Memory loss and lack of courage, yes. But I'm also distressed by what seems to be the seductive power of fascistic thinking on a lot of educated men who used to tout themselves as "classic liberals."
As if the script in their heads is: "If you lefties won't let us tell the truth about the race and IQ and the superior mathematical capabilities of men, then your stupidity is too dangerous to entrust with shared governance, and all the gains that the smartest humans have achieved are at risk like never before. In a state of emergency, domination is right and necessary."
These aren't the disenfranchised working classes or petite bourgeoisie; they are the wealthy and highly educated men and some women who seem to have suffered some kind of psychic wound that not enough people are affirming them as "thought leaders" or something.
Also, reading this reminds me that I keep meaning to go back to a reading of Jakob Uexküll, who despite some interesting friendships (with Benjamin e.g.) had some (as the kids say) "problematic" ideas on race. People know his book Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, but they don't often know that he also wrote a book called Staatsbiologie and was also friends with Houston Chamberlain.
From reading this latest post, the American right is having its Goldhagen moment.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen made the provocative argument in "Hitler's Willing Executioners" that explained Nazism as a phenomenon that came naturally to German culture. Obviously, it comes off as over the top to say that an entire people are preternaturally evil, but that is not what he argued. It was more along the lines of explaining the banality of evil not on the part of Hitler or the NSDAP, but among the Germans themselves.
He notes that nothing about Nazi Germany was novel or original. The antisemitism was a background feature of European politics for centuries. He picks Martin Luther as an example of how far back antisemitism goes. Then you have cultural explanations, like romantic nationalism and the German idealistic philosophic tradition (the culture that produced Kant, Hegel, Marx [a Hegelian] and Nietzsche, to name a few). Even the stereotype of the severe, officious German is a holdover from Otto von Bismarck, who through the consolidation of Germany created the national project and the militarization of culture. It was these strains that were braided together to form Nazi Germany.
The implication of this was that Nazi Germany gave the German people a flashlight and map to go down a dark road they always wanted to follow.
Same with the post-Trumpian right. Donald Trump didn't invent racism, misogyny and xenophobia. These had always existed. His presidential victory vindicated these pre-existing viewpoints and gave them an animating spirit and political power.
As his niece Mary Trump has said, Donald Trump gives people permission to be their worst selves.
Memory loss and lack of courage, yes. But I'm also distressed by what seems to be the seductive power of fascistic thinking on a lot of educated men who used to tout themselves as "classic liberals."
As if the script in their heads is: "If you lefties won't let us tell the truth about the race and IQ and the superior mathematical capabilities of men, then your stupidity is too dangerous to entrust with shared governance, and all the gains that the smartest humans have achieved are at risk like never before. In a state of emergency, domination is right and necessary."
These aren't the disenfranchised working classes or petite bourgeoisie; they are the wealthy and highly educated men and some women who seem to have suffered some kind of psychic wound that not enough people are affirming them as "thought leaders" or something.
Who was BAP's advisor at Yale?
Also, reading this reminds me that I keep meaning to go back to a reading of Jakob Uexküll, who despite some interesting friendships (with Benjamin e.g.) had some (as the kids say) "problematic" ideas on race. People know his book Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, but they don't often know that he also wrote a book called Staatsbiologie and was also friends with Houston Chamberlain.
That’s his dissertation? Who was this guy’s advisor? What committee signed off on that?
From reading this latest post, the American right is having its Goldhagen moment.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen made the provocative argument in "Hitler's Willing Executioners" that explained Nazism as a phenomenon that came naturally to German culture. Obviously, it comes off as over the top to say that an entire people are preternaturally evil, but that is not what he argued. It was more along the lines of explaining the banality of evil not on the part of Hitler or the NSDAP, but among the Germans themselves.
He notes that nothing about Nazi Germany was novel or original. The antisemitism was a background feature of European politics for centuries. He picks Martin Luther as an example of how far back antisemitism goes. Then you have cultural explanations, like romantic nationalism and the German idealistic philosophic tradition (the culture that produced Kant, Hegel, Marx [a Hegelian] and Nietzsche, to name a few). Even the stereotype of the severe, officious German is a holdover from Otto von Bismarck, who through the consolidation of Germany created the national project and the militarization of culture. It was these strains that were braided together to form Nazi Germany.
The implication of this was that Nazi Germany gave the German people a flashlight and map to go down a dark road they always wanted to follow.
Same with the post-Trumpian right. Donald Trump didn't invent racism, misogyny and xenophobia. These had always existed. His presidential victory vindicated these pre-existing viewpoints and gave them an animating spirit and political power.
As his niece Mary Trump has said, Donald Trump gives people permission to be their worst selves.
For those asking, BAP did his dissertation under Steven Smith at yale. He has said elsewhere that Harvey Mansfield was one of his readers.