h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay.

"aside"
With regard to the actual Holocaust: On a more general scale ... it seems to me that peoples in Europe that did not readily submit to recognising that the rulers of national states were the highest authority during nation state building / rebuilding were persecuted. Some rulers "legitimised" their authority to peoples by claiming a direct line & authority from for example the Christian God (e.g. the pope). In this way persecution of the Jews & other peoples ("gypsies") in Europe can be understood.

It seems to me that pre Nazi Germany or the smaller states that existed before Germany tended to operate one of the more tolerant political systems towards Jews etc. As someone with a background in Science ... it seems to me that this region promoted forms of scholarship and openness that allowed the flourishing of modern sciences ... 19th century "Germany" seems to have been a powerhouse for learning. So the fact that the Holocaust took place in Germany has always raised questions for me. I have read comments suggesting that the German Nazi leadership were following a plan that parallel the established of the United States - the US moved West displacing the natives, the German Nazi's wanted to move East to create their living space.
"aside"

Wow, what an interesting story, Pastey.

Sure. One person doesn't do that alone. And I bet most people back then would have thought, 'Just another politician.' I always have to think about Hannah Arendt's term for it all, 'the banality of evil'. Individually, most of those people were just jerks. Collectively, they were a nightmare. Not to mention names, but there are people around like that...

Oh, heck. Here's an example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/10/03/stephen-colbert-satirizes-bill-oreillys-killing-jesus-motivation/

Now, it's fine if a writer claims divine inspiration, I guess. As long as, well, not too many people take him seriously...

Yes, that's really very interesting!

Well, Stone Art, you must see that after the 1st World War things were at first going better, but then came the economic crisis. People didn't have much money and such and during these times the nationalist movements got stronger, not only in Germany.

My Grandfather was in his late teens when he had to join the army. Almost all his friends died and he was one of the few survivors of those soldiers who fought with him in Italy. He became a prisoner of the English, about whom he always told only good things. but until his death he could never quite accept that he was on the 'wrong side', that he was actually one of the 'bad guys' and that they were told lies. Many of the things he learned at that age could never really be erased from his brain.

That's a good point, Tav. I mean, Elektra and I are products of the Sixties. Now, if we'd been born, say, 50 years earlier, we might have been anarchists...

And take it from me - I've done the research. Ordinary attitudes in the US about things like 'eugenics' and 'race' were just as wrong-headed as they were in Europe. It was the plague of Western civilisation, and it had horrible consequences everywhere. Just think of all the people who were sterilised here in North Carolina:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Carolina

This sort of crazy idea wasn't some mental disease contracted by central Europeans. It was *the state of the science* in the 1930s.

Only a few days ago I watched a documentary about the history of racism. Among a lot of other facts we were given an extremely graphic description of the lynching of a retarded black teenager somewhere in the south of the USA some time back in the first half of the 20th century. Thousands witnessed how he was tortured to death. It took hours. This was not an uncommon occurrence.

But does this give an accurate picture of The United States as such? I think not. Neither the US then nor the US today.

(By the way we were - again - told that even the whitest person may be closer to a black person than he is to other whites - genetically speaking. In short: There is only one race: The human race.)

One of the reasons for extreme nationalism in Germany is the way the allies humiliated Germany after WWI. There is more than one good reason why you should never humiliate your opponents.

It's interesting that Austrians are more liked or tolerated in France than Germans when we think about how many guards in the nazi extermination camps were from Austria. (I am told they were in fact overrepresented in comparison with the Germans but I have yet to find evidence for this allegation.)

Tav will confirm that the far right and its views have long been strong in her country.

Also: France is not the country were Jews are liked mostly - to put it mildly...

On a lighter note (and following up on Pastey):

According to Stephen Fry (on his show QI) Diana Mosley (married to the British fascist leader) liked Hitler and met him many times. She said, "Well, what people don’t understand is . . . is . . . is how funny he was. He was very funny. You know, his eyes were quite blue. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, they were quite blue, quite blue. Once seen, never forgotten."
I met her and she said to me, "Of course, you never knew Hitler, did you?"

Yes, unfortunately the right is rather strong here.
In elections one of the really bad things is that 'protest voters' (who vote for a party of the opposition to not reinforce one of the reigning parties) will often rather vote for the Right instead of for instance the Greens or some other parties.
on the other hand one of the good things is that the Rights seem to be very often distracted by internal quarrels.

Unfortunately the internal quarrels among the Danish far rightists belongs to the past

>> And take it from me - I've done the research. Ordinary attitudes in the US about things like 'eugenics' and 'race' were just as wrong-headed as they were in Europe. It was the plague ... horrible consequences everywhere. ... sterilised ...

This sort of crazy idea ... *the state of the science* in the 1930s. <<

State of the Science: exactly it is not "crazy" as in irrational and unscientific. Eugenics has an entirely rational & scientific idea. Brushing such concepts of eugenics under the carpet by labelling it "crazy", "wrong-headed" & "plague" can only prevent a proper discourse rather than to encourage it. The cousin of Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, recognised as being one of greatest genius that ever lived, was a pioneer in practical statistics, epidemiology (population studies) & eugenics. Eugenics is rooted in the theory of evolution, survival of the fittest. Genocide can be considered an entirely rational concept of population control & direction.

It seems to me that the architecture of the holocaust, it's planning ... was entirely rational. There are claims that it was little different to the European colonizers of the North American continent as they conquered the West during the 19th century (Manifest Destiny) & was the inspiration of the Nazi lebensraum concept. But the American colonizers / conquerers were less methodical & systematic & it occurred over a longer period of time.

It is only when you consider less tangible & irrational concepts of social theory, ethics, & morality does concepts of "crazy", "wrong-headed", "plague" become relevant.

... entirely rational & scientific basis.

As for Austrians being overrepresented in nazi extermination camps:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/88236.stm

"[the "nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal] said that during the war, Nazis from Austria were over-represented.

"Austrians were only 8.5% of the population of greater Germany, but there were the same number of Austrian Nazi party members as German," he said."

It gets worse:

http://books.google.dk/books?id=PSi792OErrQC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=austrians+overrepresented+in+nazi+camps&source=bl&ots=jubN9Xx1cs&sig=jlxGuo6PqNdVipdvHRuHuis8flA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wQhQUrCdLsSR4ASIj4DoBw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=austrians%20overrepresented%20in%20nazi%20camps&f=false

Try googling "austrians overrepresented in nazi camps" (without my quotation marks)

It is important to know this because so any Austrians for so many years have described their country as a victim of nazi Germany. It's not the whole truth, you know...

>> There is more than one good reason why you should never humiliate your opponents. ... <<

You can always try to "eradicate" your opponents which is what many leaders have attempted in the past (e.g. Stalin, Saddam Hussein). The other method is to weaken them & make them dependent. I am sure Machiavelli & Sun Tzu have covered this (I haven't read this so this is just a hunch).

Quick word following Pierce's comment: I read somewhere that Hitler's ideas were inspired from Austrian Politicians: Georg von Schönerer & Karl Lueger.

When people come into power they tend to surround themselves with cronies. It seems entirely reasonable that Adolf Hitler of Austria would have tended to recruit from Austria. ??

Wow. You guys have a lot of ideas - and they're all interesting. Thanks.

To SA, I would say: yes, that's exactly what I meant. People actually thought that eugenics was a logical science. And I profoundly disagree. Just as I agree with Pierce that 'race' is a ridiculous concept. In fact, it's an evil scam that killed at least 600,000 people in the US in the 1860s, and immiserated over 3 million more.

[Pierce: you're right about lynching. Try googling 'lynching' and 'Oregon'.]

Last night, we watched the film 'Grey Owl'. Beautiful film, true story. Grey Owl was really Archie Belaney, a man from Hastings, in East Sussex. He always wanted to be a 'Red Indian', so he became one. The 'Red Indians' in Saskatchewan didn't mind at all. You see, they weren't blinded by the early-20th-century nonsense idea of genetics. They knew that what they had was a way of life. Skin colour was an irrelevance.

'Survival of the fittest' isn't a valid excuse for ANYTHING. Human beings can acknowledge natural process, but...you've got a brain. Use it. You don't want to live by that creed. Who's 'fitter'? A Hollywood stuntman or Steven Hawking? How dare we even ask that question?

That sort of thinking leaves a bitter legacy. One that causes people in some countries to resent handicapped-access laws. Or what happened to one of my students.

I had a bright student in my class, in her early 20s. This was in Cologne. After awhile, ,it became obvious to me that she was having trouble reading. I suggested that she see an optometrist - there was one just down the street, and everybody had good insurance. She was terrified at the suggestion.

Since I wore glasses myself, I was able to persuade her, and she got the glasses. They made a big difference. Then she told me why she was afraid to get them.

Her mother had always become angry when her daughter had visual problems. She'd insisted that Brigitte 'could see if she wanted to'.

Guess where Brigitte's mother learned that sort of thinking? The Fuehrer died, but the stupid ideas persisted.

Something can be entirely rational & scientific in principle but the way in which the science is carried out (methodology) & the subsequent interpretations can be "wrong" or misleading ... hence it's important to be able to distinguish between what is rational & scientific in principle & the corresponding rationality & science of practice & process: which can be irrational & unscientific (or contain elements of irrationality & non science).

And this is something to be considered before one considers the social aspects & consequences of the "practice of the science".

>> Just as I agree with Pierce that 'race' is a ridiculous concept. In fact, it's an evil scam that killed at least 600,000 people in the US in the 1860s <<

I thought the US civil war had little to do with race & more to do with power & politics: the South (Confederates) wanted to break from the Union & go their own separate way … why didn’t the North allow them to go their own separate way – that would have been the democratic choice? And when the North won the Jim Crow laws were introduced (“separate but equal” – a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak) … So as far as I can tell the reality of the civil war had little to do with race in practice. ... but maybe I am wrong

Yeah, I think you are wrong there - although you're right, in that the immediate causes of the war were socio-economic and political.

But the root of those conflicts was in the idea of 'race'.

I tried to explain the root causes a bit in a Guide Entry. See if this helps: A87786111

Keep something else in mind: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Before everybody screams, 'WHAT???', let me explain, as quickly as possible.

In the 1840s, US people - at least, those from western Europe - were locked into a mentality that said:

1. They belonged to a superior group of people.
2. As superior people, it was their 'destiny' to rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This was called 'Manifest Destiny'.

This was rubbish, of course. And it sounds awfully familiar to Germans from the 20th CCentury. Remember 'Lebensraum'?

In the 1840s, the US went to war with Mexico, a much more tolerant society based on class, not 'race'. In the course of that war, the US conquered a vast amount of Mexico's territory. See A87725460

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed the property rights of the 'new' US citizens. Pah. It was never honoured. Those people not only lost their lands, but they were reduced to second-class citizenship. Why? They weren't 'white'.

'Race' intersects politics because people use it as an excuse to steal from their neighbours.