49 ms·

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

240 points by panax 6y ago

beprogrammed 6y ago
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security." Very good read, thanks for this.
laszlokorte 6y ago
Reads like a mirror of whats currently happening regarding all the covid associated law changes. /edit I added some more context in a child comment
- tines 6y ago
  Can you give an example?
  - troughway 6y ago
    Not the OP, but HN could hardly stomach Snowden coming out without twisting themselves over with “oh yeah we knew that already, right fellas?”, never mind Assange who they still claim is a Russian shill. I would keep conspiracy talk far away from this board.
  - btilly 6y ago
    We are in a state of emergency where the government has taken pretty direct control of people's lives, and businesses only remain in existence due to massive government intervention. It is for a good cause. However a couple of years from now, there will remain a temptation to use the same tools to address whatever normal problems we have. And that is a big step towards a planned economy like the Soviet Union had. It may sound like a wild conspiracy theory, and certainly the people who are doing it don't intend any such end. However I cannot forget that 9/11 has transformed us into a permanent surveillance state where our communications are tracked, travel by plane involves a search where someone gets to look at your privates, and it is considered normal in low crime neighborhoods to require security badges and/or passing armed guards to get into office buildings. If you'd asked the people who did that whether they had any such intent, I'm sure that they would have said no.
    - OminousWeapons 6y ago
      > It is for a good cause. However a couple of years from now, there will remain a temptation to use the same tools to address whatever normal problems we have. And that is a big step towards a planned economy like the Soviet Union had. It is difficult for me to imagine another set of scenarios that could plausibly lead to popular support of a lockdown. Even our past lockdowns from this year were poorly enforced and basically voluntary (the worst punishment was largely being fined). Yeah businesses shuttered but at GREAT political expense to politicians which is why we have half assed our lockdowns repeatedly. Politicians couldn't bear any more pain. The last thing they want to do is lock down again. > I cannot forget that 9/11 has transformed us into a permanent surveillance state where our communications are tracked, travel by plane involves a search where someone gets to look at your privates Yeah 9/11 definitely enhanced the surveillance state which is deeply unfortunate, but we had security screening for planes long before we had 9/11, and it wasn't just 9/11 that made the experience miserable, it was the 10 follow on attacks targeting different vulns in the screening process (liquids, shoes, blah blah). The security measures need to be decently strong because we vehemently refuse to employ the more effective authoritarian technique of flagging passengers based on history and demographics like they do in places like Israel (eg, simply flag anyone with a higher probability of being a muslim because most attacks were performed by muslims). We are actually resisting the aggressive response in this case. > it is considered normal in low crime neighborhoods to require security badges and/or passing armed guards to get into office building This has nothing to do with terrorism or 9/11.
      - btilly 6y ago
        Yeah 9/11 definitely enhanced the surveillance state which is deeply unfortunate, but we had security screening for planes long before we had 9/11, and it wasn't just 9/11 that made the experience miserable, it was the 10 follow on attacks targeting different vulns in the screening process (liquids, shoes, blah blah). Actually there was no attack involving liquids. There was "chatter" indicating that someone might be thinking of combining liquids to make a bomb. We freaked and instituted the rule. Then discovered that it was a false alarm. But, having alerted everyone that terrorists could try to make a bomb that way, we now have the liquids rule. (Though the arbitrariness of 3 ounces is made clear by the rule that now lets 12 ounce bottles of hand sanitizer through...) The security measures need to be decently strong because we vehemently refuse to employ the more effective authoritarian technique of flagging passengers based on history and demographics like they do in places like Israel (eg, simply flag anyone with a higher probability of being a muslim because most attacks were performed by muslims). We are actually resisting the aggressive response in this case. There are two issues at play here. The first is that for political reasons, we don't want to do enhanced checks against the actual biggest danger - Saudi Arabia. (Half the 9/11 bombers were from there.) Second, targeting on the basis of religion poses some major Constitutional problems in the USA. And religious affiliation is not information that we can rely on having about people coming from elsewhere in the world. And third, the supply of potential terrorists is sufficiently large and Al Qaeda sufficiently well-organized that they could simply choose terrorists who don't appear to fit whatever our screening criteria happened to be. Israel doesn't have that problem because there aren't a supply of people from around the world who are willing to die for the Palestinian cause. However we had a British guy carrying a bomb in his shoe, a Russian (well actually Chechen) who set off a bomb in Boston, a white American shooting up an army base in Texas, and a Nigerian who carried a bomb in his underwear. This has nothing to do with terrorism or 9/11. To the contrary. I lived in New York when 9/11 happened. A ton of office buildings went from no security guard to security guards. Other office buildings that I later worked in in Los Angeles made the same shift at about the same time. The timing wasn't a coincidence.
  - laszlokorte 6y ago
    I see that I am downvoted and I guess it is because my comment has been very simplistic and not explained well. I will try (in a perspective here from Germany): In general nothing here is really bad, nobody is killed or deported. So of course a comparison to the linked article is an exaggeration. But nonetheless since April the general mood in the country is be-surprised-and-accept driven: Businesses are closed on short term (last time on a friday end of september it was decided that on monday all restaurants, sport centers etc) must close (*takaway only). Because covid is propagated as this extreme dangerous risk nobody can complain. The whole public is only waiting what next rule is announced from week to week or month to month. People who refuse to wear a mask (for various reasons in various situations) are losing their jobs - either because the employer wants to get rid of them anyway and uses the not-mask-wearing as excuse or because their is real hate and fear between people in different groups. Their is no real philosophically based discussion about risk realted tradeoffs - only dictated policy. And in the background basic laws are rewritten/adjusted to reduce the overall freedom. For example here in Germany a basic right of privacy at home so except with an order of a judge the police is not allowed to enter. But it is tried (or even succeeded? I do not know) to allow police to enter homes in general in order to check if more than X people are inside. Or it is argued that people who violate a quarantine order should be locked into a psychiatry. Some (few) people fight back but in genral changes are just announced and accepted. It's a really slow process so many do not or want not to notice it but since april there are a lot of long term changes on the way that will alter the whole system to be more tolitarian/less free and which for sure will persist even after covid - all with covid as excuse.
    - tines 6y ago
      I appreciate your clarification, and for the record I am not one of the ones who downvoted you. I agree that police being free to enter your house without probable cause of a crime is not good, and I'm not sure how many people are arguing that those who violate the quarantine should be put in psychiatric care. That just seems like nonsense, I'd have to have proof that someone is seriously advocating that before opining. However, I think it's acknowledged that in dire times such as war and pestilence, the government can temporarily do things it couldn't do before until the crisis is over. For example, if an invading force has set up a machine gun on your property and the army attacks them, you probably shouldn't be able to sue them for trespassing. On the other hand, we have a constitutional right not to be required to give quarter to soldiers. What's the difference? It's the duration and immediacy of the danger I think. This is a judgment call. Of course the problem lies in the government usurping power for an unlimited or ill-defined time, such as for the "war on terror" which never ends. The pandemic, on the other hand, should have a definite and quantitative end, and I don't think stay-at-home orders or mask mandates necessarily lead to authoritarian progressions or curtailing of personal rights. Nobody is saying that the government should have a right to curtail, for example, the right to peaceably assemble forever; just until thousands of people per day stop dying. Maybe I'm wrong though, what do you think?
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  The current law changes are definitely terrifying, but I too would like to hear some specific points about how these are similar situations.
  - laszlokorte 6y ago
    I tried to list a few examples that came to my mind in a sibling comment. But the issue is that it's not just about specific examples but about the overall drift in perspective, production of fear and slooow but steady changes. From my understanding that's exactly one of the points the OP article touched uppon: If you ask for specific examples of bad changes I can name a few and you can justfy each of them in one way or another. But the sum of it all points to a really bad outcome from which we all be looking back in a few years and will wonder how we got there. Actually the downvotes my original comment receives demonstrate the exact behavior the OP article describes.
watwut 6y ago
This however goes only for some non Jewish Germans - nazi party sympathizers. The social democrats and their sympatizant were attacked in 1933, right after Hitler got to power. That is when first camps were created. They housed political opponents. Plus, politically unreliable people and Jews they were excluded from civil service in 1933. The German Jews were also under no illusion that they were free. In April 1933, German law restricted the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities. In the same month, further legislation sharply curtailed “Jewish activity” in the medical and legal professions. Subsequent decrees restricted reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds. The city of Berlin forbade Jewish lawyers and notaries to work on legal matters, the mayor of Munich forbade Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients, and the Bavarian interior ministry denied admission of Jewish students to medical school.
- hnhg 6y ago
  It's worth mentioning for context that they gained power via a coalition government and the Reichstag fire: 'In January 1933, the Nazis apparently had only 32% of the seats.' They really did seize control very quickly from that position. Full quote: 'After the November 1932 German federal election, the National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party had a plurality, not a majority; the Communists posted gains. Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor and head of the coalition government on 30 January 1933. As Chancellor, Hitler asked German President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for a new parliamentary election. The date set for the elections was 5 March 1933. Hitler's aim was first to acquire a National Socialist majority, to secure his position and to remove the communist opposition. If prompted or desired, the President could remove the Chancellor. Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion, by passing the Enabling Act. The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the Reichstag. These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency using Article 48.[7] The unprecedented element of the Enabling Act was that the Chancellor possessed the powers. An Enabling Act was only supposed to be passed in times of extreme emergency and had only been used once, in 1923–24 when the government used an Enabling Act to end hyperinflation. To pass an Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority vote in the Reichstag. In January 1933, the Nazis had only 32% of the seats.' [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire]
bmmayer1 6y ago
This is a powerful piece about a time in Germany where people couldn't, to paraphrase, see where things could go, and so couldn't really understand when things have started. I suspect that readers will see this piece as a reflection of their greatest fears about our own Republic. Unfortunately, the message will be lost by those who are most in need of hearing it. That includes many of the readers of this piece who think their side are the victims and the other side are the creeping fascists. Hate to break it to you, in the United States we're screwed two ways over. Both the left and the right in the US have paramilitaries (antifa, proud boys). Both the left and the right in the US have enemies lists, and have effective propaganda wings that eviscerate opponents and call basic and decent democratic norms into question (free speech, elections). Both sides use identity and demographics to sow division and resentment between groups. Maybe there's some hope for the shrinking, rational middle that two creeping fascisms cancel each other out, and will in the future. But that's a pretty long bet to make, too. For the rest of us paying attention and who, in the words of the piece, "think about fundamental things", it has already started and it is very, very scary where it may end up.
- jolux 6y ago
  Antifascists aren't holding rallies chanting "Jews will not replace us" and showing up to peaceful protests with weapons to kill protesters. The amount of paramilitary activity on the left is minimal, especially when compared to the right, adherents of which been caught in several (edit: at least one, Governor Whitmer, I can't find evidence of others right now) plots over the past few months to kidnap and even murder Democratic government officials. I'm not denying that the left has ever used extreme violence in the US. The Weather Underground is the most famous example. I will however argue that those days are over for the left, with the vast majority of leftists being nonviolent and pacifists, and a small few committed to armed defense, but not offense.
  - rbecker 6y ago
    Instead, they're chanting "White silence equals violence". I'm sure demonization of a group that's on the way to becoming a minority will work out great.
  - 6y ago
andyv 6y ago
A good companion book on the subject, "The German War", is about the German 'home front' during WW2. Very readable, one neat anecdote was how security agencies like the Gestapo were increasingly hollowed out as the war dragged on. [0] https://www.amazon.com/German-War-Nation-Under-1939-1945/dp/0465094899/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+german+war&qid=1605285750&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/German-War-Nation-Under-1939-1945/dp/...
claydavisss 6y ago
A Jew sat down with Nazis to see what made them tick. This book could not be written in 2020.
deleted 6y ago
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awb 6y ago
> "How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice — ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might. The problem is the road to hell and heaven are both paved with good intentions. History is littered with so many warnings of false positives and false negatives, it's hard to be know what to resist and what to accept. But power corrupts absolutely and I think it's safe to fear unchecked power and those who are loyal to people instead of loyal to ideas. Ideas don't change when they gain or lose power, but people always do.
- amirkdv 6y ago
  Genuinely curious: what are some historically significant examples of "false positives"? By which I assume you mean a time when people rose to resist something they didn't really have to.
  - aazaa 6y ago
    History is written by the victors. From this perspective, every successful resistance was necessary and every failed resistance was not. Take the American Civil War, for example. If you (still) believe in the cause, it was a true positive. If you don't, then it was a false positive. Or, to be less inflammatory, consider the French Revolution. Was that a true positive or false positive, especially considering the aftermath?
    - gfodor 6y ago
      I think this is probably true for armed conflict, but for civil conflicts in liberal societies, I think it's fair to assume that over time things converge to a more moral and just society over time. (So, the "victors" can be presumed legitimately moral.) However, this has an assumption that a society is liberal, and provides the free exchange of ideas, which is something that seems to ebb-and-flow itself.
aazaa 6y ago
Imagine you're living through the events described in the essay. You know exactly where things are heading and that the situation is dire. You're willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the inevitable from playing out. What's your plan and your next move?
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Protect yourself, your loved ones, and leave? It’s hard to fight the tide.
- pwillia7 6y ago
  If you have a family, you flee. If you are willing to commit, you infiltrate and sabotage. Once the mass turns, as described in the article, you have to subvert or you may as well just get out.
- gfodor 6y ago
  In the 1932 election, if there are a bunch of blank ballots being put in mailboxes everywhere and the only check on them is a shitty algorithmic signature check, I go from house to house collecting them every morning and sending them in for the non-Nazi party with forged signatures. Oh, wait.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. We want curious conversation here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - gfodor 6y ago
      fair enough. i'd remove the comment, but HN won't let me. fwiw, it seems obvious to me the reason this article is on the front page is because it's apropos in the current political environment in the US, but I might be misinterpreting.
panax 6y ago
The most chilling part is "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D." Many wait for that single moment when the line is crossed for everyone to stand up and take (non-violent) action and speak out, but that moment never comes. That's not how this works. Authoritarianism rises gradually and relies on people looking away from it, unable to confront inconvenient truths. The time to speak out is early and not to wait for that moment for others to do so.
- mmastrac 6y ago
  Exactly. Consider the erosion of long-standing norms in the west over the last four years and how far society has slipped. These are the first, strong, signs that things are starting to go off the rails.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - the-dude 6y ago
    Which west? Which norms?
    - slg 6y ago
      Just one recent example, this past presidential election was a resounding victory for Joe Biden. He has 306 electoral votes and is expected to win the popular vote by some 6 million people. Leaders around the world have all recognized this however the number of Republicans in federal office that have publicly acknowledged this can seemingly be counted on your fingers. A simple norm of acknowledging an electoral defeat is apparently out the window. EDIT: The downvotes on this post are truly bizarre. Any downvoters want to explain the problem with this comment? I was answering a direct question with what most the of the world agrees are inarguable facts.
hinkley 6y ago
All the Left politicians are talking about how they're going to spend this cycle rolling back what the last cycle rolled back and that's not what I want. We can absolutely do that, after. What I want is to know why we had a seated president who could get away with so much shit. A smarter autocrat would have taken us to a scarier place much faster. Mercifully, Hitler's dumbest lieutenant could talk circles around His Cheetoness. I'd like to know why the Executive branch had so much privilege and what we can do legislatively to make sure nobody else can do a few of those things ever again. Unfortunately without flipping the Senate, the only way that's going to happen is if Biden pulls the same shit. The Senate Majority leader will get over the Ends Justify the Means, remember "checks and balances" and move with uncharacteristic speed to redraw the lines. That's not a jab at the Right, that's a jab at Congress. When "our" asshole does something within their rights but ethically sketchy as hell, it's okay because we Had to Do It. When the other side copies us, well that is an affront to the Constitution and we must stop it. Nobody ever learns a goddamned thing, whether they live in Germany, the US, or in a small remote tribe.
- istorical 6y ago
  Because this political system couples your support for a set of policy choices to your support for a particular leader, and people perceive that in order to support their team's policy positions, it's simply unavoidable that you may have to accept a poor leader. Seems that simple to me. It's easy to say that if there was a left-version of Trump who promised to implement sweeping tax reform to tax the rich, create a real public option, save the rainforest in Brazil and plant a new one in America, and truly address racism, that the left would say 'forget his policy goals, even if they are so aligned with what I want, I will speak out against him and vote for a republican in the next election'. But perhaps many would see it as still the lesser of two evils to continue to support the poor leader in order to signal support for their team's policies and hopefully implement meaningful change. If we had a different form of democracy, perhaps decoupling leadership from policy choice, would we still be able to elect a Trump? Don't think so. Perhaps the two party system (and the way it has evolved despite not being part of the constitution at all and warned against by George Washington) would be the easier thing to change than the political system per the constitution, but still. It seems the coupling is the culprit.
throwaway23452 6y ago
The context of this being shared is obvious, but I want to point out that both sides of the American divide right now would likely instinctively identify the other (or their presidential candidate) as the Hitler in this scenario. I say this not to argue that one, or both, or neither, has no reason to make that connection. I say this to illustrate that it's easy to look at superficial signifiers - especially when saturated in fear - and enter the slippery slope of characterization and narrative-building that only deepens said fear, furthering the cycle. Everyone wants to be able to read the tea-leaves. After World War 2 the world collectively asked itself, "what the hell just happened?" Psychological studies were performed to understand the mechanisms that could lead otherwise-decent people down such a horrifying path. Anecdotes were scrutinized for early warning signs that could have predicted what was to come. And I'm not saying that any of this was a waste. But the reality is that no two societies, or trajectories, are exactly the same. There never has been and never will be another Hitler aside from Hitler himself. There have been and will be other tyrants, other psychopaths, other societal downfalls, but none of them will be exactly the same as that one was. And we should be very careful about looking at things through that lens, drawing conclusions based on rough impressions. The human mind is very good at squinting until things look right, especially when fear or preconceived notions are involved. Be aware. Pay attention. There are real dangers to our society right now. But keep your head and don't succumb to blind pattern-matching. Stay focused on our society, and don't lump it in with a perceived archetype.
- throwawayxyz123 6y ago
  The Weimar Republic was torn to pieces by the fight between Nazis and Stalinists. Either side winning was going to lead to mass murder in the millions. Is there a path for the 2020 USA Republic to survive and not fall for a similar destructive dynamic?
- lootsauce 6y ago
  Came here to make a similar point. Both political sides in the US can point to the observations in the excerpt as chilling historical illustrations of current and potential near-term events. That illustrates in my mind what is so terrifying right now. That there is something bigger going on than political ideology and I don't think anyone can stop it. In fact I would posit that thinking so makes it all the less likely to be stopped. This is because either side will identify a different source of the problem and both will be wrong.
deleted 6y ago
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Der_Einzige 6y ago
Lmao, Dang must not be awake, because this is far more of a "political flame-bait' thread than basically any other I've seen on this website in quite some time.
- advisedwang 6y ago
  This is an historical analysis. It provides no dictum for current behaviour, and no comparison to current events or people. You seem to be suggesting that merely looking at history should not be allowed in case we are able to draw a conclusion from it that suggests something remiss in the political sphere now. That's pretty chilling.
  - onecommentman 6y ago
    But when postings only focus on the excesses of one particular political regime in one corner of a field, it becomes a meta-rhetorical device. When I see similar analyses presented on Mao, Stalin, French revolutionaries, and the motley crew of past authoritarians, left and right, I will be as sanguine as you. When papers/media exclusively cover the crimes of only one group (blacks, Jews, etc.), you would agree that would be (in the case of Nazis was) a concern from the standpoint of manipulating public opinion. Only highlighting the dangers of Nazi Germany in a forum, and never talking about similar abuses in other left-wing regimes? Now that is chilling.
- dang 6y ago
  I wasn't awake—good guess! But actually the bulk of this thread is pretty good. What we want to avoid is veering into tedious, predictable flamewar - that did happen, but at least it was concentrated in one subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956). Substantive discussion of an interesting historical article is always welcome on HN. I don't know if it seems like the moderation standard is obscure but to me it's pretty clear: we're just trying to optimize for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Curiosity dies a flaming death as partisan and ideological passions take over, but there's plenty of space for it if one can steer clear of those supernovas.
embeddedisaster 6y ago
The scariest thing in this, that all these things happening now in the world again. Even in Europe (I live in Hungary), I can feel all this happening, the false creation of enemies, let it be inner or external. There is always some fight we have to win, airing in the mostly state related media. And one by one every institution is grinded into the system, by small or big changes in the constitution, hinding under other less controversial laws, changes, usually proposed a day or hours before the parliament votes on it. And the only thing I can think about now, is to move out of the country, like a coward.
prewett 6y ago
This is a troubling article in its own right, but what was more troubling is the realization I had 3/4 of the way down. At first I was thinking "yes, this is what Trump is doing, albeit incompetently. I feel like this guy, that I'm an alarmist but I can't prove anything." And then when it started talking about opposing opinions being shouted down, I realized that the "Progressives" might actually be doing the same thing, just more competently. It's not okay to disagree about the merits of homosexuality. It's not okay to disagree about racism. It's not okay to disagree that whites, especially males, are privileged and therefore aggressors. "Cancel culture" and all that. This is something that's crept up in the past 10 or 15 years. What worries me is that both sides are doing similar things.
- solarhoma 6y ago
  And there you go. When you tell others their thoughts are wrong you yourself become authoritarian.
  - superdude264 6y ago
    Yeah, like who is to say 1+1=2?
    - onecommentman 6y ago
      1+1=3, for sufficiently large values of “1”. And for this community, that’s less of a joke than you think. This isn’t effective snark...
- watwut 6y ago
  You might want to read more about weichmart democracy. For all American flaws, the two countries are not nearly the same. IMO, if anything will doom America is the reflexive insistence that there are two sides and that those two sides are equal. Nothing like that existed in Germany, tho they did had actual communist movement they actually tried coup.
- dTal 6y ago
  I find it ironic and sad, but not unexpected, that this was downvoted.
throwaway1723 6y ago
And today it's absolutely the same situation like the one described in the article. History taught no one. Once again, no one seems to be willing to resist the beginnings and consider the end. The beginnings go by the name COVID-19 and include lockdowns, closure of national borders, obligatory mask-or-starve-to-death, social distancing, temp checks, QR codes assigned to people in order to leave home, and other totalitarian bullcrap that would be considered absolutely insane and unacceptable as little as a year ago. Everyone is trembling with terror at dying from the single virus and the single disease as if no millions of other viruses and diseases existed. Everyone is so scared for their dear asses that all critical thinking is blocked, because, to cite the original text of the article, 'there is so much going on around', and so they turn a blind eye to all the manipulation and brainwash backed by absurd amounts of money. All they want is that the great wise men in power come and save them. And the end is clearly a one-world medicine-mediated techno-fascism even Hitler and his creators couldn't dream about. But instead of thinking, what will my bright contemporaries do now? They'll engage their downvote machineguns and flag me the hell out of existence. And HN will help them by counting their pro-covid downvotes as 3 to 5 regular ones. Start your timers, gentlemen, if any still remain here, and watch this post disappear in no time. But always mind the end, dear downvoters.
throwaway1723 6y ago
And today it's absolutely the same situation like the one described in the article. History taught no one. Once again, no one seems to be willing to resist the beginnings and consider the end. The beginnings go by the name COVID-19 and include lockdowns, closure of national borders, obligatory mask-or-starve-to-death, social distancing, temp checks, QR codes assigned to people in order to leave home, and other totalitarian bullcrap that would be considered absolutely insane and unacceptable as little as a year ago. Everyone is trembling with terror at dying from the single virus and the single disease as if no millions of other viruses and diseases existed. Everyone is so scared for their dear asses that all critical thinking is blocked, because, to cite the original text of the article, 'there is so much going on around', and so they turn a blind eye to all the manipulation and brainwash backed by absurd amounts of money. All they want is that the great wise men in power come and save them. And the end is clearly a one-world medicine-mediated techno-fascism even Hitler and his creators couldn't dream about. But instead of thinking, what will my bright contemporaries do now? They'll engage their downvote machineguns and flag me the hell out of existence. And HN will help them by counting their pro-covid downvotes as 3 to 5 regular ones. Start your timers, gentlemen, if any still remain here, and watch this post disappear in no time. But always mind the end, dear downvoters and especially, flaggers.
- weakfish 6y ago
  I know you probably think you're right, but I can't help read this with pity that you think you're in the same position as the precursor to a totalitarian state because people don't want to kill their grandparents.
  - throwaway1723 6y ago
    There is always an excuse that "this time is not the same as before", and this is exactly why the history keeps repeating itself. There's always a deception that makes the most part of population believe THEY'RE right, be it a virus that kills elderly, a foe nation weaving plots against the fatherland, whatever, it's literally anything that makes people act with pride as if they were fighting the greatest evil. But the Hell is paved with best intentions. Failing to understand that will keep you feeling pity for those who predicted what comes next, and then feeling pity for yourself for you did not listen when it was not too late. Look, we are all a death threat to each other, but there's one thing called immunity that keeps us from dying out. Elderly always were less immune; are you 100% sure that none of your droplets ever killed someone less immune back in the reckless unmasked days? Someone with a rare condition? Did you track fates of all people you ever contacted? You people seem to have some panic button in your minds that has been activated by some great NLP masters, which now prevents you from accepting simple facts of life and death. Especially of death. You are willing to wrap life in masks and barbwire, to make it immobile and constrained, to eat and inject all kinds of poisons, to accept any kind of atrocious attitude and orders just in order to keep this undead state for indefinitely long. But that's not going to happen, and you all know that. The clock is ticking for everyone. The only way out of this mess is to live a good fearless life and enjoy every second of it. And I highly recommend watching these 2 videos in succession to all the good intended people who believe there's nothing ominous going on right now. Berlin in 1936: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6f7K4c-y8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6f7K4c-y8 Berlin in 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A Be well and do try to join the dots...
acd10j 6y ago
Still same things is being repeated with Demonisation of Muslims in India, Just that it is more of level of 1933 or even earlier level. So ruling party and their supporters can field not the same defence while slowly boiling frog and killing dissent.
averros 6y ago
Volume 2: The Americans, 2020.
froasty 6y ago
I wrote this three years ago on reddit but no one read it. Ironic, I know. It'll happen again, seeing as how this is a two day old story, but posterity matters. I'm really late to the party (and people probably won't see this), but I'm going to earnestly give you what I think is going on and why we desperately need to breathe new life into our idea of what civility is in this country or be ready to pull the plug and start anew. This is going to be meandering--just a warning. The Weimar Republic was established in Germany after the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I. As most people know, this government fell within two decades into the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. What fewer people know is the cultural context before and during the Weimar Republic that made that ascension (of one revolutionary or reactionary stripe or another) generally inevitable. From "The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard J. Evans > These milieux, with their party newspapers, clubs and societies, were unusually rigid and homogeneous. Already before 1914 this had resulted in a politicization of whole areas of life that in other societies were much freer from ideological identifications. Thus, if an ordinary German wanted to join a male voice choir, for instance, he had to choose in some areas between a Catholic and a Protestant choir, in others between a socialist and a nationalist choir; the same went for gymnastics clubs, cycling clubs, football clubs and the rest. A member of the Social Democratic Party before the war could have virtually his entire life encompassed by the party and its organizations: he could read a Social Democratic newspaper, go to a Social Democratic pub or bar, belong to a Social Democratic trade union, borrow books from the Social Democratic library, go to Social Democratic festivals and plays, marry a woman who belonged to the Social Democratic women’s organization, enrol his children in the Social Democratic youth movement and be buried with the aid of a Social Democratic burial fund. Similar things could be said of the Centre Party (which could rely on the mass organization of supporters in the People’s Association for a Catholic Germany, the Catholic Trade Union movement, and Catholic leisure clubs and societies of all kinds) but also to a certain extent of other parties too. These sharply defined political-cultural milieux did not disappear with the advent of the Weimar Republic. But the emergence of commercialized mass leisure, the ‘boulevard press’, based on sensation and scandal, the cinema, cheap novels, dance-halls and leisure activities of all kinds began in the 1920s to provide alternative sources of identification for the young, who were thus less tightly bound to political parties than their elders were (emphasis mine). The older generation of political activists were too closely tied to their particular political ideology to find compromise and co-operation with other politicians and their parties very easy. Now what Richard Evans doesn't consider salient enough to mention is that those same means and methods of creating mass leisure also allowed mass polarization. Those means actually rewarded the development of echo chambers amongst the elder political activists as well, furthering the break between activists. Why argue or listen to your opponents when you can just find people that think exactly like you already? Why spread your opponents message for them when you can just blanket them out with your propaganda? Then you had the normalization of information cascade[^1] and social proof[^2] as behavioral strategies for survival. The rate and breadth for which these political groups demanded new tokens of loyalty became so rapid and outside your scope that it just made sense, that even if you felt, thought, or acted differently in private, to publicly go along with things with which you disagreed. With this kind of chilling effect[^3] on public dissent, eventually even silence becomes synonymous with complicity with the enemy. In the end, you can't be the last person to clap for Stalin[^4]. What assisted these elements in rising was the further degeneration of political discourse and a corresponding rise in political violence as a legitimate means of expression: Ibid. > The First World War legitimized violence to a degree that not even Bismarck’s wars of unification in 1864-70 had been able to do. Before the war, Germans even of widely differing and bitterly opposed political beliefs had been able to discuss their differences without resorting to violence. After 1918, however, things were entirely different. The changed climate could already be observed in parliamentary proceedings. These had remained relatively decorous under the Empire, but after 1918 they degenerated all too often into unseemly shouting matches, with each side showing open contempt for the other, and the chair unable to keep order. Far worse, however, was the situation on the streets, where all sides organized armed squads of thugs, fights and brawls became commonplace, and beatings-up and assassinations were widely used. Those who carried out these acts of violence were not only former soldiers, but also included men in their late teens and twenties who had been too young to fight in the war themselves and for whom civil violence became a way of legitimizing themselves in the face of the powerful myth of the older generation of front-soldiers (emphasis mine).
distherapy 6y ago
i made this to show the correlation but people who vote call me crazy. you either value the suffering of others or you value bogus symbolism of flags, 'freedom', and dollars. https://www.imgpaste.net/image/OMG5T https://www.imgpaste.net/image/OMG5T

240 points by panax 6y ago

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security." Very good read, thanks for this.

laszlokorte 6y ago

Reads like a mirror of whats currently happening regarding all the covid associated law changes. /edit I added some more context in a child comment

tines 6y ago
Can you give an example?
- troughway 6y ago
  Not the OP, but HN could hardly stomach Snowden coming out without twisting themselves over with “oh yeah we knew that already, right fellas?”, never mind Assange who they still claim is a Russian shill. I would keep conspiracy talk far away from this board.
- btilly 6y ago
  We are in a state of emergency where the government has taken pretty direct control of people's lives, and businesses only remain in existence due to massive government intervention. It is for a good cause. However a couple of years from now, there will remain a temptation to use the same tools to address whatever normal problems we have. And that is a big step towards a planned economy like the Soviet Union had. It may sound like a wild conspiracy theory, and certainly the people who are doing it don't intend any such end. However I cannot forget that 9/11 has transformed us into a permanent surveillance state where our communications are tracked, travel by plane involves a search where someone gets to look at your privates, and it is considered normal in low crime neighborhoods to require security badges and/or passing armed guards to get into office buildings. If you'd asked the people who did that whether they had any such intent, I'm sure that they would have said no.
  - OminousWeapons 6y ago
    > It is for a good cause. However a couple of years from now, there will remain a temptation to use the same tools to address whatever normal problems we have. And that is a big step towards a planned economy like the Soviet Union had. It is difficult for me to imagine another set of scenarios that could plausibly lead to popular support of a lockdown. Even our past lockdowns from this year were poorly enforced and basically voluntary (the worst punishment was largely being fined). Yeah businesses shuttered but at GREAT political expense to politicians which is why we have half assed our lockdowns repeatedly. Politicians couldn't bear any more pain. The last thing they want to do is lock down again. > I cannot forget that 9/11 has transformed us into a permanent surveillance state where our communications are tracked, travel by plane involves a search where someone gets to look at your privates Yeah 9/11 definitely enhanced the surveillance state which is deeply unfortunate, but we had security screening for planes long before we had 9/11, and it wasn't just 9/11 that made the experience miserable, it was the 10 follow on attacks targeting different vulns in the screening process (liquids, shoes, blah blah). The security measures need to be decently strong because we vehemently refuse to employ the more effective authoritarian technique of flagging passengers based on history and demographics like they do in places like Israel (eg, simply flag anyone with a higher probability of being a muslim because most attacks were performed by muslims). We are actually resisting the aggressive response in this case. > it is considered normal in low crime neighborhoods to require security badges and/or passing armed guards to get into office building This has nothing to do with terrorism or 9/11.
    - btilly 6y ago
      Yeah 9/11 definitely enhanced the surveillance state which is deeply unfortunate, but we had security screening for planes long before we had 9/11, and it wasn't just 9/11 that made the experience miserable, it was the 10 follow on attacks targeting different vulns in the screening process (liquids, shoes, blah blah). Actually there was no attack involving liquids. There was "chatter" indicating that someone might be thinking of combining liquids to make a bomb. We freaked and instituted the rule. Then discovered that it was a false alarm. But, having alerted everyone that terrorists could try to make a bomb that way, we now have the liquids rule. (Though the arbitrariness of 3 ounces is made clear by the rule that now lets 12 ounce bottles of hand sanitizer through...) The security measures need to be decently strong because we vehemently refuse to employ the more effective authoritarian technique of flagging passengers based on history and demographics like they do in places like Israel (eg, simply flag anyone with a higher probability of being a muslim because most attacks were performed by muslims). We are actually resisting the aggressive response in this case. There are two issues at play here. The first is that for political reasons, we don't want to do enhanced checks against the actual biggest danger - Saudi Arabia. (Half the 9/11 bombers were from there.) Second, targeting on the basis of religion poses some major Constitutional problems in the USA. And religious affiliation is not information that we can rely on having about people coming from elsewhere in the world. And third, the supply of potential terrorists is sufficiently large and Al Qaeda sufficiently well-organized that they could simply choose terrorists who don't appear to fit whatever our screening criteria happened to be. Israel doesn't have that problem because there aren't a supply of people from around the world who are willing to die for the Palestinian cause. However we had a British guy carrying a bomb in his shoe, a Russian (well actually Chechen) who set off a bomb in Boston, a white American shooting up an army base in Texas, and a Nigerian who carried a bomb in his underwear. This has nothing to do with terrorism or 9/11. To the contrary. I lived in New York when 9/11 happened. A ton of office buildings went from no security guard to security guards. Other office buildings that I later worked in in Los Angeles made the same shift at about the same time. The timing wasn't a coincidence.
- laszlokorte 6y ago
  I see that I am downvoted and I guess it is because my comment has been very simplistic and not explained well. I will try (in a perspective here from Germany): In general nothing here is really bad, nobody is killed or deported. So of course a comparison to the linked article is an exaggeration. But nonetheless since April the general mood in the country is be-surprised-and-accept driven: Businesses are closed on short term (last time on a friday end of september it was decided that on monday all restaurants, sport centers etc) must close (*takaway only). Because covid is propagated as this extreme dangerous risk nobody can complain. The whole public is only waiting what next rule is announced from week to week or month to month. People who refuse to wear a mask (for various reasons in various situations) are losing their jobs - either because the employer wants to get rid of them anyway and uses the not-mask-wearing as excuse or because their is real hate and fear between people in different groups. Their is no real philosophically based discussion about risk realted tradeoffs - only dictated policy. And in the background basic laws are rewritten/adjusted to reduce the overall freedom. For example here in Germany a basic right of privacy at home so except with an order of a judge the police is not allowed to enter. But it is tried (or even succeeded? I do not know) to allow police to enter homes in general in order to check if more than X people are inside. Or it is argued that people who violate a quarantine order should be locked into a psychiatry. Some (few) people fight back but in genral changes are just announced and accepted. It's a really slow process so many do not or want not to notice it but since april there are a lot of long term changes on the way that will alter the whole system to be more tolitarian/less free and which for sure will persist even after covid - all with covid as excuse.
  - tines 6y ago
    I appreciate your clarification, and for the record I am not one of the ones who downvoted you. I agree that police being free to enter your house without probable cause of a crime is not good, and I'm not sure how many people are arguing that those who violate the quarantine should be put in psychiatric care. That just seems like nonsense, I'd have to have proof that someone is seriously advocating that before opining. However, I think it's acknowledged that in dire times such as war and pestilence, the government can temporarily do things it couldn't do before until the crisis is over. For example, if an invading force has set up a machine gun on your property and the army attacks them, you probably shouldn't be able to sue them for trespassing. On the other hand, we have a constitutional right not to be required to give quarter to soldiers. What's the difference? It's the duration and immediacy of the danger I think. This is a judgment call. Of course the problem lies in the government usurping power for an unlimited or ill-defined time, such as for the "war on terror" which never ends. The pandemic, on the other hand, should have a definite and quantitative end, and I don't think stay-at-home orders or mask mandates necessarily lead to authoritarian progressions or curtailing of personal rights. Nobody is saying that the government should have a right to curtail, for example, the right to peaceably assemble forever; just until thousands of people per day stop dying. Maybe I'm wrong though, what do you think?
throwaway3699 6y ago
The current law changes are definitely terrifying, but I too would like to hear some specific points about how these are similar situations.
- laszlokorte 6y ago
  I tried to list a few examples that came to my mind in a sibling comment. But the issue is that it's not just about specific examples but about the overall drift in perspective, production of fear and slooow but steady changes. From my understanding that's exactly one of the points the OP article touched uppon: If you ask for specific examples of bad changes I can name a few and you can justfy each of them in one way or another. But the sum of it all points to a really bad outcome from which we all be looking back in a few years and will wonder how we got there. Actually the downvotes my original comment receives demonstrate the exact behavior the OP article describes.

watwut 6y ago

This however goes only for some non Jewish Germans - nazi party sympathizers. The social democrats and their sympatizant were attacked in 1933, right after Hitler got to power. That is when first camps were created. They housed political opponents. Plus, politically unreliable people and Jews they were excluded from civil service in 1933. The German Jews were also under no illusion that they were free. In April 1933, German law restricted the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities. In the same month, further legislation sharply curtailed “Jewish activity” in the medical and legal professions. Subsequent decrees restricted reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds. The city of Berlin forbade Jewish lawyers and notaries to work on legal matters, the mayor of Munich forbade Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients, and the Bavarian interior ministry denied admission of Jewish students to medical school.

hnhg 6y ago
It's worth mentioning for context that they gained power via a coalition government and the Reichstag fire: 'In January 1933, the Nazis apparently had only 32% of the seats.' They really did seize control very quickly from that position. Full quote: 'After the November 1932 German federal election, the National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party had a plurality, not a majority; the Communists posted gains. Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor and head of the coalition government on 30 January 1933. As Chancellor, Hitler asked German President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for a new parliamentary election. The date set for the elections was 5 March 1933. Hitler's aim was first to acquire a National Socialist majority, to secure his position and to remove the communist opposition. If prompted or desired, the President could remove the Chancellor. Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion, by passing the Enabling Act. The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the Reichstag. These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency using Article 48.[7] The unprecedented element of the Enabling Act was that the Chancellor possessed the powers. An Enabling Act was only supposed to be passed in times of extreme emergency and had only been used once, in 1923–24 when the government used an Enabling Act to end hyperinflation. To pass an Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority vote in the Reichstag. In January 1933, the Nazis had only 32% of the seats.' [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire]

bmmayer1 6y ago

This is a powerful piece about a time in Germany where people couldn't, to paraphrase, see where things could go, and so couldn't really understand when things have started. I suspect that readers will see this piece as a reflection of their greatest fears about our own Republic. Unfortunately, the message will be lost by those who are most in need of hearing it. That includes many of the readers of this piece who think their side are the victims and the other side are the creeping fascists. Hate to break it to you, in the United States we're screwed two ways over. Both the left and the right in the US have paramilitaries (antifa, proud boys). Both the left and the right in the US have enemies lists, and have effective propaganda wings that eviscerate opponents and call basic and decent democratic norms into question (free speech, elections). Both sides use identity and demographics to sow division and resentment between groups. Maybe there's some hope for the shrinking, rational middle that two creeping fascisms cancel each other out, and will in the future. But that's a pretty long bet to make, too. For the rest of us paying attention and who, in the words of the piece, "think about fundamental things", it has already started and it is very, very scary where it may end up.

jolux 6y ago
Antifascists aren't holding rallies chanting "Jews will not replace us" and showing up to peaceful protests with weapons to kill protesters. The amount of paramilitary activity on the left is minimal, especially when compared to the right, adherents of which been caught in several (edit: at least one, Governor Whitmer, I can't find evidence of others right now) plots over the past few months to kidnap and even murder Democratic government officials. I'm not denying that the left has ever used extreme violence in the US. The Weather Underground is the most famous example. I will however argue that those days are over for the left, with the vast majority of leftists being nonviolent and pacifists, and a small few committed to armed defense, but not offense.
- rbecker 6y ago
  Instead, they're chanting "White silence equals violence". I'm sure demonization of a group that's on the way to becoming a minority will work out great.
- 6y ago

andyv 6y ago

A good companion book on the subject, "The German War", is about the German 'home front' during WW2. Very readable, one neat anecdote was how security agencies like the Gestapo were increasingly hollowed out as the war dragged on. [0] https://www.amazon.com/German-War-Nation-Under-1939-1945/dp/0465094899/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+german+war&qid=1605285750&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/German-War-Nation-Under-1939-1945/dp/...

claydavisss 6y ago

A Jew sat down with Nazis to see what made them tick. This book could not be written in 2020.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

awb 6y ago

> "How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice — ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might. The problem is the road to hell and heaven are both paved with good intentions. History is littered with so many warnings of false positives and false negatives, it's hard to be know what to resist and what to accept. But power corrupts absolutely and I think it's safe to fear unchecked power and those who are loyal to people instead of loyal to ideas. Ideas don't change when they gain or lose power, but people always do.

amirkdv 6y ago
Genuinely curious: what are some historically significant examples of "false positives"? By which I assume you mean a time when people rose to resist something they didn't really have to.
- aazaa 6y ago
  History is written by the victors. From this perspective, every successful resistance was necessary and every failed resistance was not. Take the American Civil War, for example. If you (still) believe in the cause, it was a true positive. If you don't, then it was a false positive. Or, to be less inflammatory, consider the French Revolution. Was that a true positive or false positive, especially considering the aftermath?
  - gfodor 6y ago
    I think this is probably true for armed conflict, but for civil conflicts in liberal societies, I think it's fair to assume that over time things converge to a more moral and just society over time. (So, the "victors" can be presumed legitimately moral.) However, this has an assumption that a society is liberal, and provides the free exchange of ideas, which is something that seems to ebb-and-flow itself.

aazaa 6y ago

Imagine you're living through the events described in the essay. You know exactly where things are heading and that the situation is dire. You're willing to do whatever it takes to prevent the inevitable from playing out. What's your plan and your next move?

germinalphrase 6y ago
Protect yourself, your loved ones, and leave? It’s hard to fight the tide.
pwillia7 6y ago
If you have a family, you flee. If you are willing to commit, you infiltrate and sabotage. Once the mass turns, as described in the article, you have to subvert or you may as well just get out.
gfodor 6y ago
In the 1932 election, if there are a bunch of blank ballots being put in mailboxes everywhere and the only check on them is a shitty algorithmic signature check, I go from house to house collecting them every morning and sending them in for the non-Nazi party with forged signatures. Oh, wait.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. We want curious conversation here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - gfodor 6y ago
    fair enough. i'd remove the comment, but HN won't let me. fwiw, it seems obvious to me the reason this article is on the front page is because it's apropos in the current political environment in the US, but I might be misinterpreting.

panax 6y ago

The most chilling part is "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D." Many wait for that single moment when the line is crossed for everyone to stand up and take (non-violent) action and speak out, but that moment never comes. That's not how this works. Authoritarianism rises gradually and relies on people looking away from it, unable to confront inconvenient truths. The time to speak out is early and not to wait for that moment for others to do so.

mmastrac 6y ago
Exactly. Consider the erosion of long-standing norms in the west over the last four years and how far society has slipped. These are the first, strong, signs that things are starting to go off the rails.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- the-dude 6y ago
  Which west? Which norms?
  - slg 6y ago
    Just one recent example, this past presidential election was a resounding victory for Joe Biden. He has 306 electoral votes and is expected to win the popular vote by some 6 million people. Leaders around the world have all recognized this however the number of Republicans in federal office that have publicly acknowledged this can seemingly be counted on your fingers. A simple norm of acknowledging an electoral defeat is apparently out the window. EDIT: The downvotes on this post are truly bizarre. Any downvoters want to explain the problem with this comment? I was answering a direct question with what most the of the world agrees are inarguable facts.

hinkley 6y ago

All the Left politicians are talking about how they're going to spend this cycle rolling back what the last cycle rolled back and that's not what I want. We can absolutely do that, after. What I want is to know why we had a seated president who could get away with so much shit. A smarter autocrat would have taken us to a scarier place much faster. Mercifully, Hitler's dumbest lieutenant could talk circles around His Cheetoness. I'd like to know why the Executive branch had so much privilege and what we can do legislatively to make sure nobody else can do a few of those things ever again. Unfortunately without flipping the Senate, the only way that's going to happen is if Biden pulls the same shit. The Senate Majority leader will get over the Ends Justify the Means, remember "checks and balances" and move with uncharacteristic speed to redraw the lines. That's not a jab at the Right, that's a jab at Congress. When "our" asshole does something within their rights but ethically sketchy as hell, it's okay because we Had to Do It. When the other side copies us, well that is an affront to the Constitution and we must stop it. Nobody ever learns a goddamned thing, whether they live in Germany, the US, or in a small remote tribe.

istorical 6y ago
Because this political system couples your support for a set of policy choices to your support for a particular leader, and people perceive that in order to support their team's policy positions, it's simply unavoidable that you may have to accept a poor leader. Seems that simple to me. It's easy to say that if there was a left-version of Trump who promised to implement sweeping tax reform to tax the rich, create a real public option, save the rainforest in Brazil and plant a new one in America, and truly address racism, that the left would say 'forget his policy goals, even if they are so aligned with what I want, I will speak out against him and vote for a republican in the next election'. But perhaps many would see it as still the lesser of two evils to continue to support the poor leader in order to signal support for their team's policies and hopefully implement meaningful change. If we had a different form of democracy, perhaps decoupling leadership from policy choice, would we still be able to elect a Trump? Don't think so. Perhaps the two party system (and the way it has evolved despite not being part of the constitution at all and warned against by George Washington) would be the easier thing to change than the political system per the constitution, but still. It seems the coupling is the culprit.

throwaway23452 6y ago

The context of this being shared is obvious, but I want to point out that both sides of the American divide right now would likely instinctively identify the other (or their presidential candidate) as the Hitler in this scenario. I say this not to argue that one, or both, or neither, has no reason to make that connection. I say this to illustrate that it's easy to look at superficial signifiers - especially when saturated in fear - and enter the slippery slope of characterization and narrative-building that only deepens said fear, furthering the cycle. Everyone wants to be able to read the tea-leaves. After World War 2 the world collectively asked itself, "what the hell just happened?" Psychological studies were performed to understand the mechanisms that could lead otherwise-decent people down such a horrifying path. Anecdotes were scrutinized for early warning signs that could have predicted what was to come. And I'm not saying that any of this was a waste. But the reality is that no two societies, or trajectories, are exactly the same. There never has been and never will be another Hitler aside from Hitler himself. There have been and will be other tyrants, other psychopaths, other societal downfalls, but none of them will be exactly the same as that one was. And we should be very careful about looking at things through that lens, drawing conclusions based on rough impressions. The human mind is very good at squinting until things look right, especially when fear or preconceived notions are involved. Be aware. Pay attention. There are real dangers to our society right now. But keep your head and don't succumb to blind pattern-matching. Stay focused on our society, and don't lump it in with a perceived archetype.

throwawayxyz123 6y ago
The Weimar Republic was torn to pieces by the fight between Nazis and Stalinists. Either side winning was going to lead to mass murder in the millions. Is there a path for the 2020 USA Republic to survive and not fall for a similar destructive dynamic?
lootsauce 6y ago
Came here to make a similar point. Both political sides in the US can point to the observations in the excerpt as chilling historical illustrations of current and potential near-term events. That illustrates in my mind what is so terrifying right now. That there is something bigger going on than political ideology and I don't think anyone can stop it. In fact I would posit that thinking so makes it all the less likely to be stopped. This is because either side will identify a different source of the problem and both will be wrong.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Der_Einzige 6y ago

Lmao, Dang must not be awake, because this is far more of a "political flame-bait' thread than basically any other I've seen on this website in quite some time.

advisedwang 6y ago
This is an historical analysis. It provides no dictum for current behaviour, and no comparison to current events or people. You seem to be suggesting that merely looking at history should not be allowed in case we are able to draw a conclusion from it that suggests something remiss in the political sphere now. That's pretty chilling.
- onecommentman 6y ago
  But when postings only focus on the excesses of one particular political regime in one corner of a field, it becomes a meta-rhetorical device. When I see similar analyses presented on Mao, Stalin, French revolutionaries, and the motley crew of past authoritarians, left and right, I will be as sanguine as you. When papers/media exclusively cover the crimes of only one group (blacks, Jews, etc.), you would agree that would be (in the case of Nazis was) a concern from the standpoint of manipulating public opinion. Only highlighting the dangers of Nazi Germany in a forum, and never talking about similar abuses in other left-wing regimes? Now that is chilling.
dang 6y ago
I wasn't awake—good guess! But actually the bulk of this thread is pretty good. What we want to avoid is veering into tedious, predictable flamewar - that did happen, but at least it was concentrated in one subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083956). Substantive discussion of an interesting historical article is always welcome on HN. I don't know if it seems like the moderation standard is obscure but to me it's pretty clear: we're just trying to optimize for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Curiosity dies a flaming death as partisan and ideological passions take over, but there's plenty of space for it if one can steer clear of those supernovas.

embeddedisaster 6y ago

The scariest thing in this, that all these things happening now in the world again. Even in Europe (I live in Hungary), I can feel all this happening, the false creation of enemies, let it be inner or external. There is always some fight we have to win, airing in the mostly state related media. And one by one every institution is grinded into the system, by small or big changes in the constitution, hinding under other less controversial laws, changes, usually proposed a day or hours before the parliament votes on it. And the only thing I can think about now, is to move out of the country, like a coward.

prewett 6y ago

This is a troubling article in its own right, but what was more troubling is the realization I had 3/4 of the way down. At first I was thinking "yes, this is what Trump is doing, albeit incompetently. I feel like this guy, that I'm an alarmist but I can't prove anything." And then when it started talking about opposing opinions being shouted down, I realized that the "Progressives" might actually be doing the same thing, just more competently. It's not okay to disagree about the merits of homosexuality. It's not okay to disagree about racism. It's not okay to disagree that whites, especially males, are privileged and therefore aggressors. "Cancel culture" and all that. This is something that's crept up in the past 10 or 15 years. What worries me is that both sides are doing similar things.

solarhoma 6y ago
And there you go. When you tell others their thoughts are wrong you yourself become authoritarian.
- superdude264 6y ago
  Yeah, like who is to say 1+1=2?
  - onecommentman 6y ago
    1+1=3, for sufficiently large values of “1”. And for this community, that’s less of a joke than you think. This isn’t effective snark...
watwut 6y ago
You might want to read more about weichmart democracy. For all American flaws, the two countries are not nearly the same. IMO, if anything will doom America is the reflexive insistence that there are two sides and that those two sides are equal. Nothing like that existed in Germany, tho they did had actual communist movement they actually tried coup.
dTal 6y ago
I find it ironic and sad, but not unexpected, that this was downvoted.

throwaway1723 6y ago

And today it's absolutely the same situation like the one described in the article. History taught no one. Once again, no one seems to be willing to resist the beginnings and consider the end. The beginnings go by the name COVID-19 and include lockdowns, closure of national borders, obligatory mask-or-starve-to-death, social distancing, temp checks, QR codes assigned to people in order to leave home, and other totalitarian bullcrap that would be considered absolutely insane and unacceptable as little as a year ago. Everyone is trembling with terror at dying from the single virus and the single disease as if no millions of other viruses and diseases existed. Everyone is so scared for their dear asses that all critical thinking is blocked, because, to cite the original text of the article, 'there is so much going on around', and so they turn a blind eye to all the manipulation and brainwash backed by absurd amounts of money. All they want is that the great wise men in power come and save them. And the end is clearly a one-world medicine-mediated techno-fascism even Hitler and his creators couldn't dream about. But instead of thinking, what will my bright contemporaries do now? They'll engage their downvote machineguns and flag me the hell out of existence. And HN will help them by counting their pro-covid downvotes as 3 to 5 regular ones. Start your timers, gentlemen, if any still remain here, and watch this post disappear in no time. But always mind the end, dear downvoters.

throwaway1723 6y ago

weakfish 6y ago
I know you probably think you're right, but I can't help read this with pity that you think you're in the same position as the precursor to a totalitarian state because people don't want to kill their grandparents.
- throwaway1723 6y ago
  There is always an excuse that "this time is not the same as before", and this is exactly why the history keeps repeating itself. There's always a deception that makes the most part of population believe THEY'RE right, be it a virus that kills elderly, a foe nation weaving plots against the fatherland, whatever, it's literally anything that makes people act with pride as if they were fighting the greatest evil. But the Hell is paved with best intentions. Failing to understand that will keep you feeling pity for those who predicted what comes next, and then feeling pity for yourself for you did not listen when it was not too late. Look, we are all a death threat to each other, but there's one thing called immunity that keeps us from dying out. Elderly always were less immune; are you 100% sure that none of your droplets ever killed someone less immune back in the reckless unmasked days? Someone with a rare condition? Did you track fates of all people you ever contacted? You people seem to have some panic button in your minds that has been activated by some great NLP masters, which now prevents you from accepting simple facts of life and death. Especially of death. You are willing to wrap life in masks and barbwire, to make it immobile and constrained, to eat and inject all kinds of poisons, to accept any kind of atrocious attitude and orders just in order to keep this undead state for indefinitely long. But that's not going to happen, and you all know that. The clock is ticking for everyone. The only way out of this mess is to live a good fearless life and enjoy every second of it. And I highly recommend watching these 2 videos in succession to all the good intended people who believe there's nothing ominous going on right now. Berlin in 1936: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6f7K4c-y8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6f7K4c-y8 Berlin in 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5i9k7s9X_A Be well and do try to join the dots...

acd10j 6y ago

Still same things is being repeated with Demonisation of Muslims in India, Just that it is more of level of 1933 or even earlier level. So ruling party and their supporters can field not the same defence while slowly boiling frog and killing dissent.

averros 6y ago

Volume 2: The Americans, 2020.

froasty 6y ago

I wrote this three years ago on reddit but no one read it. Ironic, I know. It'll happen again, seeing as how this is a two day old story, but posterity matters. I'm really late to the party (and people probably won't see this), but I'm going to earnestly give you what I think is going on and why we desperately need to breathe new life into our idea of what civility is in this country or be ready to pull the plug and start anew. This is going to be meandering--just a warning. The Weimar Republic was established in Germany after the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I. As most people know, this government fell within two decades into the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. What fewer people know is the cultural context before and during the Weimar Republic that made that ascension (of one revolutionary or reactionary stripe or another) generally inevitable. From "The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard J. Evans > These milieux, with their party newspapers, clubs and societies, were unusually rigid and homogeneous. Already before 1914 this had resulted in a politicization of whole areas of life that in other societies were much freer from ideological identifications. Thus, if an ordinary German wanted to join a male voice choir, for instance, he had to choose in some areas between a Catholic and a Protestant choir, in others between a socialist and a nationalist choir; the same went for gymnastics clubs, cycling clubs, football clubs and the rest. A member of the Social Democratic Party before the war could have virtually his entire life encompassed by the party and its organizations: he could read a Social Democratic newspaper, go to a Social Democratic pub or bar, belong to a Social Democratic trade union, borrow books from the Social Democratic library, go to Social Democratic festivals and plays, marry a woman who belonged to the Social Democratic women’s organization, enrol his children in the Social Democratic youth movement and be buried with the aid of a Social Democratic burial fund. Similar things could be said of the Centre Party (which could rely on the mass organization of supporters in the People’s Association for a Catholic Germany, the Catholic Trade Union movement, and Catholic leisure clubs and societies of all kinds) but also to a certain extent of other parties too. These sharply defined political-cultural milieux did not disappear with the advent of the Weimar Republic. But the emergence of commercialized mass leisure, the ‘boulevard press’, based on sensation and scandal, the cinema, cheap novels, dance-halls and leisure activities of all kinds began in the 1920s to provide alternative sources of identification for the young, who were thus less tightly bound to political parties than their elders were (emphasis mine). The older generation of political activists were too closely tied to their particular political ideology to find compromise and co-operation with other politicians and their parties very easy. Now what Richard Evans doesn't consider salient enough to mention is that those same means and methods of creating mass leisure also allowed mass polarization. Those means actually rewarded the development of echo chambers amongst the elder political activists as well, furthering the break between activists. Why argue or listen to your opponents when you can just find people that think exactly like you already? Why spread your opponents message for them when you can just blanket them out with your propaganda? Then you had the normalization of information cascade[^1] and social proof[^2] as behavioral strategies for survival. The rate and breadth for which these political groups demanded new tokens of loyalty became so rapid and outside your scope that it just made sense, that even if you felt, thought, or acted differently in private, to publicly go along with things with which you disagreed. With this kind of chilling effect[^3] on public dissent, eventually even silence becomes synonymous with complicity with the enemy. In the end, you can't be the last person to clap for Stalin[^4]. What assisted these elements in rising was the further degeneration of political discourse and a corresponding rise in political violence as a legitimate means of expression: Ibid. > The First World War legitimized violence to a degree that not even Bismarck’s wars of unification in 1864-70 had been able to do. Before the war, Germans even of widely differing and bitterly opposed political beliefs had been able to discuss their differences without resorting to violence. After 1918, however, things were entirely different. The changed climate could already be observed in parliamentary proceedings. These had remained relatively decorous under the Empire, but after 1918 they degenerated all too often into unseemly shouting matches, with each side showing open contempt for the other, and the chair unable to keep order. Far worse, however, was the situation on the streets, where all sides organized armed squads of thugs, fights and brawls became commonplace, and beatings-up and assassinations were widely used. Those who carried out these acts of violence were not only former soldiers, but also included men in their late teens and twenties who had been too young to fight in the war themselves and for whom civil violence became a way of legitimizing themselves in the face of the powerful myth of the older generation of front-soldiers (emphasis mine).

distherapy 6y ago

i made this to show the correlation but people who vote call me crazy. you either value the suffering of others or you value bogus symbolism of flags, 'freedom', and dollars. https://www.imgpaste.net/image/OMG5T https://www.imgpaste.net/image/OMG5T