Good article from Justin Logan on N-Pod and the voracious demand for comparing foreign leaders to Hitler. Bonus pop culture reference: "It is unfortunate that Hitler seems to be the only historical analogy that Americans understand. (For many, the name Franz Ferdinand more readily conjures an indie rock band than a key figure at the center of one of history's great tragedies.)"
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Hitler Analogies
06 Nov 2007 06:25 pm
Comments (17)
Podhoretz penned a meandering essay in Harper's in 1977 titled "The Culture of Appeasement" which likened antiwar sentiment in post-Vietnam America to the wariness of war in Britain after World War I, and then linked the latter to a homosexual yearning for relations with all the young men who perished in the Great War. In Podhoretz's view, "the best people looked to other men for sex and romance," and as a result, didn't much like them being killed by the score on the Continent. "Anyone familiar with homosexual apologetics today will recognize these attitudes."
That's shocking. That is shocking
This man advises a presidential candidate?
Back in the late '60's and early '70's, I spent a fair amount of effort studying the Nazi Party and Hitler, because I was fascinated by their success as a political and social movement and wanted to learn what the reason for that was.
I came to the conclusion that nobody really understands Hitler - except me. Certainly, every movie you see about him emphasizes his "last 100 days" or some such crap when he was not only defeated, but seriously ill, and pretty much round the bend. Nobody spends much effort explaining his formative years, or his years as a street artist, or his military career, or his initial political career. The facts are there in the books, but it's mostly interpreted by classic Freudian psychologists using theories nobody believes anymore.
The biggest mistake people make about Hitler is considering him some sort of "alpha male" that everybody else simply kowtowed to. He wasn't an "alpha male" at all. He was what some scientists refer to as an "omega" - someone outside the normal social order who rebels against that social order and is eventually killed by it.
The other mistake people make is in thinking that Hitler was merely crazy and not very smart. Hitler was quite intelligent, as many biographers conceded, had a phenomenal memory and was quite well read in a large number of subject areas.
People consistently denigrate "Mein Kampf" as a tedious, poorly connected text. In fact, it was very focused (at least in the later, non-biographical part) and made laser-like arguments for the organization and conduct of political parties and the use of propaganda and the problems of ordinary democratic society and the media. Much of it is quite as true today in the US as it was then in Germany.
The anti-Semitism of the text, of course, was incorrect and irrelevant, even though he clearly believed it. On the other hand, he once told an associate that he knew that the Jews weren't behind every evil, but that he needed a common enemy to unite the people behind him - and the Jews were obviously the social demographic appropriate to the time and place to select. Had Hitler been born in the US in the early part of the last century, he undoubtedly would have picked on the African Americans for that role, just as the Christian Temperance movement did. So while Hitler was undoubtedly an anti-Semite, he was also a political opportunist who saw anti-Semitism as a tool.
Nobody on the current scene even remotely resembles Hitler, as far as I can tell - except of course in statist actions. And all those who do resemble the Nazis in action are working for the West. The other totalitarian regimes are typical Third World basket cases with no where near the capability to cause trouble on the level of Nazi Germany, let alone the US or Israel.
Of course, that is no surprise. NPod simply uses the analogy as propaganda, nothing more, and Logan is correct that the mostly ignorant US public has no point of reference to compare it to, being the result of the US public education system and US media.
(For many, the name Franz Ferdinand more readily conjures an indie rock band than a key figure at the center of one of history's great tragedies.)
Ah, but if anyone actually listens to the lyrics to the Franz Ferdinand song All For You Sophia, they will come away witha few little nuggets about the assassination.
To quote John Stewart:
"It demeans your opponent, it demeans you, and most of all, it demeans Hitler."
[Franz Ferdinand's] preferred method of 'hunting' was to set up a machine gun and have game driven in front of it.
Sounds like this guy I know who blasts away at caged quail. That is, when he's not shooting his hunting partner.
And by the way, I have stood in Gavrilo Princip's footprints--which (in 1988, at least) were painted on the bridge from which he did his shooting (Princip Bridge).
Actually, I doubt there are very many Americans who have even heard of "Franz Ferdinand" the pop group.
Re: And all those who do resemble the Nazis in action are working for the West.
Oh, come on! Even Dick Cheney resembles nothing worse than some reactionary Romanov Grand Duke or maybe a minister of the Kaiser's.
I believe that around 1987, E.D. Hirsch's survey found that more young Americans could identify Harriet Tubman than Stalin or Churchill which says a lot about the educational system's priorities.
The big danger to world peace is a situation closer to WWI than WWII -- in WWI everybody was spoiling to fight and started an unnecessary war out of pride and stubbornness.
"It is unfortunate that Hitler seems to be the only historical analogy that Americans understand."
The pity is, they *don't* understand it.
More accurately: Hitler is the only historical figure that Americans have heard of -- usually in the context of inane "Hitler analogies".
Hitler analogies just show a complete lack of imagination. The twentieth century was a treasure trove of tyrants, fascists, and madmen - yet it's always Hitler they come back to.
Yeah Fuck Harriet Tubman!
Steve Smith is right - most Americans wouldn't know Franz Ferdinand (the rock group) from Donavon Frankenreiter.
When the band "Franz Ferdinand" appeared, its name carried absolutely no historical associations for me, because in my schooling, it had always been Archduke Ferdinand. I don't know if my schooling was typical, but.
Plus, I'd always implicitly placed Ferdinand as the Archduke's first name, just as Elizabeth and Philip are the first names of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. So, at least in my head, Franz Ferdinand and Archduke Ferdinand were implicitly a nonmatch.
Plus, I'd always implicitly placed Ferdinand as the Archduke's first name, just as Elizabeth and Philip are the first names of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. So, at least in my head, Franz Ferdinand and Archduke Ferdinand were implicitly a nonmatch.
Posted by low-tech cyclist | November 7, 2007 5:22 AM
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Agreed, I'd never heard the Archduke's first name. I therefore assumed that was to whom the reference referred, but I googled it to make sure. The vast majority of responses were indeed about the band, and the band's wiki article is prioritized over the Archduke's.
SO, to settle this once and for all, it's his excellency:
Franz Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen, Erzherzog von Österreich-Este
Some sources sneak in a "Maria" which was a popular middle name at the time, as in Rainer Maria Rilke, whose name is the source for another indie band, just in case you didn't already know that.
Comments closed November 20, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
If I recall correctly, Franz Ferdinand was a huge asshole in his non-assasination affairs. His preferred method of 'hunting' was to set up a machine gun and have game driven in front of it. I also believe he killed the last European auroch (a kind of buffalo).
Posted by Ben Cronin | November 6, 2007 6:52 PM