6 ms·

Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

70 points by nkurz 11y ago

stcredzero 11y ago
Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind. 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.
- strlen 11y ago
  Keep in mind the date: this was written in 1941 and yet pre-sages much of "authoritarian personality" of Fromm et al, evolutionary psychology (e.g., seeing the all-powerful state/demagogue as an ersatz romantic partner), the idea of "self-esteem", and Public Choice economics (e.g., Mr. L). That makes the article all the more brilliant and interesting to read, as it demonstrates that many of the above theories are not after-the-fact constructions, massaged, to fit the data. 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.)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- meowface 11y ago
  There's a secondary point here, too, though: >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.
- pjlegato 11y ago
  What you propose is inherently paradoxical and irrational. 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.
  - hawkfish 11y ago
    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." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29 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 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.
    - pjlegato 11y ago
      The parent comment proposes that Nazis as such are not the actual problem, that Nazis are merely an extreme case of typical in-group/out-group behavior, and that "21st century intellectuals" need to avoid all the badness of Nazis by being more aware of their own in-group biases. 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.
kingmanaz 11y ago
Ironic that so many of the personality flaws listed in this article apply to today's caste-worshipping Zionists.
krapp 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415
vlunkr 11y ago
Very interesting to hear this from a contempory standpoint. Nazis as so often portrayed as purely evil that it's difficult to think of them as real people that willingly accepted that way of thinking.
- solipsism 11y ago
  Just turn on your favorite cable news station for US primary election coverage, and it won't be so hard to imagine.
  - labster 11y ago
    No thanks. If you stare long enough at cable news, cable news also stares into you.
- manachar 11y ago
  This is my biggest beef with most WWII movies/games. They most horrifying aspect of Nazis, Fascists, and tyrants is that they're made up and supported by real people. People with loved ones just trying to get by in the world. 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.
  - maxxxxx 11y ago
    And once the condition is over they quickly revert back to being normal people where it's hard to imagine they could commit such atrocities.
  - sdrothrock 11y ago
    The Wave, a novel[1] and film[2] explores this idea and is great reading/watching. I really wish it were part of high school English or history classes since it provides some real insight into how these kinds of movements start -- once you've seen it, you can almost recognize the signs anywhere, even in yourself, as long as you keep an open mind. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(novel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(2008_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(2008_film)
iofj 11y ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415 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.
andrewclunn 11y ago
The anti-Nazi propaganda always reads so much like the pro-Nazi propaganda. Good, honest, beautiful, happy people think like this...
- aksquestions 11y ago
  And just today there's a clickbait story making the rounds (again) about how Hitler had a tiny penis and only one testicle. Because that explains... everything?
- meowface 11y ago
  Did you actually read the article? I wouldn't call it propaganda.
  - rquantz 11y ago
    It is deeply conservative, possibly even royalist. Do you think propaganda has to be unsubtle? This is just appealing to a different audience than Rosie the Riveter.
carsongross 11y ago
"The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe." --Tom Wolfe
aksquestions 11y ago
Even when specifically attempting to refrain from doing so, it's impossible to speak of Nazi Germany without resorting to simplifying them into cartoon evil or as a moral object lesson from which to derive meaningful instruction and insight. The terrible truth is they were entirely normal people who followed an entirely normal path of self-interest. There is nothing remarkable about them and no special insight into human nature to be learned. The Nazis were a reaction against the rise of Marxist Communism, a terrifying spectre already responsible for genocide at the time of the party's founding, and with whom many party members had engaged with directly during the turmoil after WWI. 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.)
- meowface 11y ago
  It's not too often I see /pol/-speak (or /pol/ usernames) on HN. >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.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- matthewbauer 11y ago
  I think you mean 1932 instead of 1938? Hitler had a pretty strong hold on power by 1938. I think all candidates by at least 1936 were required to support the Nazi party.
- caf 11y ago
  A high signal to noise ratio means a lot of signal and little noise. ITYM the opposite?
friendstock 11y ago
Who goes Trump?
EGreg 11y ago
Nazism, Communism, Islamism. What makes mind viruses take control of societies and use human hosts to battle other mind viruses in an effort to build an organization to propagate the ideas? 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.

70 points by nkurz 11y ago

Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind. 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.

strlen 11y ago
Keep in mind the date: this was written in 1941 and yet pre-sages much of "authoritarian personality" of Fromm et al, evolutionary psychology (e.g., seeing the all-powerful state/demagogue as an ersatz romantic partner), the idea of "self-esteem", and Public Choice economics (e.g., Mr. L). That makes the article all the more brilliant and interesting to read, as it demonstrates that many of the above theories are not after-the-fact constructions, massaged, to fit the data. 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.)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
meowface 11y ago
There's a secondary point here, too, though: >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.
pjlegato 11y ago
What you propose is inherently paradoxical and irrational. 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.
- hawkfish 11y ago
  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." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29 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 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.
  - pjlegato 11y ago
    The parent comment proposes that Nazis as such are not the actual problem, that Nazis are merely an extreme case of typical in-group/out-group behavior, and that "21st century intellectuals" need to avoid all the badness of Nazis by being more aware of their own in-group biases. 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.

kingmanaz 11y ago

Ironic that so many of the personality flaws listed in this article apply to today's caste-worshipping Zionists.

krapp 11y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415

vlunkr 11y ago

Very interesting to hear this from a contempory standpoint. Nazis as so often portrayed as purely evil that it's difficult to think of them as real people that willingly accepted that way of thinking.

solipsism 11y ago
Just turn on your favorite cable news station for US primary election coverage, and it won't be so hard to imagine.
- labster 11y ago
  No thanks. If you stare long enough at cable news, cable news also stares into you.
manachar 11y ago
This is my biggest beef with most WWII movies/games. They most horrifying aspect of Nazis, Fascists, and tyrants is that they're made up and supported by real people. People with loved ones just trying to get by in the world. 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.
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  And once the condition is over they quickly revert back to being normal people where it's hard to imagine they could commit such atrocities.
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  The Wave, a novel[1] and film[2] explores this idea and is great reading/watching. I really wish it were part of high school English or history classes since it provides some real insight into how these kinds of movements start -- once you've seen it, you can almost recognize the signs anywhere, even in yourself, as long as you keep an open mind. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(novel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(2008_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(2008_film)

iofj 11y ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415 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.

andrewclunn 11y ago

The anti-Nazi propaganda always reads so much like the pro-Nazi propaganda. Good, honest, beautiful, happy people think like this...

aksquestions 11y ago
And just today there's a clickbait story making the rounds (again) about how Hitler had a tiny penis and only one testicle. Because that explains... everything?
meowface 11y ago
Did you actually read the article? I wouldn't call it propaganda.
- rquantz 11y ago
  It is deeply conservative, possibly even royalist. Do you think propaganda has to be unsubtle? This is just appealing to a different audience than Rosie the Riveter.

carsongross 11y ago

"The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe." --Tom Wolfe

aksquestions 11y ago

Even when specifically attempting to refrain from doing so, it's impossible to speak of Nazi Germany without resorting to simplifying them into cartoon evil or as a moral object lesson from which to derive meaningful instruction and insight. The terrible truth is they were entirely normal people who followed an entirely normal path of self-interest. There is nothing remarkable about them and no special insight into human nature to be learned. The Nazis were a reaction against the rise of Marxist Communism, a terrifying spectre already responsible for genocide at the time of the party's founding, and with whom many party members had engaged with directly during the turmoil after WWI. 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.)

meowface 11y ago
It's not too often I see /pol/-speak (or /pol/ usernames) on HN. >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.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

matthewbauer 11y ago
I think you mean 1932 instead of 1938? Hitler had a pretty strong hold on power by 1938. I think all candidates by at least 1936 were required to support the Nazi party.
caf 11y ago
A high signal to noise ratio means a lot of signal and little noise. ITYM the opposite?

friendstock 11y ago

Who goes Trump?

EGreg 11y ago

Nazism, Communism, Islamism. What makes mind viruses take control of societies and use human hosts to battle other mind viruses in an effort to build an organization to propagate the ideas? 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.