Who Goes Nazi? (1941)
harpers.org
harpers.org
It's not Nazism that should occupy the thoughts of intellectuals. It's the underlying psychology of the in-group/out-grouping and jingoism. There's nothing qualitatively exceptional about Nazis. They were just one point in a spectrum of behavior within the range of possible human behaviors. The challenge to society is that society itself is made out of the psychology of human group cohesion. We are immersed in such psychology, and taught almost from birth to regard such things as akin to ground truth.
As 21st century intellectuals, we need even more to be self-aware of how such group psychology distorts our perception of reality.
Some interesting asides, though:
1) re: "United States of Europe" (turns it, that would actually happen!) wasn't just the dream of idealistic liberal youths of that time; it was also quite popular with many Nazis (see Speer's memoirs) and Vichyists.
2) There's also one character -- the brilliant intellectual experimenting with every intellectual idea and mixing in his own. He would seem at home in Mussolini's Italy/Petain's France. In many ways, he seems to resemble Vilfredo Paretto. I'd wager 'L' and he are the most dangerous archetypes: while Nazis would certainly "purge" both in the end, they would be instrumental in their rise to power, and would seem like the biggest "surprises" to many.
Personal note: the German emigre archetype is really interesting; I'm a former-USSR Jewish emigre to the US, now a naturalized citizen -- yet I "knew" in a sense, that the US fit my temperament and psyche long before walking off the plane and through customs. Free Utopia/Dystopia novel idea: a union of polities where each individual is free to take a specially crafted a personality test and then is allowed (by choice) to emigrate (free of any charge/transaction costs fully covered, etc...) to another polity that matched their personality (in addition to other routes of of immigration -- legal, but not unconditional or cost-free -- to avoid breeding a pure monoculture.)
>He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success.
>Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.
Many people can become swept up into revolutionary-esque fervors. For a desire to be on the winning side, for a change from a lackluster status quo, and in some cases for a chance of attaining some power themselves.
It usually involves some sort of in-group behavior, with elements of nationalism or elitism or an equivalent, but it doesn't have to necessarily. You could potentially apply this to early Russian Communists. Not all of them, for sure. Many truly believed in the ideology and wanted to implement it. But you need a lot of the sort of people described in this article to sustain a major revolution.
You say people (or intellectuals, at least) should make a conscious effort to avoid the psychology and biases of in-group/out-grouping.
But what you are proposing is simply the creation of another in-group: "those of us who don't in-group," contrasted with the new out-group of "those who do in-group and out-group."
You advocate for everyone to join your in-group of "non-in-groupers," and condemn the out-groupers, those not aligned with your prescription for correct behavior -- exactly as all in-groupers have done before you, and precisely what you claim to be deploring.
It is thus a wholly and profoundly self-contradictory proposition, which cannot be admitted as logical or rational.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29
You advocate for everyone to join your in-group of "non-in-groupers," and condemn the out-groupers, those not aligned with your prescription for correct behavior -- exactly as all in-groupers have done before you, and precisely what you claim to be deploring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
It is thus a wholly and profoundly self-contradictory proposition, which cannot be admitted as logical or rational.
Ironically, this conclusion rests on nothing but logical fallacies.
The first proposition is then not a non sequitur at all: it is simply a restatement of the original poster's view that certain people ought to be more aware of their in-grouping bias.
Even if the proposal had not been explicitly limited to "21st century intellectuals," this explicitly calls for the differentiation of people into "those who are aware of their in-group bias" and "those who are not aware of their in-group bias." The point I made follows even more strongly from the explicit qualification of "21st century intellectuals": the original post is stating directly that 21st century intellectuals ought to act a certain desired way -- that is, forming an in-group with a certain sociall prescribed norm of belief. It indeed follows from this that not only all people who do not adhere to the "be aware of your in-group bias" proposal, but indeed all people who are not intellectuals, form an out-group.
I believe this explanation of how my reprhasing correctly restates the original proposition adequately addresses the "straw man" point, as well.
No, it isn't a restatement. You make the (new) claim that "being more aware of one's own bias" creates another in-group, but it does not follow that this is your opponents position. You made no argument as to why this would be the case, either.
'Even if the proposal had not been explicitly limited to "21st century intellectuals," this explicitly calls for the differentiation of people into "those who are aware of their in-group bias" and "those who are not aware of their in-group bias."'
This is your claim. Even if it was accepted (which I will do for the sake of argument), you did not make an argument on how this logically invalidates the original proposition, which merely calls for awareness and doesn't claim that in-grouping itself is to be avoided, or that it is avoidable at all. Your proposed in-group that mandates awareness of (various) in-group biases would also call for awareness about its own biases. This is not paradoxical, at all.
'I believe this explanation of how my reprhasing correctly restates the original proposition adequately addresses the "straw man" point, as well.'
It does not. In your "straw man", you misrepresent your opponents view in quite strong terms, accusing them of "condemning" those who do not belong to an in-group that you (not your opponent) defined. This accusation holds no ground whatsoever.
But it is a vacuous and illogical argument and subtracts meaning from the discussion at hand. The leap of assumption made here is long and unfortunately negative.
We need to make value judgements to make sense out of reality. That is an irreducible aspect of thought. But the original post was about asking people to be more aware of their own biases, and not about condemning people in the vein of in-groupers and out-groupers with fascist tendencies.
What seems appealing at first blush is the superficial "just be nice to everyone" aspect of the proposal. That sounds nice at first glance, and that's why people ignore its inherent paradox to accept and promote it.
But not only is it intrinsically illogical, it's not desirable. Should we not define and maintain social out-groups for, say, neo-Nazis or child molesters or (insert your favorite bad guy figure here)?
In-groups and out-groups are not intrinsically good or bad. How they are used can be. Encouraging people to get rid of them is not only impossible (as it embodies a paradox), but also undesirable in the soft sense that ignores rational analysis which you are calling for.
All human societies have always and always will have in-groups and out-groups, and that's not inherently a bad thing. Being aware of them (the weakest possible formulation of the OP's point) changes little except making a certain group of "21st century intellectuals" grow pompous and self-righteous, and weakening what little respect there is in society for reason and logic by advancing a paradoxical proposition as though it were a virtue.
It certainly won't do anything to prevent the emergence of a future group like the Nazi Party. If anything, it makes it more likely by allowing the elite group of self-aware intellectuals to feel certain of their own moral superiority, and thus authority, over the supposed unrefined dullards who are less aware of their biases.
It's clearly not intrinsically illogical. Societies of scientists demonstrate that it's possible to harness human instincts against human biases. In many societies of scientists, the perception that one is ready to accept they are wrong when collating new data trumps the natural ego driven desire to be recognized as "right."
While it is clearly far from perfect, it is undoubtedly effective. Likewise, there have been examples of societies and organizations that demonstrated effective self-awareness of out-grouping psychology. (Two were headed by Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.)
I view it in an epidemiological context. Yes, there is a certain susceptibility in the human mind, but we have much bigger second-order effects when it comes to groups of people, and organizations. Our own ideology is Liberal Democracy, which is more tolerant of multiculturalism. But the "psychology of the masses" can be a dangerous thing. It can cause a flint (three teenagers being kidnapped in West Bank) to escalate into a flame (war in Gaza where 1500 civilians die), or via escalating reprisals where "refugees" rape women and mobs of hooligans raid peaceful refugees, and so forth.
Human life is often lost in the greatest amounts when one ideology is "completing its revolution". Whether it is the Holodomor or China's Three Terrible Years man made famines, or the persecution of Falun Gong, the rights of human beings take a backseat to ideology. That's what I find to be most dangerous politically.
Although I fear actual viruses, bacteria, overpopulation and world-ending events more, an inflexible ideology + power is a pretty terrible combination.
Given the right conditions, it genuinely seems that any culture or peoples could be turned into a place where concentration camps, genocide, and oppression are just part of making the trains run on time.
--Tom Wolfe
TLDR: anyone that is either poor and afraid of communism or is driven by social acceptance (ie. nearly everyone) would be strongly tempted to join the nazis. Anyone poor who isn't stupid would be "purged", but would likely still join.
That Marxist Communism had taken hold of Russia largely through the efforts of outsiders was not lost on the Nazis and their distrust and fear of anyone not truly German was entirely sensible. That among these outsiders Jews played an inordinately large role was a commonly understood meme of the day. (And when looking at the Bolshevik leadership and financial backers, it is an unassailable fact, though it's currently heresy to say so.) German Jews during the party's rise were also an inordinately powerful group in German industry, finance, and media. Given the context, it was not irrational to seek to remove a minority group with questionable loyalties from such positions and prevent them from retaking them.
Throw in a Weimar period of social degeneracy and economic upheaval along with the rest of the world laying blame upon your people as being solely responsible for one of the greatest calamities experienced by western civilization and a nationalistic party that emphasized the inherent strength and value of the nation's ethnic stock was exactly what the German people needed to regain their dignity. The only lesson to be learned from the Nazis is that war should be avoided at all costs. The corollary being that if you are to fight a war, make sure you will prevail else your nation will be raped and split up and your people will be treated for the next century as though they were the greatest evil that has ever been visited upon the Earth. (And no one will learn anything from it.)
>German Jews during the party's rise were also an inordinately powerful group in German industry, finance, and media.
The German Communist Party had a very low percentage of Jewish membership. The Weimar KPD was only 0.7% Jewish in 1927. At the end of the Weimar republic, only about 1.5% of all officers were Jewish, and only one of the leaders was Jewish (Heinz Neumann). A year later, Hitler gained power, and there were no longer any Jewish leaders of the party.
Judeo-Bolshevism is a myth no matter how you look at it. There is sometimes a disproportionate amount of Jewish representation in certain movements around the world, but these can be explained by factors other than conspiracy.
You could say that Nazism was, in part, a reaction to the spread of communism. But it was an irrational overreaction, and also partly a pretext for Hitler's overall racial and societal ideals. Hitler would have still wanted to implement much of his plans even if communism never existed in the East. He just would have been likely to rise to power.
>You don't have to prove a "conspiracy" among the participants every time you apprehend a trend among a given population group for the trend to be true in a heuristic sense.
Sure you do. Listing facts like these is only done because it comes with implicit accusations about intent and/or genetic flaws. Also, ad hominem though it may be, I am 99% certain you support Hitler and sing his praises on places like /pol/.
It is true that many of the initial leaders in the Bolshevik movement were Jewish and the Cheka had heavy Jewish representation for a while (though this was greatly reduced under Stalin). However, presenting those facts alone does not convey the full picture. For example, the fact that many Jews were killed by the Bolsheviks, sometimes by ethnic Russiand and sometimes by other ethnic Jews. Or that pretty much none of the Jewish founders identified with Judaism ethnically or religiously and refused to abide by Jewish traditions, instead favoring a secular united philosophy with the rest of the country).
The only reason to present those facts as you have is to imply either some sort of conspiracy, or some sort of inherent moral failing within all Jews which the Nazis justifiably "defended themselves" from.