Summary: The journalist Dorothy Thompson describes people she encounters at a party (presumably in New York), assessing who might become Nazis and who would not if the United States tilted in that direction. The article was published in Harper’s Magazine in August 1941, when Naziism was firmly in place in Germany and expanding violently in Europe but the U.S. had not yet entered the war.
This is a completely vacuous and honestly pretty awful piece. Wow, all of the people she deems to be fundamentally good would never ever go Nazi while all of those she deems to be fundamentally contemptible (often due to their class background, no less) would definitely jump at the chance. What a shocker.
Nazism is fundamentally evil. Author tries to highlight that there are certain types of people that would get attracted. You can see this first hand with softer version - Trumpism, immigrants from Latin America supporting Trump as you had Jewish supporting Hitler.
You just proved their point. Not much has changed in 70 years - still plenty of self-appointed “educated elite” who are more than happy to explain why other people are wrong yet never turn that same filter on themselves. Their bubble and isolation (“he had a classical education”) has left them so out of touch with the life of the common man that they can’t fathom any explanation for their beliefs but character weakness and ignorance. All while ignoring their own blind spots.
There's no need to provide "alternative" theories to clumsy pointless articles. That kind of clutter just needs to be pointed out for its foolishness and ignored, nothing more.
I'm interested in alternative theories of this kind of social movement and who signs up for it, article or not. Or rather, I would be interested in alternative theories, if I thought that the article was fundamentally wrong rather than just a bit dated in the presentation; understandably so as it was written 80 years ago.
Any thoughts? Or should we say that it's just random who signs up?
Describing something/someone as "fundamentally" evil obscures the fact that things (like extremist politics) happen for reasons. It is these reasons that if addressed, can put a stop to such unpleasantness occurring.
Nazism is a genocidal ideology; it's fundamentally evil.
The individual reasons for a specific person to ascribe to such an ideology are complex and worthy of study, and if the quoted statement had been 'any individual member of a fascist ideology is fundamentally evil', then sure - let's pull in the nuance.
But that's not the case here - we aren't talking about individuals, or general social movements, or something else that requires such consideration. We're talking about a very specific ideology.
Nazism - the ideology itself - is not a redeemable thing; it's an ideology inextricably tied to a laundry list of horrific acts.
No disagreement there but I don't think it's good or insightful to assert that the people you find to be personally distasteful are the same people who are likely to associate themselves with evil. Quite the opposite actually!
Didn't basically the entire country of Germany fall for it with few exceptions? You think they were evil or just misguided? Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing?
It's not that simple. Among many other factors, Hitler was small potatoes until it was advantageous to those in power to start givig him more power, including the capitalist classes who saw a choice between bolshevism and the NSDAP, and chose the Nazis.
I totally get the appeal of nazism or any other movement where you can become part of the Cool Kids group that bullies instead of being bullying
To feel so victimized and disempowered for so long, and then have someone come along and tell you that 'the evil people' stole it all from you and you have to fight to get it back, with physical violence if necessary
It must be an intoxicating and freeing and empowering feeling -- maybe like religious belief -- tho that's just a guess
The out groups change a bit, but like that story says -- it doesn't really matter -- that's just details to the believers
America used to be hella anti-semitic back in the day -- though maybe people and business execs were just more open about it back then?
Chomsky talks about it -- nazi house parties/street rallies in Philly in the 1930s
And the US supported the creation of Israel in part or primarily to not have to accept as many Jewish refugees
There was a nazi rally, promoted as a "pro america" event, at MSG in 1939 -- more than 20,000 people attended.
>I doubt that any serious political scientists or historians think that democracy is safe in America right now.
Democracy is never safe, the people can always vote in a tyrant if given an enemy and a scapegoat.
In the US, it's assumed that liberty is unassailable due to the vigilance of America's armed militias and populace, yet we've seen they'll happily support an authoritarian who targets leftists and immigrants and leaves their guns alone.
And as far as anti-semitism goes, it's still alive and well, just not as overt. People talk about "the globalist elites" and "New York liberals" and "cultural Marxists" without realizing how much modern "Conservative" dialogue is just repurposing the dog-whistle terms of anti-Semites. Nazi ideals have been rebranded as scientific racism and fascism as dark enlightenment philosophy. You can literally take the scare narrative around BLM, cancel culture and "the left" and just search and replace "the left" with "the Jews" and most of it wouldn't be at all out of place in the 1940s. People still think /pol/ is just harmless edgelord kids LARPing, and they still argue the Capitol insurrection was just nothing but minor vandalism and memes.
Unlike in the 1940s, the modern framework of hatred is constructed to allow plausible deniability, because we live in a post-Nazim world, so extremism has to rebrand and adapt to survive. The people waving Nazi flags and doing Hitler salutes at rallies are clowns - hateful, dangerous clowns, but clowns nonetheless - wedded to an obsolete model of fascism that flourishes online but is too easily taken down in public. But when tyranny comes to the US, it will come draped in an American flag and carrying a Bible. It will be presentable, calm, rational. No tyrant will need to rant openly about the Jews or other undesirables, because we've all been trained to connect the dots and read between the lines, and we can all pretend we didn't know even when the bodies start to stink.
The author's wiki page says she "was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s. Thompson is regarded by some as the "First Lady of American Journalism" and was recognized by Time magazine in 1939 as equal in influence to Eleanor Roosevelt."
"While working in Munich, Thompson met and interviewed Adolf Hitler for the first time in 1931. This would be the basis for her subsequent book, I Saw Hitler, in which she wrote about the dangers of him winning power in Germany. Thompson described Hitler in the following terms: "He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man." ...The Nazis considered both the book and her articles offensive and, in August 1934, Thompson was expelled from Germany."
A lot of effort is being put forth in this thread to discredit the article and its author. It's weird how defensive an article from the 1940s about actual, literal, card-carry big-N Nazis is making people.
Time Magazine's "person of the year" was about running a feature on a figure who had a significant impact on the world recently, not necessarily about celebrating and approving of said figure.
You're clutching at straws by denying my assertion above.
Wiki:
Controversial choices:
Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people.[9]
Indeed, as your wiki citation notes, “Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary...”, so such interpretations as your own are mistaken.
In 1936 it was Wallis Simpson, who's marriage to King Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis in the British Empire and a subsequent abdication, and in 1939 it was Stalin. So unless Time Magazine is a Monarchist Nazi Communist mag, it's probably not a promotional award.
Splendid parlor game, separating your acquaintances--bare acquaintances--into sheep and goats. I propose a new parlor game--which of your acquaintances is likely to come to your parties and write such a piece?
33 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 48.8 ms ] thread> Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion (to go Nazi). It is something in them.
Grandparent comment:
> Author tries to highlight that there are certain types of people that would get attracted.
If you disagree with that, what do you suggest as an alternative explanation?
Any thoughts? Or should we say that it's just random who signs up?
Be careful with such statements.
Describing something/someone as "fundamentally" evil obscures the fact that things (like extremist politics) happen for reasons. It is these reasons that if addressed, can put a stop to such unpleasantness occurring.
The individual reasons for a specific person to ascribe to such an ideology are complex and worthy of study, and if the quoted statement had been 'any individual member of a fascist ideology is fundamentally evil', then sure - let's pull in the nuance.
But that's not the case here - we aren't talking about individuals, or general social movements, or something else that requires such consideration. We're talking about a very specific ideology.
Nazism - the ideology itself - is not a redeemable thing; it's an ideology inextricably tied to a laundry list of horrific acts.
It's absolutely fine to declare it evil.
No disagreement there but I don't think it's good or insightful to assert that the people you find to be personally distasteful are the same people who are likely to associate themselves with evil. Quite the opposite actually!
I enjoy it more every time I read it
I totally get the appeal of nazism or any other movement where you can become part of the Cool Kids group that bullies instead of being bullying
To feel so victimized and disempowered for so long, and then have someone come along and tell you that 'the evil people' stole it all from you and you have to fight to get it back, with physical violence if necessary
It must be an intoxicating and freeing and empowering feeling -- maybe like religious belief -- tho that's just a guess
The out groups change a bit, but like that story says -- it doesn't really matter -- that's just details to the believers
America used to be hella anti-semitic back in the day -- though maybe people and business execs were just more open about it back then?
Chomsky talks about it -- nazi house parties/street rallies in Philly in the 1930s
And the US supported the creation of Israel in part or primarily to not have to accept as many Jewish refugees
There was a nazi rally, promoted as a "pro america" event, at MSG in 1939 -- more than 20,000 people attended.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323...
I doubt that any serious political scientists or historians think that democracy is safe in America right now.
Democracy is never safe, the people can always vote in a tyrant if given an enemy and a scapegoat.
In the US, it's assumed that liberty is unassailable due to the vigilance of America's armed militias and populace, yet we've seen they'll happily support an authoritarian who targets leftists and immigrants and leaves their guns alone.
And as far as anti-semitism goes, it's still alive and well, just not as overt. People talk about "the globalist elites" and "New York liberals" and "cultural Marxists" without realizing how much modern "Conservative" dialogue is just repurposing the dog-whistle terms of anti-Semites. Nazi ideals have been rebranded as scientific racism and fascism as dark enlightenment philosophy. You can literally take the scare narrative around BLM, cancel culture and "the left" and just search and replace "the left" with "the Jews" and most of it wouldn't be at all out of place in the 1940s. People still think /pol/ is just harmless edgelord kids LARPing, and they still argue the Capitol insurrection was just nothing but minor vandalism and memes.
Unlike in the 1940s, the modern framework of hatred is constructed to allow plausible deniability, because we live in a post-Nazim world, so extremism has to rebrand and adapt to survive. The people waving Nazi flags and doing Hitler salutes at rallies are clowns - hateful, dangerous clowns, but clowns nonetheless - wedded to an obsolete model of fascism that flourishes online but is too easily taken down in public. But when tyranny comes to the US, it will come draped in an American flag and carrying a Bible. It will be presentable, calm, rational. No tyrant will need to rant openly about the Jews or other undesirables, because we've all been trained to connect the dots and read between the lines, and we can all pretend we didn't know even when the bodies start to stink.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16455813
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155824
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11053415
"While working in Munich, Thompson met and interviewed Adolf Hitler for the first time in 1931. This would be the basis for her subsequent book, I Saw Hitler, in which she wrote about the dangers of him winning power in Germany. Thompson described Hitler in the following terms: "He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man." ...The Nazis considered both the book and her articles offensive and, in August 1934, Thompson was expelled from Germany."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Thompson
Time Magazine made Hitler man of the year in 1938 and Stalin in 1939.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year#1930s
Wiki:
Controversial choices: Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people.[9]