The Ominous Parallels - Tranche V
Posted by mshupe 6 months, 1 week ago to Philosophy
Chapter Three, Excerpt 1 of 2
Hitler’s War Against Reason
The aspiring dictator cannot demand unthinking obedience from men until he has persuaded his future subjects to ditch their brains and their independent, self-assertive judgment. Political goals cannot be achieved until the proper epistemological base is established. A populace, having shrugged aside the demands of logic, will agree with, and endure anything. Hitler declared to Hermann Rauschning, “We are now at the end of the Age of Reason. The intellect has become a disease of life.”
As to Hitler’s ideologist, “To all doubts and questions, the new man of the first German empire has only one answer: Nevertheless, I will.” Childhood education, Hitler holds, must concentrate on the breeding of healthy bodies and the development of “instincts” or “character.” Mysticism is the doctrine that man has nonsensory, nonrational means of knowledge. It means the selfless martial discipline of Germany’s Middle Ages, as against the modern desire for economic comfort and well-being.
Progressively abandoning their Aristotelian heritage, the philosophers of the Enlightenment had reached a state of formal bankruptcy in the skepticism of David Hume. By the time of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s intellectuals had reached a consensus. As they conceived it, as described by Walther Rathenau; an admired liberal commentator, a practical man, and a Jew: “Understanding will never be able to tell us what to believe, what to hope for, and what to offer up sacrifices for.”
Hitler’s War Against Reason
The aspiring dictator cannot demand unthinking obedience from men until he has persuaded his future subjects to ditch their brains and their independent, self-assertive judgment. Political goals cannot be achieved until the proper epistemological base is established. A populace, having shrugged aside the demands of logic, will agree with, and endure anything. Hitler declared to Hermann Rauschning, “We are now at the end of the Age of Reason. The intellect has become a disease of life.”
As to Hitler’s ideologist, “To all doubts and questions, the new man of the first German empire has only one answer: Nevertheless, I will.” Childhood education, Hitler holds, must concentrate on the breeding of healthy bodies and the development of “instincts” or “character.” Mysticism is the doctrine that man has nonsensory, nonrational means of knowledge. It means the selfless martial discipline of Germany’s Middle Ages, as against the modern desire for economic comfort and well-being.
Progressively abandoning their Aristotelian heritage, the philosophers of the Enlightenment had reached a state of formal bankruptcy in the skepticism of David Hume. By the time of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s intellectuals had reached a consensus. As they conceived it, as described by Walther Rathenau; an admired liberal commentator, a practical man, and a Jew: “Understanding will never be able to tell us what to believe, what to hope for, and what to offer up sacrifices for.”
This had to be uttered roughly 85 years ago. The physical destruction rained down on Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperialist Japan ought to have included the destruction of the ideas (philosophy) expressed by Herr Hitler. Yet they survived and have slowly crawled their back to dominance around the World.
It is but a short step from Hitler’s statement to the book burning in Berlin in the 1930s. But it is not enough to be a proponent of evil ideas, it is necessary that oppositional ideas must be short-circuited from the minds of succeeding generations lest the ideas of Aristotle and the Enlightenment raise their ugly heads again.
A story I believe Ayn Rand passed on was that after WWII, a group of academics met to discuss the book burning in Berlin and one professor opined that it was not necessary to burn books to destroy great ideas and great literature, it was only necessary that they be left unread for two generations. We have arrived!
Victor Hugo wrote “No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”. He did not include a moral extension i.e., good idea, bad idea.
So, is it possible that we, Earthlings, are hurtling toward a third world war and there is not a thing we can do about it?
In the 19th century, mass prosperity from liberty and achievements in the arts from engineered wealth were so sudden and radical that many intellectuals became irrelevant. The amazing success of the industrial revolution had to be looted somehow.
I first noticed this with the redefinition of "sexual harassment". The new definition became "if you FEEL like you have been harassed, then you have been". Zero objective criteria. Now that same "logic" has been applied to oppression, and everyone seems to want on the oppressed bandwagon.