Comment by a2800276 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by a2800276 | Hacker News Reader

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> If talking Germany the basic example is changing from a very militaristic society (far before the Nazis) to a rather pacifist society.

I seem to recall that this was not the result of Germans staying put and changing things for the better, but rather due to external forces reducing the majority of their country to rumble and and spending 2 decades reeducating them.

Not sure what "your country" is, but here in Germany that's the general consensus of Germany's progression to a "rather" pacifist society. You might want to take pacifist with a grain of salt though, considering how excited many Germans were about being able to deploy the Army for non defensive reasons in the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc. and how giddy everyone was that we were once again allowed to export arms to Ukraine. Not to mention the current rise of far right, xenophobic parties.

Fighting corruption is very difficult. A good way to go about it is to sent some of your young people to countries that don't have massive problems in order come back home viscerally convinced it's not a necessary evil you need to put up with.

> considering how excited many Germans were about being able to deploy the Army for non defensive reasons in the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc.

Having lived at that time in Germany, I can tell you how excited many Germans rather were to openly name the responsible politicians "war criminals" (and would have been insanely happy if these politicians were brought before a war crimes tribunal) and the compatriot soldiers to participated in this campaign "murderers". I know this very well because I was among these people.

Even on the schoolyard there was a deep divide between the boys who were not completely rejecting the idea to do their (at that time near-compulsory) military service instead of considering at most doing alternative service as the only acceptable alternative, and those who did alternative service did then use every available opportunity to spread their opinion about wars and the military (they often had to work their alternative service in some welfare facility or retirement homes - places where you meet lots of people to whom you could tell your "soldiers are murderers" opinions).

The way I see it is the cultural change happened after the Prussian elites lost power and the general German public understood their recent history as far from the eternal victory they were promised. That's a major cultural change however you want to spin it, and there are enough examples in history where countries haven't gone through the same changes in similar situations (Weimar Republic also comes to mind)

Regarding the current day pacifist state of Germany, in my mind it is still very drastic anti-militaristic compared to the vast majority of the world.

Regarding corruption, countries changed drastically during the 20th century due to ideologies and individual action, sometimes resulting in disaster but also often not. Trying to say nothing can change is a defeatist deterministic attitude that has no anchor in recent history.

Presuming we are talking about migration, most of these source countries were able to fight and win European colonization in the past, why do you think that's easier than fighting corruption?

> Presuming we are talking about migration, most of these source countries were able to fight and win European colonization in the past, why do you think that's easier than fighting corruption?

While I neither claimed "nothing can change" corruption nor that fighting corruption is more difficult than fighting European colonization, here are some arguments to your straw man:

Corruption is very insidious to combat because you don't have a clearly demarcated enemy to unite against. Corruption spreads through all layers of society and most people in deeply corrupt societies will be both victims and beneficiaries of corruption: you want your house built and saved up enough dough? Sure you grease the wheels a bit so you can start building right away. Also, your brother who's helping you finance the house is a civil servant and a good chunk of his income is a result of taking bribes. The government itself sees it as "tips" that justify lower wages, and you sure as shit don't want taxes to go up with all the baksheesh you need to hand out...

At best you're in a "glass house" scenarios, it's very difficult to break out of without a general amnesty and serious external pressure, because all the parties that are actually qualified to run a government (or similar corrupt organization) are implicated.

Yes, and the founding belief of corruption is that, "that's the way it works", "everybody does it", "this can never change".

That essentialism is exactly the notion the poster I was replying to was echoing

Western countries were also corrupt at a time, bribery was common, yet things can change

> The way I see it is the cultural change happened after the Prussian elites lost power and the general German public understood their recent history as far from the eternal victory they were promised.

But the "Prussian elites lost power" because of the rise of the National Socialists who are universally not considered pacifist.

It might be a "major cultural change" but it was not affected by people staying at home and changing things for the better.

The Prussians nobles were a big reason why the Nazis rose to power and were well integrated to the party and the army.

The Prussians losing power is not the reason why Germany changed, but because Germany changed its values (militarism wasn't sacred anymore) the Prussians lost power post-war.

That change was a change in the collective opinions of the entire country, and that did not happen because the allies took everyone to school but because people saw the effect of that ideology and the disaster with their own eyes, and their decision was not the same decision they collectively reached post-WW1

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