Zeig! Heil!

This post is about the demonised Hitler and his Nazi party.

I will not dispute that Hitler was a bad man. He was an awful artist, a racist, and a nationalist. But, because he is dead, and because he was the (often uninvolved) figurehead of the Nazi party, he is methodically demonised. This is extended to the Nazi party, too, and no one puts up any defence, and even happily swallows such inaccuracies.

Any written word on the subject of the Second World War will no be saturated with words with institutionally altered meanings. "Fascism", even as an ideology, has been perpetually altered by the European governments of the first half of the 20th century; you would be surprised how many people agree with authoritarian, socio-collectivistic policy until the word "Fascism" is mentioned. "National-Socialism" also holds these pejorative connotations, when the 25-Point Agenda tipped the balance heavily onto Nationalism, and in which Drexler was not in power of his created Nazi party.

Bearing the inevitable connotations in mind: Hitler is a symbol of all evil in the west. The Pink Swastika is a criticism of Nazism by calling Hitler and his cabinet gay, and investigating a link between Islam and the Nazis (then blaming homosexuality for all evil in the world). Evidently, they don't seem to see the irony. Most of the accusations of Hitler's sexual deviancy are based on biased evidence: That Hitler was a Urophile comes from Otto Strasser, a political opponent of Hitler; that Hitler was gay is taken from a convicted fraudster.

On the Subject, the Annotated Pink Swastika (http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Barracks/8706/) is a fantastic read if you'd like a laugh.

Take A.J.P. Taylor's Origins of the Second World War. While Hitler is not unaccountable for the war to the extent proposed, the lack of previous research (and the outcry following the book) shows how society can have a near-unanimous opinion on something they perceive as true, which is in fact either inaccurate or false.

The reason is the basis of the argument of "Reductio ad Hitlerum", or Godwin's law. You can't use analogy to the Nazis to "win", because it doesn't work like that. Think about what you know, and try to avoid sacrificing reason to the changeling of "public opinion", because it does not imply validity.

S/Cooke

I was supposed to be getting an early night tonight.

It is now 3am, and I have stayed up reading Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat", and I literally forgot about the passage of time. It has been a long time since a book has done this to me, and the first time a work of non-fiction has.

The book consists of short case studies, each focusing on a patient and their illness; the Korsakoff's-inflicted Mariner, the disembodied woman who lost the feeling of her body, and the eponymous man who "forgot" how to recognise faces. It tries to pave a path towards the secrets of the human brain, but the roads are not connected to each other, or anything else. It has left me wanting to know.

But, the book is a fantastic read. Sacks can write very well indeed, and can evocate the cases of his patients with a kind empathy. I'm reading it for the Philosophy, however, and it's full of that, too.

I'll get back to musing on the subject of identity, then...

"Immanuel Kant issues the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics with a statement that outlines Metaphysics with a degree of poetic accuracy: “For the discovery of a science itself”. What follows is Kant’s attempt to qualify this statement with the establishment of his own theory, which garners threads from the philosophical schools of rationalism and empiricism, towards the tapestry that finishes as his Prolegomena."

I quite like Kant, and the above is very true.

S/Cooke

Misc.

"Baby Shoes. For Sale. Never Worn"

Six words that are so saturated with dark interpretation they're dripping.