"…it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."
Well, that resonated just a bit. Oh well, back to doomscrolling.
No, they noticed. 90 years ago, 2/3 of the world's books were in Germany. They were educated and literate and knew what they were doing and what was happening. Germans were acutely aware of the reality of the day to day situation and their previous history in WW1.
If you’re interested in this topic, I really recommend reading How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley. [1] It’s a remarkable book - slim, easy to read, and enlightening. What was most astonishing to me was that there is a playbook: ever wonder why these regimes always target LGTBQ people, for example? It’s explained here, along with everything else you need to know about the mechanics of prosaic, predictable type of government.
The vast majority of them do their jobs, pay their taxes, and consider themselves patriots and good people because they help their families and motherland, and are polite and well-meaning.
While their jobs help the military machine that murders thousands of innocent people every week, their taxes fund that machine, and their complacency keeps the system stable for decades, costing not only their enemies, but also themselves and their own kids their futures.
When starvation, war, and political terror come, they will consider themselves innocent victims of another unearned, unavoidable political tragedy - not understanding their own decades of inaction brought it on them.
And America isn't that far behind.
Not thinking objectively, living unconsciously, engrossed in short-term matters - is the worst sin that leads to all the other sins. It's how it happened in Belarus, Russia and it's how it's going to happen in US.
> "Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better.[...]"
I read this book a few years ago and I can't stop thinking about this line of discourse (there's more of this subject in the book). I've felt this exceptional frustration and disgust towards the (in my opinion) wildly underreacting non-fascist millions in the States, more so than the fascists themselves, which seemed contradictory.
The closest I've come to communicating why is that one group is on script while the other isn't. For example, a deadly airborne disease is awful, but the truly scary thing to me would be witnessing doctors and immunologists just kind of shrugging their shoulders.
I grew up with this belief that for all their loud, obnoxious quirks and faults, Americans do not fuck around when it comes to their principles of liberty and freedom. I always admired that. I remember thinking it was a feature that they're so quick to protest and make a scene. I had, without any doubt in my heart and soul, anticipated total disaster. I was expecting to see protests and riots and fires and further uncelebrated but deemed necessary violence in response to the slow ablation of freedom and liberty.
It's quite possible that I'm wrong and that total disaster is premature. But never before have I felt this certain about an "everyone else is wrong" belief. It's scary and somewhat lonely. Reading this book made me feel much less lonely, and much more scared.
Reading this, you can see how the political ideology of trumps supporters was so easily manipulated, and how effective the radicalisation of the right has been.
The problem is that essays like this are always written, preserved and propagated with the benefit of hindsight, producing the mistaken feeling that an actionable lesson is contained within.
"A bad thing happened. We had been a little uneasy, but did not act on it. Well, of course it was hard to act on mere unease. Still, if only we had acted on it sooner...". And thus, what we take away is a simple lesson and call to action - are you feeling uneasy now? If so, it is time to stop and work to derail society from whatever track it is on.
Something that never makes it into these essays are all the times when people felt uneasy and overwhelmed, and yet nothing happened that in our backward-looking perspective ought to have been prevented. Were those feelings of unease distinguishable, to those who had them, from those experienced by the protagonists of this essay?
Something that is discussed even less are all the instances where people experienced the same unease and alienation and did act on them. The story of Nazi Germany is told as one of evil purpose-driven agitators, their evil enabling cronies, and a whole host of good people who were vaguely uneasy but did nothing. A parallel story unfolded throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, though. Germany had lost an existential war, and was under crushing pressure from the victors which wanted to be paid their dues in flesh. Society was tearing at the seams, the massive country to the East had fallen to a totalitarian revolution and rumours of repression and atrocities were trickling in every day even as their sympathisers engaged in street violence and made no secret of wanting to establish the same system at home. First the global financial crisis destroyed whatever semblance of stability and prosperity was left, and then government was paralysed due to lack of majorities even as a repeat loomed. Then, too, good people were vaguely and then increasingly uneasy - and then they decided to actually do something about it. That something was a last-ditch stabilising effort by setting aside factionalism and forming a unity government of anti-communist parties. The rest is history.
As far as more modern comparisons are concerned, I find it difficult to read this essay and not draw a comparison to the COVID years. "Receiving decisions deliberated in secret"? "Believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand"? "or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security"? "Demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before"? Unfortunately, for the Terminally Online, that period has now receded into history as a cute extended staycation that normalised remote working. This obscures the extent to which, right now, the US may be experiencing the results of good "big men" (on the other side) having decided to act on their increasing sense of unease.
I listened to the audio book a few months back - probably the last time it appeared on HN, I'm not sure how else I would have stumbled across it. It's well worth the time.
I remember particularly the teacher's statement that (paraphrasing, it's been a while) "if I could not resist, it means that anyone else of my station or below could also not resist".
The idea that an admission of impotence is not just a personal note, but also an observation of an actionable waterline that anyone with fewer means will also be unable to rise above...
"If I am unable to do X, who else is unable to do X?" is such a powerful question to consider.
I’ve read the book. It’s genuinely interesting. It’s very interesting to see how people misremember the post-war years. It also contains a) passages that are very much quoted out of context and b) an awful lot of stuff about “national character” that is… questionable.
I highly recommend actually reading it and understanding what it is and isn’t. Mostly I learned that there’s no simple answers, but also that people and even political movements were just as slippery then as they are now. But you may come away with something completely different. It’s an odd but interesting book.
> interesting to see how people misremember the post-war years.
The observations about the ineffectiveness of US propaganda in post-war Germany are interesting.
But for all the flaws of Meyer's work, the book is about how people thought they were free during the sordid, infamous Nazi period. Above all, the people who saw themselves as the honest folks supporting the good principles of the dictatorship.
It is also interesting to read how people — the very same who were supporters of the dictatorship and who helped persecute the target groups — are comfortable in all their justifications.
"Sure, we knew these people who were taken away. But what could we do?"
"I didn't do anything terrible. If something terrible happened, it happened later, elsewhere."
"The Great Leader failed only because he had some bad people in his circle."
This is a very intense piece, but misses some critical points. Germany after WWI was suffering terribly under reparations that European Allies and the US insisted on. Previously wealthy professionals went broke and begged in the streets for scraps. When Hitler swept aside reparations there was a great economic updraft as Germans rebuilt their economy and got back to work. The politics of the time was driven by the economy. The US appears to be entering into a period of stagnation and a breakdown of global trading upon which it had become dependent and that is a very different situation with economic factors hitting politics in ways unlike past crises.
> "How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.
The experts, people that have dedicated their lives to understand authoritarianism have already given the alarm. Well, a specialist has even moved to Canada for god's sake.
And well, criticizing democracy is fashionable again. High profile figures started saying out loud that "maybe democracies are overrated. maybe democracies cannot deal with the world as it is now". Just listen to what people are actually saying instead of what you think they meant when they say it and you'll hear they saying that an authoritarian leader is what america needs now.
I think it has been happening for a while now cancel culture had a very negative effect on academia Jordon Peterson and Warren Smith being examples of that. I much appreciate Dr. Sam Richards who walks the fine line of trying to be centerist but he did comment recently how he does gets hate from both sides. Now I know this is going to be down voted because some will say I am both sidesing this when it's clearly one side right now. This is true I think that's however not a great argument to start a conversation. the founding fathers gave us a great foundation to work with it just takes open dialogue to convince enough of the other side that their is an actual good counter argument. The violence we have seen in the past couple months is only going to entrench positions because each side will want the result of that violence to have been meaningful furthering solidifing the separation. Currently I think American agree on the vast majority of things social media just does it's best to highlight our differences but the average person has mostly the same culture and the same day to day issues so I actually am hopeful.
I have it on my shelf. Fascinating to read the perspective of regular citizens who organized themselves to do something terrible. Likely to remain relevant for as long as people can read it.
The common ground Republicans and Democrats can find is that neither wants the power of government used against them or their rights. The best way to stop the government from being used against either party is to shrink the government until it is a threat to neither party. Lower taxes, less spending, and no regulations infringing on rights or freedoms.
Everyone in this thread is reading this in relation to the current US government. But some other interesting parallels are the current Israeli government, and more speculatively, A(G)I.
46 comments
[ 24.1 ms ] story [ 1136 ms ] thread- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943973 (02/2025, 473 comments)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083315 (11/2020, 382 comments)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31042304 (04/2022, 239 comments)
Well, that resonated just a bit. Oh well, back to doomscrolling.
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Fascism_Works
The vast majority of them do their jobs, pay their taxes, and consider themselves patriots and good people because they help their families and motherland, and are polite and well-meaning.
While their jobs help the military machine that murders thousands of innocent people every week, their taxes fund that machine, and their complacency keeps the system stable for decades, costing not only their enemies, but also themselves and their own kids their futures.
When starvation, war, and political terror come, they will consider themselves innocent victims of another unearned, unavoidable political tragedy - not understanding their own decades of inaction brought it on them.
And America isn't that far behind.
Not thinking objectively, living unconsciously, engrossed in short-term matters - is the worst sin that leads to all the other sins. It's how it happened in Belarus, Russia and it's how it's going to happen in US.
Such books will no longer be published if universities are not free.
And if freedom begins to disappear, even those who believe themselves safely conformist are not safe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
I read this book a few years ago and I can't stop thinking about this line of discourse (there's more of this subject in the book). I've felt this exceptional frustration and disgust towards the (in my opinion) wildly underreacting non-fascist millions in the States, more so than the fascists themselves, which seemed contradictory.
The closest I've come to communicating why is that one group is on script while the other isn't. For example, a deadly airborne disease is awful, but the truly scary thing to me would be witnessing doctors and immunologists just kind of shrugging their shoulders.
I grew up with this belief that for all their loud, obnoxious quirks and faults, Americans do not fuck around when it comes to their principles of liberty and freedom. I always admired that. I remember thinking it was a feature that they're so quick to protest and make a scene. I had, without any doubt in my heart and soul, anticipated total disaster. I was expecting to see protests and riots and fires and further uncelebrated but deemed necessary violence in response to the slow ablation of freedom and liberty.
It's quite possible that I'm wrong and that total disaster is premature. But never before have I felt this certain about an "everyone else is wrong" belief. It's scary and somewhat lonely. Reading this book made me feel much less lonely, and much more scared.
So, what stops them ?
"A bad thing happened. We had been a little uneasy, but did not act on it. Well, of course it was hard to act on mere unease. Still, if only we had acted on it sooner...". And thus, what we take away is a simple lesson and call to action - are you feeling uneasy now? If so, it is time to stop and work to derail society from whatever track it is on.
Something that never makes it into these essays are all the times when people felt uneasy and overwhelmed, and yet nothing happened that in our backward-looking perspective ought to have been prevented. Were those feelings of unease distinguishable, to those who had them, from those experienced by the protagonists of this essay?
Something that is discussed even less are all the instances where people experienced the same unease and alienation and did act on them. The story of Nazi Germany is told as one of evil purpose-driven agitators, their evil enabling cronies, and a whole host of good people who were vaguely uneasy but did nothing. A parallel story unfolded throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, though. Germany had lost an existential war, and was under crushing pressure from the victors which wanted to be paid their dues in flesh. Society was tearing at the seams, the massive country to the East had fallen to a totalitarian revolution and rumours of repression and atrocities were trickling in every day even as their sympathisers engaged in street violence and made no secret of wanting to establish the same system at home. First the global financial crisis destroyed whatever semblance of stability and prosperity was left, and then government was paralysed due to lack of majorities even as a repeat loomed. Then, too, good people were vaguely and then increasingly uneasy - and then they decided to actually do something about it. That something was a last-ditch stabilising effort by setting aside factionalism and forming a unity government of anti-communist parties. The rest is history.
As far as more modern comparisons are concerned, I find it difficult to read this essay and not draw a comparison to the COVID years. "Receiving decisions deliberated in secret"? "Believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand"? "or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security"? "Demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before"? Unfortunately, for the Terminally Online, that period has now receded into history as a cute extended staycation that normalised remote working. This obscures the extent to which, right now, the US may be experiencing the results of good "big men" (on the other side) having decided to act on their increasing sense of unease.
I remember particularly the teacher's statement that (paraphrasing, it's been a while) "if I could not resist, it means that anyone else of my station or below could also not resist".
The idea that an admission of impotence is not just a personal note, but also an observation of an actionable waterline that anyone with fewer means will also be unable to rise above...
"If I am unable to do X, who else is unable to do X?" is such a powerful question to consider.
"All ten of my friends gladly confess this crime of having been Germans in Germany." —p164
Related quote, with the teacher and the taylor (opposite ends of "Nazi spectrum") in agreement that the pro-Nazi mentality was pervasive.
>"Adolf Hitler was good for Germany—in my [ten] friends' view—up until 1943, 1941, or 1939, depending upon the individual" –p69
I highly recommend actually reading it and understanding what it is and isn’t. Mostly I learned that there’s no simple answers, but also that people and even political movements were just as slippery then as they are now. But you may come away with something completely different. It’s an odd but interesting book.
The observations about the ineffectiveness of US propaganda in post-war Germany are interesting.
But for all the flaws of Meyer's work, the book is about how people thought they were free during the sordid, infamous Nazi period. Above all, the people who saw themselves as the honest folks supporting the good principles of the dictatorship.
It is also interesting to read how people — the very same who were supporters of the dictatorship and who helped persecute the target groups — are comfortable in all their justifications.
"Sure, we knew these people who were taken away. But what could we do?"
"I didn't do anything terrible. If something terrible happened, it happened later, elsewhere."
"The Great Leader failed only because he had some bad people in his circle."
The experts, people that have dedicated their lives to understand authoritarianism have already given the alarm. Well, a specialist has even moved to Canada for god's sake.
And well, criticizing democracy is fashionable again. High profile figures started saying out loud that "maybe democracies are overrated. maybe democracies cannot deal with the world as it is now". Just listen to what people are actually saying instead of what you think they meant when they say it and you'll hear they saying that an authoritarian leader is what america needs now.
Bonhoeffer got a lot of things right.