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"I had access to Mein Kampf in my elementary school." What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? Makes no sense, doubt it's true, and obviously inappropri

"I had access to Mein Kampf in my elementary school." What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? Makes no sense, doubt it's true, and obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level, let alone content.

Animats 1y ago
It's not a difficult read. It's the historical context that's hard to get. The major political players of a century ago are mostly gone now. In the early 20th century, there were still a lot of kings, emperors, and princes hanging onto power. The era of monarchy was on the way out, but it wasn't over yet. WWI started after an archduke was killed by an inept but lucky assassin. The ancient noble families still mattered. The Marxists were quite active. They were the anti-monarchists. Today, Marxists are nearly extinct. There are still some Communist states around, but no Marxist mass movements. The Catholic Church was still a major political power. That's gone. Hitler was a competent craftsman and had done construction work. This was an era which required a huge number of people doing manual labor in big groups to get things done. That's when unions arise, by the way. "Working class" was very real, and that's where Hitler started. The term "macho" wasn't available yet, so he wrote: "In times when not the mind but the fist decides, the purely intellectual emphasis of our education in the upper classes makes them incapable of defending themselves, let alone enforcing their will. Not infrequently the first reason for personal cowardice lies in physical weaknesses." There's a long rant about Jews, which seems to come from clerk jobs in the WWI German army being dominated by Jews, described as physically weak and overly intellectual. Today, that might be a rant about AI. There's a similar grumble about parliamentarians, elected legislators and their staffs, who talk too much and don't exercise enough. The ideal is a muscular, disciplined society run by strong working people. He writes approvingly of how the US exercises quality control on immigrants, rejecting the sick and weak ones. Now, this is where a librarian can help. Someone reading this needs background reading on Europe from 1900 to 1925. Searching with Google for "The World in 1900" turns up a terrible essay on Medium that looks like LLM-generated clickbait. A good librarian will offer better choices. Kids who get all that background will question the way things are today, of course. Which scares some people.
- greenavocado 1y ago
  This is a gross misrepresentation of the text. Anyway, there is absolutely no point to having such a text in an elementary school. It should be required reading in high school so everyone can property understand the attitude that led to WW2. The only English translation worth its salt is the Dalton translation.
int_19h 1y ago
The best case for giving them Mein Kampf is that it's so tedious and boring, if you force kids to read it, they'll learn to hate Nazis early on.
soulofmischief 1y ago
> doubt it's true Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? > obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level I had a collegiate reading level in first grade... I taught myself to read at age 3 in order to escape my situation. I should not have to suffer because other people did not invest the same amount of time and energy into their literacy. > What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? I learned about Hitler and why he was a massive piece of shit, but also formed my viewpoint while considering all available information and opinions, instead of just internalizing what other people told me.
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  Oh hi, I too was in the same boat with reading level.
- gonzobonzo 1y ago
  > Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? It's the internet, it's easy for people to make claims, and we have to use our own faculties to try to guess at the accuracy of these claims. These might not even be outright lies, but they could be exaggerations, partial truths, or simply misremembering (most people can't clearly remember things that happened to them when they were 6 years old). You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self, and that your elementary school made Mein Kampf available to you. I'm not going to make a judgement on the veracity of your claims, but I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students.
  - soulofmischief 1y ago
    > You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self I did not. I said "I had a collegiate reading level since i was 6 or 7", and I also said "the books available to us in our school library just weren't cutting it". This does not imply that at 6/7 the books weren't cutting it. This conversation was about the role of the library throughout my schooling, and as I got older, I wanted more than the library could offer. > I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students. Look again, with more precise reading comprehension.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Animats 1y ago

It's not a difficult read. It's the historical context that's hard to get. The major political players of a century ago are mostly gone now. In the early 20th century, there were still a lot of kings, emperors, and princes hanging onto power. The era of monarchy was on the way out, but it wasn't over yet. WWI started after an archduke was killed by an inept but lucky assassin. The ancient noble families still mattered. The Marxists were quite active. They were the anti-monarchists. Today, Marxists are nearly extinct. There are still some Communist states around, but no Marxist mass movements. The Catholic Church was still a major political power. That's gone. Hitler was a competent craftsman and had done construction work. This was an era which required a huge number of people doing manual labor in big groups to get things done. That's when unions arise, by the way. "Working class" was very real, and that's where Hitler started. The term "macho" wasn't available yet, so he wrote: "In times when not the mind but the fist decides, the purely intellectual emphasis of our education in the upper classes makes them incapable of defending themselves, let alone enforcing their will. Not infrequently the first reason for personal cowardice lies in physical weaknesses." There's a long rant about Jews, which seems to come from clerk jobs in the WWI German army being dominated by Jews, described as physically weak and overly intellectual. Today, that might be a rant about AI. There's a similar grumble about parliamentarians, elected legislators and their staffs, who talk too much and don't exercise enough. The ideal is a muscular, disciplined society run by strong working people. He writes approvingly of how the US exercises quality control on immigrants, rejecting the sick and weak ones. Now, this is where a librarian can help. Someone reading this needs background reading on Europe from 1900 to 1925. Searching with Google for "The World in 1900" turns up a terrible essay on Medium that looks like LLM-generated clickbait. A good librarian will offer better choices. Kids who get all that background will question the way things are today, of course. Which scares some people.

greenavocado 1y ago
This is a gross misrepresentation of the text. Anyway, there is absolutely no point to having such a text in an elementary school. It should be required reading in high school so everyone can property understand the attitude that led to WW2. The only English translation worth its salt is the Dalton translation.

int_19h 1y ago

The best case for giving them Mein Kampf is that it's so tedious and boring, if you force kids to read it, they'll learn to hate Nazis early on.

soulofmischief 1y ago

> doubt it's true Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? > obviously inappropriate just at a difficulty level I had a collegiate reading level in first grade... I taught myself to read at age 3 in order to escape my situation. I should not have to suffer because other people did not invest the same amount of time and energy into their literacy. > What's the best case for giving k-5 Mein Kampf? I learned about Hitler and why he was a massive piece of shit, but also formed my viewpoint while considering all available information and opinions, instead of just internalizing what other people told me.

selimthegrim 1y ago
Oh hi, I too was in the same boat with reading level.
gonzobonzo 1y ago
> Do you always immediately disregard what people say in favor of your own beliefs? It's the internet, it's easy for people to make claims, and we have to use our own faculties to try to guess at the accuracy of these claims. These might not even be outright lies, but they could be exaggerations, partial truths, or simply misremembering (most people can't clearly remember things that happened to them when they were 6 years old). You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self, and that your elementary school made Mein Kampf available to you. I'm not going to make a judgement on the veracity of your claims, but I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students.
- soulofmischief 1y ago
  > You claimed both that the books available to you at your elementary school weren't advanced enough for your 6 year old self I did not. I said "I had a collegiate reading level since i was 6 or 7", and I also said "the books available to us in our school library just weren't cutting it". This does not imply that at 6/7 the books weren't cutting it. This conversation was about the role of the library throughout my schooling, and as I got older, I wanted more than the library could offer. > I will say that looking at both of your claims together, I'm entirely unable to tell what level of books your elementary school actually made available to students. Look again, with more precise reading comprehension.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]