Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis

Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by CryptoPunk on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:03AM (#21322650)

There is nothing ingenious or intellectually redeeming about using brutality and deceit to gain power. That's all people like Adolf Hitler and Leon Trotsky did. They betrayed humanity and the culture of humanitarianism that had been built up for millenia before them to gain an advantage.

Mass murderers who traded the moral foundations of their civilization for tactical and strategic advantage are intellectual midgets who belong in the dustbin of history.

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by throwaway2048 on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:12AM (#21322724)

Somebody can be both terrible and intellectual/clever.

Do not mistake intellectual with moral, empathetic, or good.

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by pjc50 on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @10:17AM (#21323827)

"Culture of humanitarianism" is not a good description of Tsarist Russia. No, the problem with Trotsky et al is the extreme brutality in the name of liberation.

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by ptah on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:20AM (#21322782)

so napoleon wasn't ingenious either? what about sun tzu's art of war? does it have zero ingenuity too?

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by goatinaboat on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:24AM (#21322805)

The Art Of War emphasised winning without fighting wherever possible. So not really comparable.

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by dredmorbius on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @10:23AM (#21323882)

One of the more well-known stories about Sun Tzu, taken from Sima Qian, illustrates Sun Tzu's temperament as follows: Before hiring Sun Tzu, the King of Wu tested Sun Tzu's skills by commanding him to train a harem of 360 concubines into soldiers. Sun Tzu divided them into two companies, appointing the two concubines most favored by the king as the company commanders. When Sun Tzu first ordered the concubines to face right, they giggled. In response, Sun Tzu said that the general, in this case himself, was responsible for ensuring that soldiers understood the commands given to them. Then, he reiterated the command, and again the concubines giggled. Sun Tzu then ordered the execution of the king's two favored concubines, to the king's protests. He explained that if the general's soldiers understood their commands but did not obey, it was the fault of the officers. Sun Tzu also said that, once a general was appointed, it was his duty to carry out his mission, even if the king protested. After both concubines were killed, new officers were chosen to replace them. Afterwards, both companies, now well aware of the costs of further frivolity, performed their maneuvers flawlessly.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu

In longer form:

https://titusng.com/2013/03/04/the-test-of-sun-tzus-art-of-w...

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by ptah on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:46AM (#21322958)

so did trotsky, he preferred infiltration to fighting

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by CryptoPunk on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @10:00AM (#21323649)

My knowledge of history is too limited to comment on either. If Napoleon was more brutal than his contemporaries, then no, he wasn't ingenious, just dishonorable.

Trotsky and his fellow Soviet revolutionaries were proud of mass murder, making them far more depraved than their peers and predecessors in Russia. The term "Red Terror" is not some term used by his opponents to cast him in a bad light. It was a term Trotsky used, to describe the murderous purges his government carried out. He advocated for the eradication of an entire class of people. He was one of the progenitors of the hell on Earth that were the territories under the totalitarian Soviet state.

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by ptah on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:21AM (#21322784)

do you prefer trotsky's nemesis stalin?

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by Ididntdothis on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @08:37AM (#21322884)

Is it ok to think that both were mass murderers?

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Re:Mexico’s Attempt to Save Freud from the Nazis by ptah on Tuesday October 22, 2019 @09:28AM (#21323349)

it should be safe. stalin died in 1952 :)

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