Ramble

[sathor]

So...going back to a statement that came out of an acid trip back in 2005, Hitler Had the Right Idea.

What I mean by this is that I think Hitler had the right idea...with the kind of unity he was creating. That sort of unity can not be achieved by a nation of "freedom" or "liberty". In truth, America isn't free at all - we like to talk about it like it is, like we have freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of opportunity and choice...in reality, we have none of these things, but we also do not have the unity which Nazi Germany achieved. As a result, we are going to decline - we are already in a state of it, in fact.

We do not have freedom of choice, or opportunity. Those of us who are not incredibly poor, or rich, can not gain the education necessary to have opportunity without indentured service. One could easily argue that the amount of debt remaining from a necessary "higher education" is likely worse than the debt incurred by poor immigrants during colonization.

We do not have freedom of speech, or thought. The consequences of radical ideology - and more importantly - being outspoken about it - are far reaching. Socially, devastating. One can lose all degree of credibility by being an advocate for ideas that are not part of popular opinion, that aren't expressed via the media and most methods of common consumption of information.

We have none of these freedoms, and our level of nationalism is essentially nonexistent in comparison to Nazi Germany.

Hitler had the right idea. He was a fascist, he was a genocidal sociopath. But he had the right idea. And I can understand why a philosopher like Heidegger was attracted to the power of the Nazi Party. It united people, regardless of their societal status, and gave them a higher purpose. It brought people together under one unified ideal - to produce a utopian society that would reign for eternity. And if we desire to survive as a race, we will need to achieve this end eventually, whether we like collectivism or not. The power of atomic weapons, and the threat of global catastrophe, is far too high to not.

Comments

[minxyminou.livejournal.com]

Agree. He actually had quite a lot of good ideas mixed in with the madness. I am honestly starting to think that we will never achieve much with what we call "democracy".

[noximist.livejournal.com]

This post and the one which precedes it make no sense in combination. Hitler (and leaders of other strongly nationalist countries) would not have allowed you to do what your heart desires - you would have been forced into a role which served the government's purpose. Unemployment almost vanished in Germany in the '30's, but that came at the cost of devaluation of wages, loss of union protection, and the right to quit a job for any reason. You would not have been a musician or a philosopher, unless you held those roles as a shill for Hitler. You complain about your inability to do what you want in the US, then in your next breath you express admiration for a country that could have forced you to work as a guard at a concentration camp?

Nazi Germany's idea of unity was a false front at best, considering that the 'unified' country actively oppressed women, minorities, artists, and anyone willing to express dissent. If your idea of nationalism is one in which one group is doing all right while everyone else suffers, then your own country meets your needs quite well. Hitler had no interest in bringing his people together; he wanted to maintain one privileged group while crushing the rest under his boot. He was the Fortune 400 CEO of ethnic cleansing.

Boilerplate university comment:

Plenty of people get educations in the US without rich parents or servitude; remember when I posted that list of resources I'd looked up for you, the one which showed the top-tier American universities committed to funding students who cannot afford tuition? Even if you ignore that, state colleges aren't particularly expensive - the annual tuitions at most of them are no higher than the ones we see here in Canada. If you work part-time while attending school, you can pay off some or most of your debt before you graduate; I've been doing that, and most of my friends do the same.

Plenty of people amass ridiculous amounts of debt, largely through ignorance and bad planning, but plenty don't. Not everyone is talented or hard-working enough to get a free ride to an Ivy League school, but essentially everyone in both of our countries can get a degree without amassing $100,000 in loans. There are numerous resources online which show average wages at various levels of education/experience in different fields, and they can be used to determine the value of a given degree.

I don't know what you expect. If you want to be a musician and a philosopher, you will probably never make any money - but you have the freedom to do that where you live, unlike in Hitler's Germany.