For Godwin's Sake Do I Even Have To Ask...

"Michael Moriarty was very good as that, um, Nazi. And as soon as I switched off the third episode, I, er, got on, er, got on the number eighteen and got up to Golders Green and I must of, must of slaughtered about eighteen thousand before I realised, you know, what I was doing. I thought, the fucking television has driven me to this." ~ Peter Cook, Derek and Clive Get the Horn 1979.

What was wrong with Hitler?

Was it A) the haircut, B) the moustache C) the Uniform D) the Country or E) His conduct?

Imagine a course called 'spot the fascist' that everyone had to take and pass to graduate. Alas, despite the teachers' best efforts to teach fascism in the abstract (so it can be spotted anywhere that it occurs) all the examples of fascism in the teaching materials come from German National Socialism. 

When the teacher hands out the test papers, it turns out that the assessment is easily hacked - the right answer always has a Nazi Swastika on their arm, the victims' a Star of David pinned to them... such that it turns out one doesn't need to understand what fascism is: the crucial policies, tactics and strategies, you just need to be able to recognize armbands.

Which isn't useless... unfortunately, there are still some people that look on the complete failure of the Third Reich, and say 'let's try that again' (this concern is dwarfed by the sheer volume of people who want to try Maoism again, this is literally another post).

But it's pretty close to useless. I don't know, but would bet that: if we systematically took note of every white boy in Australia that draws a swastika onto their pencil case or ruler or desk in school, and then longitudinally tracked these students sympathy to German National Socialism, I would be confident that regression analysis would find somewhere between no relationship to a 0.0001 predictive relationship to be drawn. 

I actually would most honestly have to say, I don't know what psychological journey someone has to go on before they spraypaint a swastika onto the wall of a synagogue, or onto the window of a Jewish owned business. And all of this is to concede, there is some value in being able to identify a fascist by recognizing a swastika. It is in my opinion though frighteningly, woefully inadequate. 

Contemporary to my writing, Gina Carano has been fired for demonstrating a lack of understanding in analogizing what I can only assume are 'Trump is the messiah' type QAnon republicans to Kews in Nazi Germany and occupied territories. This demonstrates her inability to identify what was bad about Hitler. Comparisons of that minority of Trump voters that participated in the bone-headed attempt to seize the capital is, if not Fascism or Nazism, certainly totalitarian, in that they viewed the democratic majority will as illegitimate and intolerable.

The answer, by the way, to the multiple choice question was 'E: Hitler's conduct' was what was bad about him. The conduct is where I feel 99% is so valuable to understand because it can be abstracted into the general, as opposed to the specific. 

One reason this might be missed, is because of the conjunction fallacy which people reliably get wrong here's the most basic 'Linda' example:

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which is more probable?

Linda is a bank teller.

Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

So most people guess the second, even though mathematically it has to be less likely because it has more conditions. In the case of fascism, we may have an intuition where when asked 'which is more probable?'

A fascist regime rises in power and initiates a genocide. OR A white nationalist fascist regime rises in power and initiates a genocide.

And there's some evidence that this is the case, given my perceived general lack of concern over the credible allegations of China's treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority.

And I can appreciate how history itself makes it difficult, for example take the value statement:

What the German National Socialists did to the European Jews was wrong.

And then generated the following value statement:

If the European Jews did to the German National Socialists what the German National Socialists did to the European Jews, that would also be wrong.

The very notion is laughable that it could ever have happened. This is what in the abstract is fundamentally wrong about scapegoating, it is targeting as a threat, a person or population who is unable to defend themselves and subsequently, no real threat. More on this later.

The importance of understanding what was wrong about Hitler in the abstract is to generate a string of If statements (with 'Nazism' serving as an abbreviation of 'what Nazi Germany did to the Jews'):

If the Chinese Communist Party does Nazism to the Uighurs then that is wrong.

If the Russian Federation does Nazism to the Ukrainians then that is wrong.

If Sunni Muslims does Nazism to the Shia Muslims then that is wrong.

If Shia Muslims does Nazism to the Sunni Muslims then that is wrong.

If Australia does Nazism to New Zealand then that is wrong.

If Thailand does Nazism to Cambodia then that is wrong.

If Manchester United does Nazism to Manchester City then that is wrong.

etc. unfortunately, what appears from my experience to be the case is that what was wrong with Nazism, is poorly taught. The sum total of my recollection of any of my secondary instructors dealing with Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf' was a teacher saying it is one of the most boring and tedious books ever written. 

I was listening to Yale history professor Timothy Snyder talk about Putin's favorite Russian Fascist philosopher - Ivan Ilyin, Snyder does something that I think is actually a triumph of liberalism - he recommends people read Ivan Ilyin. At this point it occurred to me that I had never read a word of Mein Kampf, even again as a triumph of modernity and a triumph over Nazism, Mein Kampf has not been censored, deemed illegal, nor gone out of print, it has simply become relatively impotent.

So I didn't want to buy a copy of Mein Kampf, nor did I want to borrow a copy from a public library. In this regard psychologically for me, it is a hard book to read because I don't want to be affiliated with Mein Kampf, so I just looked it up on wikiquote, and what excerpts are there paint it as tedious and mediocre as the one teacher that described it said:

And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.

Was there any shady undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not participate? On putting the probing knife carefully to that kind of abscess one immediately discovered, like a maggot in a putrescent body, a little Jew who was often blinded by the sudden light.

For to call the trade-union movement in itself unpatriotic is nonsense and untrue to boot. Rather the contrary is true. If trade-union activity strives and succeeds in bettering the lot of a class which is one of the basic supports of the nation, its work is not only not anti-patriotic or seditious, but 'national' in the truest sense of the word. For in this way it helps to create the social premises without which a general national education is unthinkable. It wins the highest merit by eliminating social cankers, attacking intellectual as well as physical infections, and thus helping to contribute to the general health of the body politic. Consequently, the question of their necessity is really superfluous.

I mean, I've devoured the wikiquote pages of many thinkers, but even Hitler's most colorful antisemitism is not that interesting, and I know many of the quotes are lacking the full context, but what is revealed doesn't strike me on an intuitive level to be anywhere near the calibre of anyone I'd call 'intellectual' more it strikes me as the overconfident writings of someone who doesn't know how much he doesn't know.

The three quotes I've selected, I feel are representative of how un-amazing Mein Kampf is, at least translated into English. 

The first is somewhat satisfying, because Christians often claim German National Socialism was an Athiestic regime, and it seems Hitler felt himself elected by no lower a figure than God Himself.  

The second quote is interesting to me because it's an example of an empirical question posed as a rhetorical question, functioning as an assertion that we know what and who is to blame for all ills, this is prime juicy example of what Hitler did wrong that could be abstracted into a general principle ~ and indeed have: assertions aren't arguments, claims come with a burden of proof, burden of proof can't be shifted etc. it's just that these abstract principles are from what I have observed very difficult to actually efficiently transmit throughout a population.

The third I pick out, because I feel it stands a chance to demonstrate how little we might know about Hitler, to see him speak of worker unions as essential to accomplishing his vision of a strong Germany. Now this may be counterfactual to his treatment of labor unions, but I feel that I lack confidence that most people I know, would know that the Nazi's didn't refer to themselves as Nazi's, the Nazi party program was indeed socialist, just not socialism for all, but those of 'the race' 

I believe this to be a serious problem, for the only thing required for most of the population to not be able to identify a Nazi, is for them to take the armband off. 

When the Grievance Studies Affair sought to expose whatever it is they sought to expose, one paper accepted for publication (but not yet published when the hoax was exposed) was "Our Struggle Is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism" which utilized a simple word substitution into a translation of Mein Kampf's 12th chapter in this publication.

It should be concerning if an ideology committed to dismantling the patriarchy, cannot recognize the thought processes of the Fuhrer. I have some sympathy though, because up until a month ago I wouldn't know a single fucking thing Hitler ever said. That said, chapter 12 has some particularly spicy language like:

The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine.

Now the paper in question is behind a paywall so I'm not fit to judge how easy or hard it would be to detect fascist sentiments in a text. I have no idea of my own competence/incompetence, there's also I feel a reasonably good critique of the grievance studies affair in this slate article, that while not closing the door on the problems revealed, does somewhat rebalance the perspective, at least for me should you feel an overexuberance for it.

Personally, I would actually find more useful a level of abstraction of conduct in our education system not to the level of Fascism, but up further to the level of totalitarianism. For example, Mein Kampf is I'm told an 'autoethnography' which to my limited understanding is a style of writing where one takes their personal lived experience and generalizes that out to draw broad conclusions. (The hint is in the title 'My Struggle', as it was for the peer reviewing journal of 'Our struggle is my struggle') so we could abstract out a principle that autoethnographies are a terrible and unsound way to generate knowledge. (Please note, my blog is largely autoethnography, though I try at least for the past ten years to clearly mark where I am presenting an opinion, rather than asserting opinion as fact.)

In my secondary school one of the compulsory texts my year had to study was 'Night' a memoir by Eli Wiesel, which is when I learned about the Holocaust and forms half of the arguments that convinced me not to seek out news media as a waste of time, (the other half being the writings of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, most succinctly in 'The Bed of Procrustes' about 12 years later). Learning the horrors of the Holocaust was immensely valuable, but I wonder how different my own culture would be if at some point during the compulsory schooling years, it was mandatory for a qualified history teacher to take us through the 25 point National Socialist Program and dissect just what was wrong with it. Likewise Stalin's 5 year plans, (not just 'Animal Farm') and Mao's Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and whatever other dumb ideas are in Mao's little red book.

An exception has to be noted here however, which is: if you are analyzing it through the perspective of 'Identity Politics' the answer to that initial multiple choice may well be 'D - the country' or some variation in terms of the problem with Hitler was because of his skin colour. Now I don't think any practicioner of identity politics would ever consciously choose those terms, I find the term ;Identity Politics' itself ambiguous, and likely suffering a Motte & Bailey type effect where the academic literature proposes one version of Identity Politics in theory:

Identity politics is an approach to politics by which people of a particular religion, race, social background, class or other identifying factor organize themselves politically based on the systems of oppression that they believe apply to them because of these identities.

Identity politics centers the lived experiences of those facing various systems of oppression to better understand the ways in which racial, economic, sex-based, gender-based, and other forms of oppression are linked and to ensure that political agendas and political actions arising out of identity politics leave no one behind.[1][2][3] Those who criticize identity politics from the right see it as inherently Collectivist and prejudicial, in contradiction to the ideals of Classical liberalism.[4] Those who criticize identity politics from the left see it as a version of bourgeois nationalism, i.e. as a divide and conquer strategy by the ruling classes to divide people by nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. so as to distract the working class from uniting for the purpose of class struggle.

...Versus in practice, for which I would employ my own autoethnography and describe it as: An intellectual tradition in which Ad Hominem is no longer a fallacy, and to a lesser extent accepts Slippery Slope fallacies and Affirming the Consequent fallacies.

Ad hominem arguments are one of those things that we had abstracted out from history as no good, but it is a highly popular intuition that the validity of an argument has something to do with who is arguing it. It is the foundational intuition behind double standards, and identity politics as practiced by laypeople is filled with double standards.

Probably the most obtuse example of double standards is that people of color cannot be racist, as racism is defined as 'prejudice + power' and not simply 'prejudice', a definition I could get on board with if I knew how 'power' is defined, because as per the standard definition of power 'the ability to act or do' which few people lack absolutely...but again autoethnographically speaking, it appears a more circular definition - eg. power is something white people have and others don't, which could be restated as: 'racism = power + whiteness' 

But there are other concepts like 'mansplaining' etc. that have legitimate definitions (a lay person lecturing an expert on their area of expertise eg. typically a man explaining to a woman the female experience), but practices that amount to double standards (a man explaining anything, even their area of expertise to a layperson).

So Identity politics near as I can tell, is a prism by which conduct is acceptable or not depending on who is carrying it out, rather than conduct itself. It also near as I can tell generally only operates on a macro scale, therefore scale or scope cannot be adjusted to analyze localized cases where the makeup of majority-minorities or power dynamics might switch.

Earlier I offered a definition of scapegoating where an inability to defend oneself was intrinsic to the notion of scapegoating, something akin to scapegoating = blame + powerlessness, which is certainly bad. As such, using that definition I could argue that blame directed at say wealthy enfranchised white people does not constitute scapegoating, and is therefore not bad.

In this regard I am not particularly concerned about either Neo-Nazis, (they exist, they are bad, and I do understand Jewish individuals particular vigilance on the matter) nor Identity Politics in the domain of its capacity to succeed at changing the world (at least say, having the kind of impactful change as significant as the iPhone had) I feel it is inherently terminal and incoherent. My concern is more that identity politics is costly and counterproductive to its stated aims, it uses up oxygen better spent on more pressing concerns like wealth inequality and climate change.

'Mein Kampf' is not censored, you can purchase it on Amazon where Hitler's literary efforts now generate proceeds for Jewish Charities and organizations, but there is a kind of self-censorship of Mein Kampf. In my marketing degree, a lecturer had a slide that was just a massive Nazi swastika, it was an example of a non-consumer product brand that achieved world-wide recognition, but anyone walking past and glancing through the window into the lecture hall at that moment could be forgiven their concerns - a point made with amusement to me by my Jewish friend and classmate. I suspect given the current climate; if that faculty member still teachers, they no longer use that example, or at least have toned down the drama of its presentation. I also suspect few teachers feel comfortable actually teaching any of the content of Nazism, because of how easily it could be misconstrued as teaching Nazism bringing us all the way back to Peter Cook's ridiculing of the idea that mere exposure to bad ideas will result in bad action.

The Amazon blurb for Mein Kampf I feel puts it beautifully:

“In the pages of Mein Kampf Hitler presented the world with his dark vision for the future. Years would pass before he attained the power to realize that vision, but Mein Kampf’s existence denies the free world the excuse of ignorance." ~ Abraham Foxman.

I can only speak for myself, that my education, a private one that boasts impressive academic results (not necessarily mine) did afford me the excuse of ignorance because well, nobody understandably wants to read Mein Kampf, nor associate in anyway with Hitler. Here then, a potential example of 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,' manifesting in the degree to which individuals might share Hitler's intuitions of (bad) reasoning to formulate their own impression of their own localized and particular 'struggle'.

Having said that, I have no intention of reading any more of Mein Kampf, I don't think Hitler is a historical person that suffers from informed attribute where someone might be shocked at how mediocre his writings are. I feel it is probably enough to look up 'totalitarianism' on wikipedia, and 'authoritarianism' and if you get the basic concept that problems begin when you become intolerant of dissenting voices, I feel that has been sufficiently abstract to have me avoid signing up to bad ideologies. 

I actually feel the odds of anyone seriously trying Nazism again to be quite low, and I may be in a process of being humbled by that presumption, based on the number of right wing populists in Europe and South America. It's curious to me though how little detail about the Nazis I actually know, yet somehow know the basics enough of liberalism to both A) avoid conducting myself like a fascist and B) avoid comparing interlocutors to Hitler/Nazis (knowing Godwin's Law helps with this). I have read John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' but can literally recall almost none of it, except the part where he speculates that Marcus Aurelius could have wiped out Christianity if he so chose which has little enough to do with liberty, yet I know the basic take-aways, such that maybe informing yourself of 'On Liberty's' thesis is sufficient to avoid being a totalitarian/authoritarian/useful-idiot.

The evidence of my life and times, in my sphere of experience - Elie Wiesel's 'Night' isn't enough, and furthermore looking to the Uighurs. evidently may be too specific for people to identify with non-Europeans. It may be to an extent counterproductive, as I suspect but have not, and will not prove the empirical question - that a significant number of people would say the Allies fought and defeated Hitler because of the evils of the Holocaust, rather than established imperial powers resisting (or in the Commonwealth's case - called to resist) an encroaching new imperial power. All that tangentially supports my speculation, is the popular sympathy with Antifa whom fundamentally don't appear to understand how or why fascism takes off, nor history, given their complete failure to stop Nazism.

Speaking for myself, I found Crash Course world history's episode on WWII informative, and I'm currently halfway to the halfway point of Timothy Snyder's 'Bloodlands' which is explaining the central role the Ukraine played in both the killings of the Stalin and Hitler regimes (point 3 of the 25 point National Socialist Program: "We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people and colonization for our superfluous population.") such that, I am working on my ignorance of what actually happened.

I like Mark Blyth's prime-mover point too, in addressing the West's current preoccupation with rising white supremacy; which I shall attempt to paraphrase: 'you can't explain an increase in racists with an increase in racism' that strikes me as circular, there has to be environmental factors driving an uptick in sympathy for a long latent/widely condemned idea. 

struggling to conclude this post feeling if anything by now I have belabored the point, let me maybe set some homework because most people don't have to worry about becoming Hitler. A vanishingly small proportion of the population face any risk of rising to power of a totalitarian regime nor inspiring another citizen to 'slaughter about eighteen thousand' of anybody, one might be more concerned for their resemblance to an ordinary German citizen during the Third Reich. It concerns me, and I too have not read 'Eichmann In Juerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil' controversial as it may be  assuming Evil is banal strikes me as the conservative risk management policy.

Let's maybe just end with some levity from cracked.com: