One of my favorite sayings (even though I am not religious at all) is, “therefore but by the grace of god go I.” It is about realizing that so much of our behavior is dictated by circumstances. We don’t like to think of it that way, but it is true.
One of my favorite essays of all time is called “A muscular empathy” (https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/a-muscu...). It is about using this idea, and thinking about why we would behave the same way as all these people who we would like to believe we would have been better than if we were in their shoes. My favorite quote from it:
> It is comforting to believe that we, through our sheer will, could transcend these bindings -- to believe that if we were slaves, our indomitable courage would have made us Frederick Douglass, or if we were slave masters, our keen morality would have made us Bobby Carter. We flatter ourselves, not out of malice, but out of instinct.
> Still, we are, in the main, ordinary people living in plush times. We are smart enough to get by, responsible enough to raise a couple of kids, thrifty to sock away for a vacation, and industrious enough to keep the lights on. We like our cars. We love a good cheeseburger. We'd die without air-conditioning. In the great mass of humanity that's ever lived, we are distinguished only by our creature comforts, and we are, on the whole, mediocre.
> That mediocrity is oft-exemplified by the claim that though we are unremarkable in this easy world, something about enslavement, degradation and poverty would make us exemplary. We can barely throw a left hook--but surely we would have beaten Mike Tyson.
One of the best things that ever happened to me was becoming a member of a group that I was previously prejudiced against.
Case in point is that nearly every terrible political act in history has been perpetrated by someone proclaiming to be fighting the good fight. They all had their rationalisations. I can’t think of any examples of political groups that declare themselves pro-evil.
In a sense, this is encouraging. It means there is widespread low tolerance for transparently evil ideas.
In another sense, this indicates we have widespread low capability to determine which ideas are actually virtuous, and which merely have a veneer of virtue (masking great harm).
They say majority of Russian people really support Putin and his war on Ukraine. Similarly many Germans supported Hitler and his invasion of Poland. I think the situation in Russia is now very similar to the early Nazi Germany.
It could happen here too. But I hope and pray if there's anything good about Putin's war it is it makes people realize Fascism is alive and well, and will not go away by itself.
What makes you think it hasn't? How do you know all those drone strikes were on bad people? How do you know that standards of evidence before employing military force haven't been slacked off to the point of meaninglessness? How do you know those secret FISA courts are actually giving full and complete due-process? How do you know that every person in the world's largest slave-labor force definitely deserves to be there? There is an awful lot of stuff that one could point to as being fascist in the modern US system.
And we have a habit of "military adventurism" ourselves... we got ourselves into Iraq through acts of aggression, and that's far from the first.
This is precisely the problem discussed in the article and the comments here - the framing of "us, good wholesome people who love our country, vs dirty vile Russians who support an evil military aggressor" is itself the result of propaganda and messaging. No country is going to message themselves as being the bad guys.
Most people support their country because it's what one does, and there's immense social pressure to do so. And we tend to rationalize away the bad because "well, there's always some bad, but it's mostly good". Most people really don't have (and aren't allowed to have) a full picture of whether the sum is actually good or not, we just assume it.
So in the end, Germans support German tyranny, Russians support Russian tyranny, and Americans support American tyranny, because that's what one does. Why do you think you (or americans in general) are the exception here?
That was precisely my point, I said there's Nazi-minded people in every country. It's not country against country but democracy vs. autocracy. Unfortunately when autocracy takes over it is very difficult to get democracy back, you can't vote to go back to democracy any more. But as long as there's still little bit of democracy left, what you can do is vote for more democracy, not less.
The counter-argument is that Russians have had to develop a different breed/species of political thought: https://www.ft.com/content/6d96dc89-fb9a-4d18-a980-5044861ff...
Not that quiet protest can actually change anything in the short-term, unfortunately.
https://www.afcent.af.mil/Portals/82/November%202021%20Airpo...
These are US airstrike counts since 2014. They stopped counting once a Taliban agreement was reached. Now we all know these were all done for freedom and only bad people get bombed, but I wonder what Americans would think if the aftermath of every one showed up on their twitter feed.
The Ukraine invasion made me see how Russia is today, and it doesn't take much to turn a society into a fog of nothingness. A bit of leeway regarding police forces, a bit of good old propaganda, and now you can't speak, nothing is true anymore.
Western countries have flaws, yeah the media spread bullshit depending on which interests each channel has, US police is too gun-ready, the financial world is rigged, etc etc but so far people can still speak up, it's a subtle but crucial difference.
It's interesting because any two random people might not agree on which side is "worse" in this regard. People often think they're immune to the tactics and propaganda of the other side, but they'll frequently fail to see the same or very similar stuff happening on their own side, or they'll downplay it because it doesn't affect them so much personally.
Of course, it all blends together... There was insidious breadth in their messaging... They would do things like go to elementary schools and cherry pick the most pathetic and weak (who "happened" to be stereotypically jewish-looking) child and then pick a child known amongst their peers to be athletic, intelligent, and handsome/beautiful (and who "happened" to be Aryan-looking) and then they'd talk 'scientifically' about the distinctive features of the two races, and the physical differences between the two children, espousing the 'good genes' of the Aryan looking kid.
Even today, in 'more virtuous' societies, people love to think of themselves as superior to others in some capacity. It's less common to emphasize the inferiority of others, especially using race as a basis, but at the end of the day, we're talking about basically the same human tendency toward contempt.
I know (I would say) that I wouldn't become a Nazi, but only because I'm aware of how easy it is. But something similar I can't recognize?
The best approach is probably to stay humble and assume you can't tell the difference between good and bad.
“I was just following orders…” etc etc
Their propagandists on state TV even stated recently discussing Ukraine that Nazism = political nationalism + totalitarism. Which obviously doesn't apply to Ukraine, yet absolutely describes Russia.
Russian propaganda that “Ukraine is a Nazi state” is stupid, but you have to understand that “Nazism” means something quite different to Russians than to most Westerners. Most Westerners focus on the Nazis’ genocidal Antisemitism; in Russia, the focus is more on the Nazis’ genocidal Russophobia. That different focus makes the propaganda seem not quite as ludicrous as it does in the West, especially when one considers the language policy issue (encouraging the use of Ukrainian language over Russian), which the Russian government paints as Russophobic discrimination.
no. Just read his war declaration speech. Classic Nazism. They had "master race" and inferior "races" of Jews and Slavics. Putin has master nation of Russians and inferior Ukrainians. And he is using that the same was as Hitler as a reason to claim the master race's/nation's right to the territory and to conduct ethnical cleansing and genocide there.
>especially when one considers the language policy issue (encouraging the use of Ukrainian language over Russian)
The "War and Peace" opens with the scene of an aristocratic party in St.Peterburg where French language - de-facto language of Russian nobility in the years before - is totally banned because of Napoleon invasion.
Hitler didn’t see Jews as Germans who had been corrupted into viewing themselves as non-Germans. On the contrary, he insisted full-blooded Jews could never be Germans, no matter how much they wanted to be-even if they completely rejected their Jewish identity. There was a tiny minority of Jews (the Association of German National Jews) who supported Hitler - how did he repay them for their support? He sent them to the camps.
Hitler is not the only bad genocidal man in world history. It is super possible for Russia to be fascist, genocidal while also having important differences against Hitlers ideology. Being different then Hitler does not make one good or defensible.
That sounds almost benign, like just a minor difference of opinions, when taken that way out of the context. The context though is the declaration that anybody resisting that conversion back to Russian and insisting on being Ukrainian is to be killed. Another, wider context, is the deep contempt (which Russians in theie Great Russia chauvinism fail to notice as well as to acknowledge when pointed out to) Russians have for Ukrainians in general which is well illustrated by usage of "hohly" with various level of offensiveness for example, as well as pretty deep mutual anymosity between Russians and Western Ukrainians. (Note: i grew up in USSR as a Russian by mentality, and i'm half-Ukrainian by blood, so i have some idea what i'm talking about here)
Anyway, Nazism isn't about why some are deemed inferior. Nazism is about deeming some inferior and acting violently upon that belief.
Nazism is when violent xenophobia becomes state ideology. That is invention of the 20th century.
That’s a quote from the Roman general and consul (joint head of state) Manius Acilius Glabrio, in the early 2nd century BCE. The quote is given by the ancient Roman historian Livy - ancient historians often invented speeches for their subjects, so Manius Acilius probably never spoke those exact words, but Livy believed they were an accurate representation of his beliefs. So, rather than being a 20th century Nazi invention, violent xenophobia was the state ideology of the ancient Roman Republic.
Unfortunately, even say just a year ago i, like many, wasn't able to recognize Russian Nazism even though it was right into our faces - it looked to me just like strong authoritarianism with imperial ideology colored by Great Russia chauvinism. Today it is pretty clear to me that all the last 22 years, right from the apartment building bombings by FSB in 1999, we had the Russian Nazism rising. It finally dawns on more and more people - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashism
I shared a quote by an ancient Roman general and politician saying the peoples of the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Levant were “the most worthless peoples among mankind and born for slavery”-how is that different from Hitler’s view that Slavs were an inferior race who ought to be enslaved? If there is a difference I don’t see it. But if the Roman Empire was practising “Nazism” 2000 years before Hitler was even born, maybe “Nazism” is somewhat of a misnomer for the generic phenomena (as opposed to the specific instantiation of it in 20th century Germany)
Nazism is fascism plus violent xenophobia of specific, ie. of "superiority", kind, like "master race" in case of Hitler or "master nation" in case of Russia. In my original comment i specifically mentioned practically the same definition given by Russian propagandists - "totalitarism plus political nationalism" (fascism is a totalitarism). For example Italy was fascist, yet it wasn't really nazist. Roman Empire wasn't a fascist state, thus it was also not a nazist state. USSR had totalitarism, yet it wasn't a fascism, and USSR also didn't had a nationalism ideology. Putin's Russia has both - fascism and "master nation" ideology, and thus Putin's Russia is a nazist state.
Ancient Romans believed they were a “master race/nation”. As the quote I provided demonstrates, they believed that “inferior” foreign nations - such as Thracians, Illyrians, Macedonians, Syrians - were “born for slavery”. That is exactly the same as what the Nazis believed, there is no significant difference between ancient Roman and Nazi beliefs on this topic, except for the identity of the “superior race”.
> Roman Empire wasn't a fascist state, thus it was also not a nazist state.
You realise what the etymology of “fascist” is? It comes from Latin “fasces”, which is a special type of axe which was used in the Roman Republic and Empire as a symbol of state power. The Italian fascists adopted the same symbol, and the word, because they saw what they were doing as taking Italy back to the past glory of the Roman Empire. So ancient Rome was the original fascist state which 20th century fascists adopted as their model.
Mussolini didn't really care about religion. He only made Catholicism the state religion because he thought that by doing so he could buy the Catholic Church's support; which only partially worked, it continued to be somewhat of a thorn in his side for the remainder of his rule. In seeing religion primarily as a tool to be manipulated to political ends, as opposed to being driven by personal religious belief, Mussolini actually has a lot in common with ancient Roman politicians, many of whom had a very similar attitude towards religion. If the end policy result seems quite different, that is more due to differences in historical circumstance than a fundamentally different ideological starting point.
And just like fascist Italy, ancient Rome had a state religion, and everyone had to pay lip service to it – the state didn't care if you believed in it in your heart, but criticising it publicly could get you killed. Much of the ancient Roman persecution of Jews and Christians was because they refused to pay lip service to the state religion, and dared to express their disbelief in the state's Gods publicly rather than privately. Likewise, Fascist Italy didn't care if you sincerely believed in Catholicism – Il Duce himself didn't – so long as you publicly pretended to believe in it. The primary difference is that the Roman state religion, being polytheistic, was often willing to import foreign gods - although the government reserved the right to decide in each individual case whether a given importation was to be permitted or prohibited, and a number of foreign cults were indeed banned – while Catholicism as (a branch of) an exclusively monotheistic religion generally isn't willing to do that (although it has some history of importing figures from other religions as Saints – the Gautama Buddha was accepted into Catholicism as Saint Josaphat, but he was later dropped as a Saint once his non-Christian origin became clear–although some of the Eastern Orthodox churches still have him as one; many argue that the Irish Saint Brigid is a Christianisation of the Irish Goddess Brigid; others argue that Our Lady of Guadalupe is a Christianisation of the Aztec Goddess Tonantzin, although that is somewhat more disputed.)
Was fascist Italy a totalitarian state? It officially claimed to be one – when the liberal opposition used "totalitarian" as a pejorative, Mussolini decided to reclaim the epithet and wear it proudly ("yes, we are totalitarian, totalitarianism is great!") – but Mussolini never gained absolute power: the King and the Church acted as independent spheres of power, and Mussolini never managed to gain as much control over either as he wished – when Hitler asked Mussolini to join World War II on the Axis side, Mussolini had to ask the King for permission, and was told "No" several times before Victor Emmanuel eventually said "Yes". Mussolini's position in Italy was always much weaker than Hitler's in Germany or Stalin's in Russia (or even Franco's in Spain), and while fascist Italy did persecute political dissidents, the persecution was far milder than that of the Nazis or Stalinists. (I'm not defending Mussolini here, who undoubtedly was a bad person who did numerous evil things and brought his country to near-ruin – but in many ways a lesser evil than Hitler or Stalin.)
i think you're conflating absolute power and totalitarianism. Though they may co-exist occasionally, those are 2 different things. Absolutism is about unchecked power of the ruler over state, while totalitarianism is about control of the state over all aspects of the citizens' lives. Roman Empire like say France of 17th century or like most of the kingdoms/empires in the history was absolutist (Magna Carta in 1215 started that slow process of non-absolutist kingdoms appearance in history). In absolutist state the will of the rule is the primary source of the things, and may be codified in the laws or may be applied just at whim. A totalitarian state isn't necessarily absolutist. It may be absolutist like the USSR during Stalin while it may be not absolutist like the same USSR during Brezhnev. In totalitarian state people are typically oppressed based on the laws of the state driven by ideology, not because of the whims of the ruler. The whims of the ruler if happen, like in case of Stalin, come in addition to the totalitarian state oppression and don't change the nature of the state, and may naturally disappear with the death of the ruler while the totalitarian state would continue its existence.
Looking at pre-20th century history the closest to totalitarianism would be the Church's tight control over all aspects of the people lives in the Middle Ages. That Church's power wasn't absolutist - it wasn't performed purely according to the whims of the current Pope, instead it was mainly driven by the Church's ideology, and while Popes changed the state of total control of the Church over people would go unchanged for centuries. Compare that Church's power with the power of the kings at the same time - the kings could do whatever they want, kill/punish whoever they wanted, yet they didn't maintain such control as the Church.
The Roman Empire had no compunction about interfering in any aspect of citizens' lives. If it engaged in less interference in practice than many modern regimes, that was simply because there was far less for it to interfere with. Consider the education system – in modern times, education is near-universal, and so regimes seek to control the education system in order to influence the thoughts of the mass of the population. If the Roman Empire had universal schooling, it is near-certain that the imperial government would have done the very same. But, it didn't – the bulk of the population was illiterate and uneducated, while fee-paying private schools served the children of the affluent. The government never sought to regulate those schools, simply because it did not see any point in doing so. Why should the state care about the school curriculum when 95% of children never went to school, and the most of the 5% who did would have been children of regime insiders anyway?
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both subordinated all civil society organisations to state control. What did the Roman Empire do? Well, civil society – as understood today – largely didn't exist in ancient times. There were few formal civil society institutions, and those few which did exist were generally religious in character, attached to Temples/Churches/etc. And the Roman state heavily interfered with religious institutions – in the pre-Christian period, major Pagan temples were generally government-owned and with state-appointed clergy. If anything, the adoption of Christianity as a state religion saw a modest decline in government control of religion, simply because Christianity had an organised clergy not under direct state control, whereas the Pagan clergy were far less organised and hence far more amenable to direct state interference.
Fascist Italy was a different situation again – Mussolini sought to subordinate all civil society to the state just as the Nazis and Soviets had done, but was forced to compromise with the Catholic Church and permit it to retain its own independent Church-sponsored civil society organisations, which functioned as alternatives and competitors to the state-sponsored ones. Italian citizens had a freedom to choose between two competing ideologies (Fascism and Catholicism) – a relatively narrow freedom, but nonetheless one which was denied to those ruled by the Nazis or Soviets. The military was another area in which Mussolini failed to implement totalitarianism – Nazi soldiers swore allegiance to Hitler, Soviet soldiers swore allegiance to the Soviet State, but Italian soldiers swore allegiance, not to Mussolini, but rather to King Victor Emmanuel III. As a result, many royalist/monarchist opponents of Fascism found a refuge and power base within the Italian military – nothing parallel could be said about the Wehrmacht or Red Army.
Comparing Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, I think it can be argued that only the last was complete totalitarianism, whereas the former were less than fully "total". In the Soviet Union, the economic sphere was fully subordinated to the state; with private enterprise, private property and private wealth severely restricted (if not abolished entirely). By contrast, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany allowed private enterprise and property to continue to exist, and both regimes permitted the wealthy to keep the bulk of their private wealth, provided they did not politically oppose the regime, and were not members of persecuted minorities. While both regimes did interfere with the operation of private businesses to a degree, they never sought the complete state control of business decision-making which existed in the Soviet Union.
> In totalitarian state people are typically oppressed based on the laws of the state driven by ideology, not because of the whims of the ruler. The whims of the ruler if happen, like in case of Stalin, come in addition to the totalitarian state oppression and don't change the nature of the state,
Why does it matter whether one's oppression is driven by "ideology" or "whim"? I can't see why this is an important distinction. And it seems rather orthogonal to the question of whether the state has "total" control over society. One regime might be highly ideological yet with significant spheres of society maintaining independence from state control; another regime might be founded on personal whim and the ruler's megalomania rather than any coherent ideology, and yet subject every aspect of life to those whims.
> and may naturally disappear with the death of the ruler while the totalitarian state would continue its existence.
Historically, many absolute monarchies have had no particular ideology, yet saw a succession of absolute rulers lasting centuries, as the role of absolute ruler is successively passed from father to son. The particularities of whim may change with each generation, but it is still whim; and sons likely inherit much of their whims from their fathers.
> Looking at pre-20th century history the closest to totalitarianism would be the Church's tight control over all aspects of the people lives in the Middle Ages
I think the mediaeval Catholic Church was actually far weaker than many people today think it was. It did not exert much control over the average person's life at all; many mediaeval clerics bemoaned that the majority of the population rarely went to church, and often acted quite disrespectfully on the occasions they did, indulged in widespread drunkenness, promiscuity, unmarried cohabitation, adultery, prostitution, etc, and that the government mostly didn't care. Even within the Catholic Church itself–very many "celibate" clergy had mistresses and illegitimate children (including bishops, cardinals, even Popes); homosexual activity was widespread in many monasteries (which while a capital offence, few were actually prosecuted–generally only the indiscreet, unlucky, or those who had made powerful enemies.) Many viewed religion as a fitting subject for mockery, and got away with it far more often than most today would think they did. Those who sought to establish a competing religious ideology to the Church's frequently faced execution, but those who decided to just ignore it all and quietly live their lives as they saw fit were largely free to do so.
Russia now resembles more Tsarists imperial wars mixed with communist practices.
That is a huge oversimplification. Nazis viewed Slavs as inferiors to be enslaved, but they saw Scandinavians much more positively. Hitler admired the British Empire, and prior to the outbreak of WW2, Nazi propaganda was pro-British - Hitler had hoped to recruit Britain as an ally, and was disappointed when it became an enemy instead. Nazi policy towards conquered nations was complex, ranging from genocidal extermination at one extreme, to promoting enhanced minority rights at the other (which they did for the Frisians in the Netherlands and the Bretons in France). Even for Slavs the policy wasn’t purely enslavement - some were to be forcibly assimilated as Germans instead (the Sorbs), and the Nazis were keen to play different Slavic groups off against each other (which is how some Ukrainian nationalists ended up volunteering to fight for the Nazis)
You can think about how you handle current events:
If you live in the US, how did you handle the Trump presidency?
If you live in Russia, how are you handling the current situation?
A few weeks ago a Russian colleague of mine IMed me looking to move out of the country. That night I told my wife how lucky I felt that we didn't need to leave the US when Trump was in power.
It seems like the institution of presidential debates that has been a hallmark of our democratic process for decades was destroyed by the GOP just yesterday, so speaking in the past tense as if the damage has ceased is a mistake.
Maybe it's like being a part of a bad company. It's too big a machine for you to meaningfully change, and the only way to remain on board is to help it along.
Is it realistic to resist and live comfortably? No, but you have the choice, and the choice you make is a reflection of your character.
Your greatest chance of being anti-Nazi, for instance, would have been just to be a card-carrying Communist.
> unless you believe you have some sort of innate fundamental morality
to suggest otherwise would be to say that most people don't, but most people will help others - a lot of support is going to Ukraine which would simply not if Ukraine were the aggressor (and I acknowledge such ethical behaviour is patchy and sometimes not there but often it is).
And thankfully we've had nothing close to approaching the horrendous events of the holocaust during our present pandemic difficulties, but opposing discussion on the grounds of it being potentially offensive isn't doing any service to the survivors (and victims) of those past atrocities, and it risks us following some of those dark paths of the past into the future if we cannot apply what we learned to our own times.
The various lessons of history must be applied as much as possible in order to better understand our present time and to avoid repeating those mistakes of history.
Yes we had lockdowns - as did many other countries/states/provinces/cities, including in the U.S. And yes we've had vaccine mandates in order to work in many roles - as has been the case in the U.S. and many other places around the world that have always been regarded as highly liberal and democratic. And yes we had quarantine for people entering the country - which has been utilised widely throughout history.
It sucked to experience, and yes, sometimes there was cause for concern as to how far it was going and how permanent the restrictions would be.
But we can now see the outcome; the country is almost completely back to normal, and ended up with one of the lowest per-capita fatality rates in the world, hospitals were only briefly strained when omicron surged this past January but quickly returned to normal, and the country has fared well economically compared to most other countries.
And even if the outcome wasn't so positive, this distinction is crucial: Nazi Germany was defined by persecuting, imprisoning and murdering huge numbers of people; Australia's pandemic response was intended to prevent the premature deaths of huge numbers of people, and it succeeded at doing that whilst impinging on people's freedoms for only a limited period of time and to only a limited extent.
Screeching ideologues on Twitter and cable TV who were not here and know nothing about our societal values are not the people to be informed by on this topic.
Human Rights Watch [1] documented a variety of arbitrary abuses and disturbing authoritarian trends. I watched videos of police choke-slamming an innocent woman for not wearing a mask [2], people being forcefully kidnapped from their homes and taken to camps (!) [3], and many other abuses.
The comparison with the National Socialist regime in WWII is not a comparison of specific ideologies, as I already made very clear, but of a societal-level adoption of coercive actions and narratives in the name of serving the greater good. There is a desensitization that occurs and, IMO, any honest student of history would see the exact same forces at play.
1: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/24/australia-harsh-police-r...
To your response:
- I myself was concerned by some of the measures and the risk of overreach and permanence of the measures - I said so in my original comment.
- Yes people protested, which was understandable and healthy, and allowed by governments/police.
- Yes sometimes police were heavy handed in enforcing the laws - where it went too far it was widely shared on social and mainstream media and condemned by pretty much everyone. But these cases were isolated.
- The measures taken in the NT to quarantine cases were done because that territory is home to some of the most vulnerable people on earth in terms of pre-existing health conditions, education/language and access to medical care and information; in short, it was done to protect the most vulnerable members of the indigenous population from severe illness and premature death. You couldn’t possibly think of anything more opposite to Nazism if you tried.
The thing about being an adult is that you learn that government policies/measures shouldn’t be measured against some idealistic, imagined alternate reality, but against the realistic next-worst scenario. That’s the whole reason I outgrew my belief in simplistic socialist policies in my late 20s, which most people do, of course.
To me one of the greatest revelations of the pandemic is that libertarians are just as liable to succumb to idealistic fantasies as socialists have historically been.
The standard refrain has been that governments should “protect the vulnerable” while letting everyone else live totally freely - but without suggesting a workable plan for how this actually could be achieved, particularly when it’s not obvious in advance, who is/isn’t vulnerable.
Let’s be clear: your phrase “societal-level adoption of coercive actions and narratives in the name of serving the greater good” is a high-minded way of saying that the virus should have just been allowed to spread, regardless of the cost in human lives, and that to do otherwise is essentially the same as Nazism.
If I’ve misrepresented you, please explain how.
If not, please be less euphemistic in how you’re conveying the kind of outcome you’d prefer to see of the pandemic in Australia, given that the ultimate actual outcome has been a remarkably low fatality rate by world standards (1/7 per-capita even of the much vaunted Sweden), and a social/political order now largely back to what it was beforehand.
>Let’s be clear: your phrase “societal-level adoption of coercive actions and narratives in the name of serving the greater good” is a high-minded way of saying that the virus should have just been allowed to spread, regardless of the cost in human lives, and that to do otherwise is essentially the same as Nazism.
> If I've misrepresented you, please explain how.
Yes, this is a misrepresentation (though I know you don't do it maliciously), and I'll be happy to explain. The original article posted here beautifully illustrates this process as well. The article also notes that the gas-lighting and trivialization of objections to this process as "alarmist" is a present feature.
The process that a society undergoes in order to eventually commit atrocities against some scapegoated people is well-known and it is dependent on the people within a nation being willing to subvert their ordinary moral compass to outcome-based management which focuses on a single-minded definition of success. This single-metric management is a finely-tuned technique that is favored by officials acting against the best interests of the people as a whole to erode and impede basic human rights. In this process, the ends always justify the means.
The only way this process is successful is if the despots in question are able to manipulate enough of the people via their base instincts and the most useful of instincts in propaganda is fear. Fear of the other, fear of loss, fear of sickness or death, fear of economic collapse, there are many ways to exploit the human mind using fear. Girard described this entire process perfectly (as does OP's original article).
We saw this same process occur in the US after 9/11, where the fear and anger in response to those attacks led our country into a 20 year military campaign of the most irrational nature and one which ended in total failure. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed, trillions of dollars were wasted, and thousands of people were imprisoned and tortured with no regard to human rights or due process of law. I watched with dismay as people who described themselves as patriots and "strong Constitutionalists" threw any notion of rights and due process out the window in the name of "getting those terrorists." Even the definition of terrorist became quite vague ("he looked like one"), and the long-term societal effects in America and around the world remain with us to this day and they will likely never go away.
So am I saying that those "patriots" were Nazis or that the post-9/11 response in America is the same as Nazism? No, it's not about the characteristics of an ideology rooted in a specific milieu. I'm saying that Nazism itself was of the same Category / Type of all collectivist and coercive behavior and it is entirely dependent on the lizard brain, emotions over reason, and a focus on single-metric management. You lose the forest for the trees and a whole bunch of civilizational progress toward human freedom along the way.
I probably have a few years even on you and, as such, am well acquainted with the real world. The older I get, the more I can see that if we abandon high-minded ideals and indulge our base passions we are left only with lizard brains and that this process of totalitarian control is designed with that exact outcome in mind.
My original statement in response to the parent of this thread / context was simply an opportunity for self-reflection.
How did we all respond to people on the outside of the establishment narrative, who had differing beliefs? Did we support their freedom of choice and basic human rights or did we look the other way when they lost their jobs or businesses, support forced vaccinations (violence), gloss over the abuses of law enforcement, etc. It's not a personal accusation, it's a simple question and one that we have to answer both as individuals and as a society. The ideology, the regime, the government officials, etc. are ultimately irrelevant because all of that depends on the cooperation of the ordinary people, including you and me. But those same choices then were the same choices faced by the Germans in WWII, regardless of the specifics of the ideology in question.
The transformation of the people that I witnessed in two short years was disturbing to say the least.
I understand the position, and please trust that I've wrestled with these issues daily since the pandemic measures began, and tried very hard to examine all perspectives, both philosophically and practically, as thoroughly and dispassionately as possible.
And please also trust that in my own family and community I've been in the (often lonely) position of questioning and critiquing the measures.
But where I'm pushing back here is on the proportionality of the condemnation and the aptness of the historical analogies. Given enough differences in the circumstances, such analogies cease to be appropriate or helpful, and certainly not persuasive to those with different (albeit thoughtful and legitimate) views.
The key points of my perspective in response to yours are:
- Re "... it is dependent on the people within a nation being willing to subvert their ordinary moral compass ..." – sure, but unlike the two analogies you give, which are all about attacking/imprisoning/killing people due to their racial/national/religious identities, the pandemic measures were about saving significant numbers of a society's own people from severe illness and death, which is _not_ a subversion of people's ordinary moral compass; a healthy, moral society protects its fellow citizens from illness and death as far as reasonably possible, regardless of how old or sick they are.
- Re. "Fear of the other, fear of loss, fear of sickness or death, fear of economic collapse, there are many ways to exploit the human mind using fear." and "it is entirely dependent on the lizard brain, emotions over reason, and a focus on single-metric management..." – (1) The fears, whilst sometimes exaggerated, were not imagined or hypothetical; the deaths really did happen, and are still happening (though thankfully in diminishing numbers), and happened not only to the elderly and frail, but to plenty of people with many years ahead of them in which to bring companionship and contribution to their families and societies. It's not a subversion of morality for people to care deeply about this, and it's neither excessively emotional nor excessively rational; it matters both from emotional and rational perspectives; (2) I pay a lot of attention to the decision-making that goes on in government about these things, and it was certainly not "single-metric management"; the fatality count was one factor, as was the load on hospitals/effect on hospital workers with regard both to covid patients and other patients, but also the flow-on effects to the rest of the economy/society. The effect on people's businesses/jobs was real (and for what it's worth, substantial moral and tangible support was offered to people whose jobs/businesses were affected), but given the complex nature of a pandemic, there were always going to be harms to people's jobs/businesses; this couldn't be avoided any more than illness/fatalities could, the issue was/is how to balance and minimise the harms overall; (3) To put it all down to "lizard brain" dominance; sure I see plenty of this, but I personally come to it having spent countless hours over many years doing emotional healing/development work to get out of lizard-brain thinking, and I have the most gratifying conversations on the topic with others who have been similarly dedicated to this kind of work. I equally see plenty of lizard brain dominance from those who cry "Nazi", "fascist", "globalists", etc in response to every/any government measure to manage the pandemic.
- I've done plenty of thinking and reading about how the pandemic response fits in with classical liberal philosophies, and have paid much attention to the likes of Taleb and Norman [1] from the Real World Risk Institute (who, incidentally, are now bitterly opposed to one another on the matter of vaccinations, but that is a healthy dynamic I think), and I'm persuaded by the idea that there is plenty of compatibility between Hayekian philosophy and the pandemic measures; this paper discusses it well [2].
I understand that much of the commentary about this is influenced by the significant differences in the way Americans vs Australians regard their governments, and real differences in the way the respective governments have operated, particularly in recent decades. Australians tend not to have such a hostile and adversarial relationship with their government, and I don't think this is altogether unhealthy; it's a much smaller country, with a much smaller role in the world, and plenty of mechanisms to limit/diffuse power, and so politicians here just don't have the scope to amass much power or wealth. It just doesn't hold that we're at significant risk of sliding down a slippery slope to despotic tyranny.
Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but I don't see any signs of it yet, and if I do I'll be sure to write many words about it :)
[1] https://necsi.edu/systemic-risk-of-pandemic-via-novel-pathog...
Regarding your two points of contention, I understand where you're coming from.
In order to answer, I'll clarify again that I'm not talking about government policy in this specific thread (although I did feel that it was equally problematic across the board in most countries) but, rather, the behavior of the people. This is my sticking point and the reason that do believe the comparison is apt, even if we didn't escalate (thankfully) in most countries to the point that things did in Germany before and during WWII (thanks, in this case, to the people, enough people on the other side of this to make a difference). It is ultimately the same types of behaviors involved in scapegoating and desensitization to persecution and oppression.
If our pattern-matching for totalitarian behavior is confined to images of psychotic Germans clad in Hugo Boss and runes as they hunt their victims, we're going to miss a whole lot of equally bad behaviors, even if they aren't (yet) as overtly shocking.
The German people themselves didn't just wake up one day and decide to start exterminating minorities, it was a long process of mass propaganda and brainwashing which gradually led to that conclusion. And the people let it happen. It is our duty as human beings, I believe, to identify and block this process as early as possible in every case in order to prevent it from ever happening again.
What specific behaviors am I talking about (during COVID)?
- Snitching / video recording / screaming at / attacking people who didn't "comply" with mandates
- People fantasizing online about murdering people who didn't want the vaccine
- Schoolteachers taping masks to their elementary school students, forcing them to sit outside in the cold, mocking them, and more
- Corporations firing employees who refused the vaccine (and often in very underhanded ways so they didn't have to pay severance)
- And many more that I'm frankly not comfortable with mentioning here
While I'm sure there is a "whataboutist" response to each of the points above, the fact remains that all of the above behavior happened in conjunction with and was generally not condemned by anyone in the establishment (e.g., with real power).
Governments are always going to try to increase their level of control over society but it only works if the people participate. That was just as true during COVID as it was during the Third Reich. While I know that it stings to hear it, I believe it to be the truth, or else I wouldn't say it.
My other objection to your main point (your point that the intentions were good, which is why these actions were acceptable (please let me know if I am mis-characterizing)) is that this rationalization sets a very low bar for both governments and the people to excuse behaviors that should never be present in free societies. You can basically find a way to rationalize anything to the people if this is the standard we set, given enough time and propaganda.
We may or may not disagree on that point but that is where I am coming from. I don't believe, at the end of the day, that the ends justify the means in this situation. There are many other externalities (and, yes, deaths caused by these restrictions and behaviors) that must be taken in to consideration. Not only did I not see anyone aligned with the establishment asking these questions, any attempt to do so from the outside was shut down, censored, gaslit, and more. We probably won't end up agreeing on this but I do appreciate your thoughts and thoughtfulness in talking about it. Sucks that we have to have this conversation in text, which is a poor / cold medium for these types of conversations but it is what it is.
I'll read the papers you sent and definitely agree that there is always a lot of self-reflection and work we all have to do ourselves in order to get out of and stay out of lizard-brain mentalities.
SEE: https://www.nhgazette.com/the-bushnazi-stories/bushnazi-link...
From the Wikipedia article on German PoWs in the US during WW2 (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the...>):
>Scholar Arnold Krammer noted that in his years of interviewing prisoners he never met one who admitted to being a Nazi
But I know, chances are, I would have most likely ended up as one of those German citizens who would have gradually become part of the Nazi machine.
I think it's perhaps safer to recognise the line between good and evil runs through every person, and not be presumptive to think of oneself as being part of a select group of virtuous people.
I can think of many recent occurrences where people who think they are acting virtuously, are in fact the perpetrators of harm, without knowing it; so convinced they are of their own virtue.