Loki-The Avengers (2012)
I have been reading a lot about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany as of late, and have picked up several books on the subject at a local second hand bookstore (Cupboard Maker Books, Enola, PA. Best bookstore in Central PA!). I have already been diving into The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by Robert Payne, a very fascinating, educational, and chilling biography.
If you know me well, you would not think much of it. No, not because my close friends think I am a closet Nazi, but because history is one of my passionate pursuits. Yes, I enjoy the history of theology, but I am not too interested in much else when it comes to pre-18th century history. Not because it is not interesting, but because of time. I don't have the time to delve as deep as I would like to go. Also, it is easier to follow more relatively recent world history simply due to the fact that there are more eyewitness accounts and more documentation. In the case of Hitler and the Third Reich, you have a small but substantial amount of people whom are still living that can share their stories.
Educating yourself about historical villains and regimes is the best defense from ever letting them happen again. To quote George Santayana, "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Well, if that is the case, then we are in trouble as a society. The way I see it, there are many out there today who do not know history and are not willing to learn about it. Why do I say this?
Because the same thing happens over and over again. Over and over again. People get swept up in the storm of the personality cult. We unite behind one person who we believe can save the world, or the country. We mount them on a pedestal and give them almost super-human characteristics. Why do we do it?
We do it because I think we ignore Santayana's advice...a lot. We ignore it because we are scared of history.
But I digress. Anyway, if you know me well, me walking out of a second hand bookstore with 2 feet of Nazi books is not surprising due to my love of history. However, if many of you are reading about this for the first time, you might be shocked, appalled, offended, or wanting to cut off communication with me. If you mention anything Nazi related today, you get a lot of curious looks and raised eyebrows. Hell, I felt like a dirty old man leaving a 7-Eleven with a couple of copies of Penthouse and Playboy when I bought several books about Hitler and Nazi Germany. Why would you think like
that? Do you think I want to join an SS reenactment group? Do you think I carry a photo of Heinrich Himmler in my wallet? Do you see me talking fervently about Lebensraum? Do you think I want to see the Jews wiped off of the face of the Earth? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions,
please stop reading this and don't ever talk to me again, because you are very small minded to think that learning about history is akin to racism and anti-Semitism.
I think many younger people today are ignorant of learning history because they do not want to be "offended". Well, prepare to be offended and "triggered". History is full of people you are not going to like, but you are going to HAVE to learn about, so you don't REPEAT their mistakes and commit their sins. Learn about them so you don't follow a leader like the Germans to Hitler, or the Italians to Mussolini, or the Russians to Stalin, or Cuba to Castro, or Cambodia to Pol Pot, or Venezuela to Chavez. I'd mention other names but that sentence would have run on for ages.
First off, I am reading about Hitler and the Reich because I think the phrase "Nazi" is overused and misused nowadays, and the name "Hitler" is used too much in arguments, especially on social media. To me, if someone compares another to Hitler, you have lost the argument already. Unless the person
you are arguing with is responsible for the deaths of 50 million people, then it is not applicable and is an insult to someone whom is probably a responsible and upstanding citizen who would not hurt a fly, let alone 50 million people! Save it for anyone you know who might be a dictator, and unless you are bosom buddies with Kim-Jong Un, you have no reason to use it. They aren't a dictator, they just probably *gasp!* voted for a politician you didn't like. THE NERVE! Everyone must think like you, of course! Unless you see people goose-stepping and wearing red arm bands with swastikas on them, chances are they are not Nazis. Voting for the other person doesn't make your dissenter a card carrying member of the NSDAP, a party that was banned in 1945. Republicans, Democrats, you both do it. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Secondly, I am reading about Adolf Hitler because I want to get inside his mind. I took a psychology class in college and while I never pursued it as a field, it gave me a hunger to learn about why people do what they do and why they think like they do. If you want to find out what drew people to Hitler's message, you need to find out who he was. What was his family like? What was his childhood like? In what type of environment did he grow up in? Where was he born? What events happened that might have transformed him into the despot we all know and despise? They are all important things to know. So, research him and find out.
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| Adolf Hitler |
Thirdly, I think Adolf Hitler was a fascinating individual. Once again, relax! You can totally despise someone and still find them fascinating. Why are books about serial killers best sellers? Why are specials about Hitler so prominent on the History Channel? Because the public still finds him to be a
fascinating individual after all of these years. How could a book or a documentary about someone who was a failed artist and a lay about, who somehow became one of the most powerful leaders ever NOT be fascinating? He wasn't a General. He wasn't rich. He wasn't from nobility. Yet, somehow, he became feared by, revered by, and hypnotizing to the masses. He came within a hair's breadth of conquering all of Europe. Yet, he was not a strategist like Napoleon or Alexander The Great. He was just an errand boy for the German Army, a lowly corporal. If ever there was a someone who should not be, Hitler was it.
Fourthly, I am reading about Adolf Hitler because he was a human being. Yes, it is considered a cardinal sin to "humanize" Adolf Hitler. However, if you want to learn about a historical figure, no matter how reprehensible they are, you have to see them as just another human being. We have a tendency to dehumanize people who have committed sins and crimes against humanity and our human emotions have every right to do so! Yet, under it all, they are human beings too. So, even if you find it difficult, you have to look at Hitler as a human being who had real emotions and feelings and things he enjoyed. You might not like doing it, but if you want to dig into history and learn about the worst parts of it, you have to humanize the worst dictator despot as well as the most heroic and virtuous of role-models. Yet, no one has the guts to do that anymore. We're too afraid to be offended. Are you afraid to know your enemy?
We ignore history, much to the chagrin of people like George Santayana. As such, instead of learning from those lessons, we repeat them.
Stalin. Ceausescu. Mussolini. Hitler. Franco. Castro. Hoxha. Pol Pot. Peron. Hirohito. Mao. Ho Chi Minh. Kim-Jong Il. Kim-Jong Un. Hugo Chavez. Ferdinand Marcos. Idi Amin (apologies for being out of order with these names)...and the hits just keep on coming! All of them are lessons repeated by a world population that you'd think would know better. Why? Maybe Loki was right. Humanity craves subjugation, instead of freedom. Maybe it is desperation, as many of these aforementioned names took advantage of a weak populace that was dealing with mass hunger, poverty, and unrest. People crave order as well as freedom, and so we should! Yet, we keep letting order and control override freedom. That needs to change.
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| Loki as portrayed by Tom Hiddleston |
We do the same here in the United States as well. Every 4 years we pick our sides and unite behind one person as if they define our hopes and dreams and act as if our candidate loses, the country, and the world, is doomed. And, for the next 4 years, the winning side struts like a peacock and the losing
side acts as the "resistance". All because we put our hopes and dreams on one man or woman and get emotionally involved. We think our guy/gal tells the truth and the other guy/gal is a lying sack of snake feces. In reality, all politicians are lying sacks of snake feces. Why, oh why, do we keep getting
charmed by their lies and repeating history instead of learning from it?
What is so scary about it, is that politicians, while not approving of Hitler or his worldview or his politics, somehow follow his playbook. The following is quoted from Mein Kampf, and it is chilling: "Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."
Sounds like every political campaign, ever. Once again, I am not accusing any sitting or former US president of being in league with the Nazis or even approving of their views. I am just saying how scary it is when you compare Nazi propaganda to modern campaigning. It's too scary.
Yet, around the world, we keep repeating history instead of learning from it. Whether it being hypnotized by a dictator despot or a Senator from Ohio just running for president, we keep falling for it. When will we understand that freedom is better than subjugation? Why do we seek a political messiah to save our nations, our world from despair? When will we learn that the power lies in us?
We do not remember, nor learn from the past. Therefore, we are condemned to repeat it. THAT is why we cannot run away from or ignore history, no matter how ugly it is. So, stop running, stop being offended, and start reading. Use it as an excuse to support your local library or your local independent bookstore.
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