Sorry, heavy topic alert.
I've been thinking about the Holocaust a bit lately because I recently listened to the audio version of Anne Frank's Diary, and also because I recently did some reading about Kristallnacht in memory of its eightieth anniversary. I used to be confused about how Nazism took hold, how Hitler was able to come into power, and how people could rationalize supporting a government that sent people to concentration camps. I've thought many times that it couldn't happen here. While it would be much harder for something like that to happen in the United States with the separated powers we enjoy in this country, in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that it can happen here. People are people, and they're prone to demonizing others if doing so supports their preconceived worldview.
That Internet conversations and debates frequently devolve into one side comparing the other to Hitler or the Nazis is so well established that it has its own informal law. The real shame of this tendency is that comparing everyone to Hitler and the Nazis makes it so that few really take it seriously when someone actually does things like Hitler would. If a real Hitler appears, anyone pointing it out would be seen as a crazy person triggering Godwin's Law.
My views on identifying nascent Nazism have changed some over the years. I used to think of it as a workers movement because this is the vibe that the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will gives, and I in turn thought that was what I needed to be wary of. However, workers movements elsewhere haven't had that same destructive tinge. Certainly, some have. The destructive ones are noteworthy because they're the exceptions, though. Most have not. Therefore, it has to be something deeper.
It could be that the key is that Nazism, like Fascism, was Nationalist. I know that belief is getting airtime nowadays more than in the past. It could also be that a deeper dig could reveal that this is unfair to some Nationalist movements which are not so destructive, if such movements exist. I simply don't know at this time.
I'm not calling anyone on the world stage a Hitler today. Even if I did, who would take it seriously? These are now the sort of accusations crazy people make, and so they are a red flag to most that the speaker wants to decry everyone who disagrees with his as a Nazi. I do see tendencies of what I do know about Hitler and Nazism in general in some modern political figures and movements that give me pause, though. Some of those figures are in other countries and some are in the United States. Since I'm no true expert, it would be unfair for me to call out someone as a Hitler based on a partial observation. I have to believe though, that it would also be right for me to be cautious about their statements and actions, and refuse to support or endorse those individuals and movements, wittingly or otherwise.
It is easy to see how an individual with similarities to Hitler could take power, and how horrible things could be justified in the name of whatever that man portrayed as the ideal. In 1930s Germany the ideal was a form of Eugenics supported by a host of conspiracy theories about Zionists. I'm certain that a lot of Germans figured the Jews were simply being sent to a camp where they couldn't harm anyone else, and whatever happened to them they had coming. Modern societies aren't immune to that sort of thinking. Someone today can mix a weird political philosophy with conspiracy theories about some other group of people and do the same thing. As long as a vocal minority (or even majority) believes the conspiracy theory, what's to stop them from doing horrible things? Those people probably won't even ever realize the negative things they enabled.
History can be scary when you stop thinking that it can't happen here.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Monday, November 19, 2018
no news is good news
One memory I have of my maternal grandfather came from an instance when we were watching the local news together. They usually made time in their house to watch the evening and nightly news, though I don't recall him frequently commenting on the details of what was on the news. At the beginning of that particular newscast he encouraged me to count the number of negative stories and compare it to the number of positive stories that were being reported. As you would expect the ratio was somewhere in the 8:1 to 10:1 range. He never let me know if there was a specific lesson that he wanted me to get from the exercise, but the experience did stick with me. I've wrestled with myself over the years regarding what the exercise proved.
One thing I am certain it proved is that the media makes the world far more scary than it really should be. To allow a newscast to define your understanding of the world is to imagine a world that is far more terrifying than the reality for the average person. There aren't murderers lurking around every corner. Most people want to do good, or at least be thought of as someone who does good. Those good things don't get reported, though. I am not saying that most people are good. People are sinners--the whole lot of them, including myself--but people also have humanity and by and large want to do good.
Another thing I think it proved is that the things that are noteworthy sort of establish the opposite about what society is like. Things that happen all of the time aren't considered newsworthy. As an example, a news crew could conceivably go to a city rescue mission seven days out of the week and find positive things that people do for others in need, but if someone is stabbed at that rescue mission one day out of the year that bad thing is the newsworthy event largely because it is both abnormal and consequential.
Something that I've given a lot of thought to is what positive news would look like. Usually when I see a positive story on the news it comes across as either a puff piece or mildly propagandistic. I don't know how you'd report on positive stories in a better way, though. Maybe I'm so cynical I can't properly process a good, positive news story. Is the problem me?
I've also given some recent thought to the news that my grandfather had been exposed to in his lifetime. I've been watching a documentary on the Vietnam War over the past few months, and I'm coming to understand that the sixties were as much a time of upheaval as the current day. This is to say nothing of time of the Great Depression and World War II. So, when he was discussing the news with me he had a perspective I did not have regarding how scary news could be. Maybe he was preparing me for a time period like the current one when there's a lot in the news to discourage a person. If so, I think it worked.
One thing I am certain it proved is that the media makes the world far more scary than it really should be. To allow a newscast to define your understanding of the world is to imagine a world that is far more terrifying than the reality for the average person. There aren't murderers lurking around every corner. Most people want to do good, or at least be thought of as someone who does good. Those good things don't get reported, though. I am not saying that most people are good. People are sinners--the whole lot of them, including myself--but people also have humanity and by and large want to do good.
Another thing I think it proved is that the things that are noteworthy sort of establish the opposite about what society is like. Things that happen all of the time aren't considered newsworthy. As an example, a news crew could conceivably go to a city rescue mission seven days out of the week and find positive things that people do for others in need, but if someone is stabbed at that rescue mission one day out of the year that bad thing is the newsworthy event largely because it is both abnormal and consequential.
Something that I've given a lot of thought to is what positive news would look like. Usually when I see a positive story on the news it comes across as either a puff piece or mildly propagandistic. I don't know how you'd report on positive stories in a better way, though. Maybe I'm so cynical I can't properly process a good, positive news story. Is the problem me?
I've also given some recent thought to the news that my grandfather had been exposed to in his lifetime. I've been watching a documentary on the Vietnam War over the past few months, and I'm coming to understand that the sixties were as much a time of upheaval as the current day. This is to say nothing of time of the Great Depression and World War II. So, when he was discussing the news with me he had a perspective I did not have regarding how scary news could be. Maybe he was preparing me for a time period like the current one when there's a lot in the news to discourage a person. If so, I think it worked.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
ten years
It's extremely hard to believe, but our daughter CD was born ten years ago this coming weekend. I haven't spoken about her much on this site. This is because most of my early parenting epiphanies were with NJ, and most of the things I could have said in the last few years would be stepping a bit on her privacy.
She is special to Golden and I in a way that she won't ever really understand. I frequently think about the fact that our family needs her. She is the most outgoing in our family (which is an admittedly low bar), but also has a wit about her that amazes me. She is smart and funny, and there are few people I enjoy talking with quite as much, if I can direct her away from talking about toys or boys.
I think society in general is built in a way that convinces a lot of people, and especially elementary and middle school girls, that they are worth less than they really are. CD is the most socially adept person in our family, but we do sometimes see her dealing with that. It's a bit discouraging because we can see how valuable and valued she is, but she doesn't always believe it when we try to relay that to her. Some lessons are only learned with age and consistent love and encouragement.
Ten years ago I couldn't fathom having a ten-year-old daughter. Now that I'm about to, I can't fathom that the next ten years will see her going from a child to a teenager to a young adult(!). The years are far too short.
She is special to Golden and I in a way that she won't ever really understand. I frequently think about the fact that our family needs her. She is the most outgoing in our family (which is an admittedly low bar), but also has a wit about her that amazes me. She is smart and funny, and there are few people I enjoy talking with quite as much, if I can direct her away from talking about toys or boys.
I think society in general is built in a way that convinces a lot of people, and especially elementary and middle school girls, that they are worth less than they really are. CD is the most socially adept person in our family, but we do sometimes see her dealing with that. It's a bit discouraging because we can see how valuable and valued she is, but she doesn't always believe it when we try to relay that to her. Some lessons are only learned with age and consistent love and encouragement.
Ten years ago I couldn't fathom having a ten-year-old daughter. Now that I'm about to, I can't fathom that the next ten years will see her going from a child to a teenager to a young adult(!). The years are far too short.
Friday, November 02, 2018
our worst selves
I just finished listening to the audio version of The Diary of Anne Frank. I have a few thoughts on this, but I'll address the one that strikes me the most in this post. That is that our perceptions of others is almost always inaccurate. I'm not even taking this from the obvious direction of the fact that people thought wrongly of the Jews. I was affected by a completely different manifestation of this in the book.
Ms. Frank apparently wrote her diary with the idea that it would one day be used as documentation of the life she and others lived during the German occupation. This was brilliant of her, but it also establishes that this is not just any teen-aged girl's diary. This is the diary of someone who is writing thoughts that she on some level expects to be broadcast to others. Given this, her clashes with others in the annex where she hid are fascinating. She probably expected those she wrote about to eventually discover what she was writing. What she thought the end result of that discovery would be is beyond me, but that reality had to be known to her.
Once or twice she has a deep conflict with her mother, but the person she seemed to constantly be irritated with was the matriarch of another family in the annex. In the book, this woman is named Mrs. van Daan, but her real name was apparently Auguste van Pels. To me, the clashes sounded driven by personality and generational differences between Ms. Frank and Mrs. van Daan.
It's easy to take Anne's side when she complains about how intolerable Mrs. Van Daan is. She is the one who gets to tell her side of the story, after all. Having concluded the book and learned that only one person who hid in the annex survived Nazi captivity, though, has given me pause and empathy for all of its inhabitants, including Mrs. van Daan. It has also caused me to wonder how I would be portrayed in such a work.
Can I imagine being trapped in a poorly ventilated annex with seven other people and minimal privacy for two years without coming a bit unhinged? Can I imagine the constant stress of potentially being captured, and slowly going further and further into poverty (There is a poignant situation recorded in the diary where Mrs. van Daan has to sell her prized fur coat so that they can continue to make ends meet.)? I am sure that there would be multiple instances of my having said or done things that would appear indefensible. Then, to have those recorded for posterity as the most noteworthy description of my life and character would be difficult to bear. I don't want to pretend that dying at the hands of the Nazis was in any way a good thing, but it is a minor mercy that Mrs. van Pels never learned of her future notoriety.
This sort of thing actually comes up a lot today. Someone will be filmed saying or doing something that is objectively wrong, then they are punished in an out-of-proportion fashion through a viral video or social media post. Sometimes it's even for things that aren't objectively wrong, but are just violations of social norms. An example of this showed up in a news story a few weeks back about someone who was caught shaving on a train (below).
Objective wrongs should be corrected, but people's lives shouldn't be destroyed in the process; and they should certainly not be destroyed over minor social rule violations.
That I am saying this isn't to imply that I'm better than those who share such viral things. I'm as likely to laugh and click share. I'm as prone as anyone to seek righteous comeuppance through online mob justice. My primary point is that I'm trying to do my best not to be part of the problem when I'm online, and I'd encourage anyone reading this to take conscious steps to do the same.
Ms. Frank apparently wrote her diary with the idea that it would one day be used as documentation of the life she and others lived during the German occupation. This was brilliant of her, but it also establishes that this is not just any teen-aged girl's diary. This is the diary of someone who is writing thoughts that she on some level expects to be broadcast to others. Given this, her clashes with others in the annex where she hid are fascinating. She probably expected those she wrote about to eventually discover what she was writing. What she thought the end result of that discovery would be is beyond me, but that reality had to be known to her.
Once or twice she has a deep conflict with her mother, but the person she seemed to constantly be irritated with was the matriarch of another family in the annex. In the book, this woman is named Mrs. van Daan, but her real name was apparently Auguste van Pels. To me, the clashes sounded driven by personality and generational differences between Ms. Frank and Mrs. van Daan.
It's easy to take Anne's side when she complains about how intolerable Mrs. Van Daan is. She is the one who gets to tell her side of the story, after all. Having concluded the book and learned that only one person who hid in the annex survived Nazi captivity, though, has given me pause and empathy for all of its inhabitants, including Mrs. van Daan. It has also caused me to wonder how I would be portrayed in such a work.
Can I imagine being trapped in a poorly ventilated annex with seven other people and minimal privacy for two years without coming a bit unhinged? Can I imagine the constant stress of potentially being captured, and slowly going further and further into poverty (There is a poignant situation recorded in the diary where Mrs. van Daan has to sell her prized fur coat so that they can continue to make ends meet.)? I am sure that there would be multiple instances of my having said or done things that would appear indefensible. Then, to have those recorded for posterity as the most noteworthy description of my life and character would be difficult to bear. I don't want to pretend that dying at the hands of the Nazis was in any way a good thing, but it is a minor mercy that Mrs. van Pels never learned of her future notoriety.
This sort of thing actually comes up a lot today. Someone will be filmed saying or doing something that is objectively wrong, then they are punished in an out-of-proportion fashion through a viral video or social media post. Sometimes it's even for things that aren't objectively wrong, but are just violations of social norms. An example of this showed up in a news story a few weeks back about someone who was caught shaving on a train (below).
Objective wrongs should be corrected, but people's lives shouldn't be destroyed in the process; and they should certainly not be destroyed over minor social rule violations.
That I am saying this isn't to imply that I'm better than those who share such viral things. I'm as likely to laugh and click share. I'm as prone as anyone to seek righteous comeuppance through online mob justice. My primary point is that I'm trying to do my best not to be part of the problem when I'm online, and I'd encourage anyone reading this to take conscious steps to do the same.
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