All for one...And all for one!

Tyranny succeeds, wherever people obey.

Totalitarianism

“It does not matter what you think, so long as you obey.”

These words hit me right between the eyes.  Would you care to guess who said them?  When they were said?  Putin, perhaps.  Maybe Xi Jinping.

No, Heinrich von Treitschke.  He was a Prussian history teacher at the University of Berlin in the late nineteenth century.  How would I know that?  I’ve been interested in how a man like Adolf Hitler could rise to power.  That’s worth knowing, of course.  My feeling is that Hitlers are born every day, but only some of them are able to become dictators.  How and under what circumstances does it become possible?  I’ve had “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’, by Willima Shirer on my reading list for some time, and I’m finally reading it.  That’s how I know about Heinrich von Treitschke.

William Shirer was a journalist, back when the term ‘journalist’ meant something.  He was stationed in Europe and Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, and speaks largely from firsthand experience.  Shirer wanted us to know how a Hitler can rise to absolute power. Not surprisingly, the times create the man as much as the man creates the times.  Germany thirsted for an absolute ruler.  Germany had lost WWI and was paying a steep price in reparations.  There’s more to reparations than money.  Germany was forced into ruinous trade deals that largely assured continual poverty.  Additionally, the German oligarchs set the German Mark on a road to massive inflation that ruined the value of the currency, but which benefited the oligarchs. 

Into this world, stepped Adolf Hitler.  Frankly, he was rightfully pissed at the way the German people were being treated.  He didn’t come out of nowhere, he slowly, gradually built a following of fellow malcontents.  He was rising in power, but then an unfortunate thing happened, prosperity.  Unfortunate for Hitler, anyway. In the later part of the 1920s people were seeing economic advancement and felt disinclined to follow a madman and his ideology.  Hitler’s influence waned, until the great depression.  Then, with the economic turmoil, Hitler’s ideology again gained notice.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

That’s the Cliff’s notes.  Everyone should read ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’, for their own sake.  For the sake of us all.  Can it happen again?  Of course.  The circumstances will never precisely repeat or create exactly the same results.  But similar events occur regularly.  Similar events happen when too many people put too much faith in the government to solve their problems.

“It does not matter what you think, so long as you obey.”  Look at education today.  Are our students encouraged to build their own range of thoughts and observations?  Are they encouraged to consider any and all possibilities?  Are they encouraged to THINK?!  Absolutely not.  They are encouraged to obey.  Thinking is optional, but absolutely, positively, you must obey.  You must believe that progressive education is the only education that is to be permitted.  And what is progressive education?  It is indoctrination.  Students are taught to obey. Perhaps you are one of those students, and you fiercely disagree with me. Ask yourself (THINK!) to what extent your opinions are your own, and not the state’s.  Have you developed your own opinions, or are your opinions carbon copies of your teacher’s opinions?  And where did the teachers get THEIR opinions?  And, most of all, what happens if you or another student expresses a contrary opinion?  That depends on the teacher, right?  Some teachers will openly condone contrary points of view, even encourage them.  Other teachers force the state’s viewpoint on the students and expect obedience to the ideology. So, what does the STATE want?  Does the state want you to form your own thoughts and go your own direction, or are you being channeled into a very tight range of ‘acceptable’ belief?  I’m not here to answer that question for you.  I am only here to ask it.  The answers, to be legitimate, must come from YOU, and they must come from you only after you have carefully considered the possibilities. Hitler could never have succeeded in a culture of independent thought.  He had to rely on compliance and ‘group think’.

Think about a dog on a leash.  There is nothing natural within a dog that he will take easily to a leash.  He must be trained to accept it, and to go where he is guided.  His master may ‘allow him some leash’ such that he can go a little this way or that of his own volition, but only within the range that his master allows.  How long is the leash that your master allows?  You don’t have a leash or a master?  Are you sure?

“It does not matter what you think, so long as you obey.”  Chilling words, taught by a history professor at the university!  Hitler loved those words.  Hitler formed Hitler’s Youth.  Its purpose was to indoctrinate students to love obedience to the Nazi party.  It was a very short leash.  Yet there were students who relished that leash.  It saved them from the angst of thinking for themselves.  Just obey, believe and do as you are told.  Think how stress-free that is.  Perhaps you KNOW how stress-free that is.

But there were students during Hitler’s Youth who didn’t go along.  They wanted to think for themselves.  Such students were persecuted.  They were punished.  That’s right, punished for THINKING!  They were ostracized, isolated, villainized, blamed.  Sound familiar?  Is that how it is in schools you’ve attended?  If it is, perhaps you should consider (THINK!) who is responsible for it and why they’re doing it.  For it is from this level of sick conformity that the Hitlers can seize control and conform a society into whatever shape they desire.  And, it never ends well….

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