national health plan, and a healthier population than Britain had when war began. That gave Germany a very important military advantage. America followed that example, short of the national health care, but it did pay a lot of attention to physical education when war was on its mind before our focus on technology decreased the need for healthy young men to send into war.

"and for him (Weber) modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world." That modern industrialized world is a military-industrial complex.

Tobias
707
We are no longer teaching national values when we enter wars and I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies.
— Athena

I do not now your age exactly, but culture is no monolithic entity. My mother is born directly after the second world war. She grew up in the 60s and lived in the 70s... there were so many cultural strands, the rise of the left, flower power, pacifism, conservatism, militant anti- communism... Which 'culture' would it be when your generation is gone? I think the culture you refer to has been taken down already by a double punch: flower power from the left and chicago school shareholder capitalism from the right... — Tobias

The 1958 National Defense Education Act happened before the 60's and 70's. That act ended the transmission of the culture, that Eisenhower called our domestic education. Moral education was the left to the church as though that could do for us what education for citizenship was doing for us.

We began educating for a technological society with unknown values. That's what we have now. A technological society with unknown values and no one prepared to establish national, secular values.
Hopefully, this forum can begin resolving that problem.

I agree with you for a very large part. I guess the erosion happened before the onset of the Reagan/ thatcher years and maybe before the onset of the sixties. These phenomena would then be symptoms of our technological age. It is still a thorny issue though. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger had a very similar critique of technological society as what you give. We have eroded our ability to ' let things be' and came to see them as resources, as objects with which we could wield power. I think his critique holds water. The problem is it drove him straight in the arms of the Nazi party because he thought both the US and Russia were ' metaphysically the same' i.e. overtaken by the wish to produce.

Therefore, even though I really like your critique, it is always tricky to point out where it exactly began. Heidegger had these views in the 1930s... The uncorrupted society and nature has been a theme in 20th century Western consciousness. All too often it is forgotten that that society, in which we taught for citizenship was hardly inclusive. Only in todays mass society do we have really a mass citizenry. Hitherto citizenship was only for the happy few, the well to do and in the US the White Anglo Saxon and Protestant. The dark side of the coin of the old days is easily overlooked. What you call 'culture' another class of people might call oppression. Culture was only homogenous in tribal societies. A monolithic culture in a country that is a melting pot of peoples can only be sustained by domination of a certain class who determines what 'culture' is.
Nonetheless, I share much of your critique. I am also thinking of ways a new 'metaphysics of culture' that is, a binding force drawing people together, might emerge. I think it is indeed not around technology or technological education. I also o not think a return to the past is the answer.

Isaac
7k
the US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and the i958 National Defense Education Act replaced domestic education the US had with Germany's model.
— Athena

Directly contradicts...

I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies.
— Athena

The 'culture [you] had' was the one which decided to 'adopt the German model of bureaucracy and replace the domestic education the US had with Germany's model'.

If the 'culture you had' was so great as to lament its loss, then how come it made such a 'terrible' choice? It was clearly either stupid, or unethical, neither worthy of lamenting the loss of. — Isaac

What do you mean by "Directly contradicts"?

I would not say that civilians chose anything except to win the second world war and then to defend against the communist who came to power with violence. The Soviet Union held a philosophy of violently imposing communism on the world and the world knew they had the technology for atomic bombs. Sputnik proved they also had the missile technology needed to send atomic bombs anywhere in the world the communist wanted to drop one. The 1958 National Defense Education Act was the result of Sputnik. That act had a four-year limit but obviously, it became a permanent change in education.

None of this was an intentional change in culture and that is why I write. I can not think of one decision voters have made, except to elect leaders and some states agreed to give women equal rights and to end segregation. I don't think there was much thinking about either of those radical cultural changes but they were reactions to education for democracy, except in the Southern Bible Belt where religion results in conservative thinking. So one reason to change was to make our democracy more equal, but the South has opposed both equalities for women and people of color, conserving a culture with some democratic notions but mostly built on conservative religious reasoning much as Muslim radicalism prevents equality.

I mean voting for progressive changes in our democracy may not take into consideration negative consequences. A big negative consequence is an amoral society and increasing anarchy resulting from no longer preparing the young for citizenship and leaving moral training to the church. It was not an intent to destroy our culture but to make it better, more equal, and more democratic.

Tobias
709
I agree with you for a very large part. I guess the erosion happened before the onset of the Reagan/ thatcher years and maybe before the onset of the sixties. These phenomena would then be symptoms of our technological age. It is still a thorny issue though. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger had a very similar critique of technological society as what you give. We have eroded our ability to ' let things be' and came to see them as resources, as objects with which we could wield power. I think his critique holds water. The problem is it drove him straight in the arms of the Nazi party because he thought both the US and Russia were ' metaphysically the same' i.e. overtaken by the wish to produce.

Therefore, even though I really like your critique, it is always tricky to point out where it exactly began. Heidegger had these views in the 1930s... The uncorrupted society and nature has been a theme in 20th century Western consciousness. All too often it is forgotten that that society, in which we taught for citizenship was hardly inclusive. Only in todays mass society do we have really a mass citizenry. Hitherto citizenship was only for the happy few, the well to do and in the US the White Anglo Saxon and Protestant. The dark side of the coin of the old days is easily overlooked. What you call 'culture' another class of people might call oppression. Culture was only homogenous in tribal societies. A monolithic culture in a country that is a melting pot of peoples can only be sustained by domination of a certain class who determines what 'culture' is.

Nonetheless, I share much of your critique. I am also thinking of ways a new 'metaphysics of culture' that is, a binding force drawing people together, might emerge. I think it is indeed not around technology or technological education. I also do not think a return to the past is the answer. — Tobias

Many people have said what you said and assume returning to education for democracy and good moral judgment means returning to the past. I do not know why they make that assumption. It is a belief that is devoid of understanding democracy and Aristotle and Cicero. It is failure to understand Jefferson's meaning when he wrote of the pursuit of happiness, and understanding the pursuit of happiness is tied to not allowing everyone to vote. And lastly what part of being excluded because I am a woman do you think I have forgotten? Hell, my best friend told me I should stop reading because my husband didn't like me reading and when I returned to college, my father told my husband that he should be the one in college, not me because he is the man. My father guided his son into engineering. He would have nothing to do with me studying anything besides home economics. I remember well when our society was organized along the lines of Aristotle's belief that a man should have a wife, an ox, and a slave. The men in my life were like slave owners when everyone expected women to behave like slaves and obey the head of the male house.

Before 1917 the purpose of education was to teach good citizenship and Americanize immigrants as Jefferson understood the necessity of education in a democracy. We did not have vocational training until 1917 and that was because we had not developed technology and didn't need people prepared with vocational training until we entered WWI against Germany, a nation that, thanks to the Prussians, had long had education for technology for military and industrial purpose.

Many immigrants had no experience with democracy and education had to teach them about our very different institutions and the Protestant work ethic was a big concern. As religious as the Puritans were, they were intently focused on being industrious and accumulating wealth because of Calvinism and believing only a few people were chosen for heaven, and how well a person did here on earth was proof of them being favored by God of not. They set what was to be the American culture and Protestant work ethic. But this was religion, not technology and the obscene drive for wealth we have today. :worry: Am I making any sense? Yes, that was very White Anglo-Saxon Protestant exclusion. It was more religious than secular Greek/Roman democracy.

The US imitated both Athens and Roman and I have a problem with the Roman/religious influence. Cicero, a Roman statesman wrote a lot and his books were essential reading when we had classical education. No one saw democracy in the Bible until there was literacy in Greek and Roman classics. To this day, we are ignorant of democracy without that literacy.

BOTTOM LINE-
Essential is both scientific thinking and good moral judgment that is based on knowing truth, universal/nature's laws, and good manners. This is not materialistic but intellectual and that is the pursuit of happiness. It is the path to raising our human potential and it is worth defending. The men who understood this ended our relationship with monarchy and the Biblical kingdom of kings, subjects, and slaves. Technology can greatly benefit us or put us back to being subjects.
I am saying education for technology is making us subjects rather than free citizens. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. Liberal education is for free men.

We have a growing conflict between sophisticated, cosmopolitan people and those who are not, those who favor their religious beliefs and those who favor science. — Athena

I think this is a general way populism works. The populist favors "the ordinary people" and creates a dividing line between the people and the elite...or people they call as the elite. Now this elite can be the political, the financial, but also the educational elite. Hence if a leftist or conservative / nationalistic political movement can be very popular in academic circles, a populist movement isn't as it likely will depict the "academic world" as part of the problem.

That NSDAP gathered it's first support in beer halls in Munich shows the populist approach of this movement.

And in any way, populist movement intend to annoy "the elite" with their crude message as they do want to divide the people to us and them, not to gain overall popularity in all sections of the population.

I do see Marx and Prussian as complimentary. The military takes care of their own. There was a shift from the military being rather limited, and certainly, the officers were an exclusive group of people above the peasants, to a greater equality created by technology and wars that involve everyone as a military-industrial complex. Economic decisions are vital to the military-industrial complex. — Athena

Do note that this changed already during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon and Revolutionary France gained such powerful military because implementing an universal draft and making military service compulsory. And also creating the "wartime economy", start of the military industrial complex. The other militaries of the time had been smaller professional armies. The defeat to Napoleon was the initial start for Prussia to reform it's military, starting with mimicking Revolutionary France with the levée en masse, the universal military conscription, and carrying out several reforms like creating the Auftragstaktik, which then became the "Prussian Model".

German had workers' compensation, and a national pension plan, and a national health plan, and a healthier population than Britain had when war began. That gave Germany a very important military advantage. — Athena

And it should be noted that for example the national pension plan was made by Bismarck, one of the most conservative figures in German history. The thinking was more to counter the demands (and the threat) from the socialists than to embrace government welfare thinking in my view.

Essential is both scientific thinking and good moral judgment that is based on knowing truth, universal/nature's laws, and good manners. This is not materialistic but intellectual and that is the pursuit of happiness. It is the path to raising our human potential and it is worth defending. The men who understood this ended our relationship with monarchy and the Biblical kingdom of kings, subjects, and slaves. Technology can greatly benefit us or put us back to being subjects.
I am saying education for technology is making us subjects rather than free citizens. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. Liberal education is for free men. — Athena

Essentially I agree with you. I see a number of tenets in your post that would be important when we want to change things, please correct and me and fill in the list further:
1. The focus on technology should make way for ctizenship and reflection
2. The ideals should be democratic and inclusive
3. The teaching should be secular, though good manners and love for other should be instilled
4. intellectual progress should be emphasized over material progress
5. Virtue should be taught like in ancient Athens but without institutions like slavery.

This is what I got from your posts on the subject. I agree with this general inventory, but there are a number of questions and tensions that needs to be resolved.

1. Contrary to Europe the US could do without education for technology. People could live of the land as there was plenty. Europe was a continent densely populated with warring states vying for dominance. Now, also in the US let alone in Europe it is not possible to live of the land. Neither are people satisfied anymore working on conveyor belts in taylorist and Fordist fashion. Technology is needed to make modern urbanized society function and maintain the level of wealth people are accustomed to. So what would be the role of technological education in the reformed education system?

2. The cultural model is still very Western oriented and also rather idealized Western. It refers back to the Greek times like we imagine them to be. However we live in a pluriform society now. How do we incorporate African, Asian, Islamic and native American traditions in an education system that is inclusive an democratic.

3. What is the relationship between community an independency/ autonomy? The ethical outlook you describe to me makes me think of American values as independence and autonomy, providing aid to each other in the spirit of fellow travelers on a road to prosperity. That image is appealing but in our densely populated cities with high crime and poverty rates, a sense of community is necessary. How and to what extent do we incorporate that?

4. intellectual progress should be valued higher than material progress, but there are many people in dire material circumstances. The intellectual can only thrive when material needs are met. Moreover in our current day and age, material gains a seen as a measure for success. What measures for success might be adopted and will have an appeal to compete with material wealth?

5. What virtues should be taught. You refer to Aristotle, but Aristotle defended slavery and the subjugation of women. That has of course for a large extent to do with the age in which he lived. However, his philosophy tends to favor a certain style of dominance. He emphasized the active formative principle, over the passive material principle. Form determined matter. That division can still be seen today in how we deal with nature with nature for instance, leading perhaps to 'education for technology' . Moreover, earthliness and femininity were over the ages considered as connected, leading to the skewed vision of men being rational and in charge and women in the care of the household and fertility. We can therefore not simply copy Aristotle's virtues. What virtues do we teach?

Those are some consideration I have when reading your ideas. It is not meant as criticism of them, but to chart out some avenues to take them further and make them more concrete.