As well-meaning publishers try to navigate the coming storm of state laws against diversity, I hope they'll consider Timothy Snyder's Rule #1 (from his slim book ON TYRANNY).
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- progressive social change
- cishet conservative anxiety over privilege loss
- rising authoritarians promise return to golden age,
- simplify complex social issues into us/them scapegoating,
- insist on suspension of democratic norms to eliminate threat
I believe they were indicating that, for the proto-totalitarians, they recognize that controlling education is important for their control, not that the person you are replying to thinks that.
I'm in the middle of watching Metropolis (1927) and thinking about what it was communicating about the the world in its time and everything that came before and after in Germany. This is such a good framework. 93 years later we're fighting the same fight.
Alright, that's part of historical record that German women gained the right to vote in 1919 but that was part of a global suffrage movement giving women the right to vote in many countries globally.
a lot of resentments built up over the "cosmopolitanism" of Weimar urban cultural revival of the mid-late 1920s not 100% castigating intellectuals, gay and jewish people, for one
No the scapegoating definitely was part of the Nazi's platform historically.
You can try to clean it up by blaming the national debt incurred by the treaty of Versailles, but there were a great many people in Germany who were willing to work to pay that debt rather than taking the lazy route of
sorry, it's right-wing propaganda to... acknowledge the well documented right-wing reactionary position at the time that the democratic republic's culture was "degenerate"? It was not an actually popular/mainstream opinion much less a legitimate one but that Was what the Nazis believed
fwiw my list is a consolidation of the work of Eco, Ben-Ghiat, Stein, Paxton, and others (I haven't done focused study on Weimar Germany); given that I was consolidating, I deliberately added "most often"; I thought that caveat would allow me some good faith in the event of individual exceptions.
Essentially I picked the case of Hitler because the case of Hitler is well known and well documented, I would like to see the full research you've compiled leading you to the conclusion that these are the typical steps. :)
We had the 2008 Great Recession, 9-11, Global War on Terror, Clinton's Impeachment, SARS, 24 hour news cycle, the internet and social media, etc.
I'm sure there are more I've forgotten.
All are big stressors that affected us.
I once asked my cousin what he would have done if he had been alive in 1933 Germany, like our Oma and Opa. "There are only 4 possibilities," he said. "1) submit and adapt, 2) fight and live in constant danger, 3) flee, and 4) commit suicide."
We do not yet live under a fascist regime, for if we did, none of us who live here would be having this conversation in the open, those of us who would openly be having this conversation wouldn't live here, many of us would already have been murdered, and some of us would have taken our own lives.
The real test is when the federal government outlaws abortion. Will some states disobey? What will happen when they do? This is frankly what it’s all coming down to.
Because Trump will never stop escalating. He will send in troops to the state capital. He will throw the governor and opposing state politicians in jail, he will appoint an interim state government filled wil complete sycophants. And the worse it gets the more he will escalate.
So true! To me it makes me wonder if they are in allegiance with the opressive system they claim to want to fight. Since this behavior is basically just saying "yep we will do whatever you want :)"
I wish the (retail) corporation I work for remembered the human. They claim to, but they do everything they can to prevent us from planning our lives. They also don't care if we can pay our bills consistently.
State laws against diversity. Interesting perspective. I suppose you have two options with states like that, either leave them or you be more proactive in finding reasonable compromise with the other side, neither side has a monopoly on authoritarians.
they're well meaning in the sense that they think they're **reacting** to protect their people from the perceived threat, but in reality they're **acting** by setting a new socially acceptable level of threat
The people who work in publishing can be good, decent, well-meaning human beings. People can want good outcomes for other people, like safety, health, and education.
Companies, however, cannot! Companies can only want monetary success. Publishers want to sell their products.
We with autism have an advantage here: subtle hints that there will be trouble if we do/don't do X? Those go right over our heads and we keep on doing what we were doing.
Seeing similar nonsense being introduced in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick...I hope enough of *my* countryfolk have read that book to make a positive difference against said nonsense.
Here is a good one about America First, which is what MAGA really is, even proclaimed by attendees of 1/6 on the morning of 1/6, right before their pathetic insurrection failed.
For anyone who wants to read more, I highly recommend the graphic novel version of On Tyranny. The text remains the same, you aren’t losing any of the message, but the visuals add a certain little something that somehow makes it even better
I should note that this version makes for a PHENOMENAL high school graduation “welcome to the real world” gift. (With or without some $$ inside it, depending how much you actually like the teenager in question.)
I often give this as a gift to young people. (My 87 year-old mother bought one for every member of the family the year it came out.) If I had unlimited funds, I’d buy copies by the thousands and hand them out to strangers on the street.
Excellent and always timely quote. Recommended: the graphic edition illustrates by Nora Krug. Not completely/mostly comics, but comics where it’s helpful.
Fear and a sense of lack create a reactive way of living. When we trust ourselves and trust that what we are doing is right, we continue to move forward through other people's fears and sense of lack. Be deliberate.
Not that I am keen on adding to the list of concepts that are coined as quintessentially Japanese concepts using regular words in that language to make it sound exotic but are in fact quite mundane, but there *is* a word for doing this in Japanese: sontaku (in a way)
Democrats have totally failed as a party in states like Georgia and Missouri where the population is about half urban and half rural. Their ineptitude along with GOP gerrymandering has made state legislatures which should be 50% Democrat, totally controlled by the GOP.
Voter apathy has allowed right-wing takeover of school boards, etc. Too many don't vote in local elections. I know we need a variety of voices and ideas to govern for all the people. The current GOP lust for power at any cost is embarrassing, but equally alarming.
Rule #1 makes me think of all the TSA employees who heard that Trump ordered a “Muslim ban” and started enforcing it without any questions, objections, or even preliminary directions.
> When the work is complete, when our hegemony is total, no one and nothing will act without our consent. ‘By volition’ will be a synonym for ‘by decree.’ The law of the Empire will live within every soul and cell.
The line between ‘people are stupid’ and ‘people are people’ isn’t a wall. It’s a bridge. The cynic? The nihilist? The moral relitavist? All human. Only the sociopath, the fascist, approaches agriculture/art like a tapeworm, assuming everyone is a tapeworm and no one has a colon.
This viewpoint seems like it would be all kinds of problematic for doing the "right thing" that isn't yet enshrined in law. E.g., trying to convince companies to proactively acquire consent to use creators' images.
Comments
- progressive social change
- cishet conservative anxiety over privilege loss
- rising authoritarians promise return to golden age,
- simplify complex social issues into us/them scapegoating,
- insist on suspension of democratic norms to eliminate threat
Authoritarian attempt to control education in a fascist manner detected.
Would you like to try approaching the subject a different way?
Hitler's rise was not predicated by progressive social change.
Quite the opposite, it happened in the wake of Germany's impoverishment by the debts imposed in the treaty of Versailles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9y64j6/revision/8
That would not be a factor unique to Germany.
You can try to clean it up by blaming the national debt incurred by the treaty of Versailles, but there were a great many people in Germany who were willing to work to pay that debt rather than taking the lazy route of
I'm sure there are more I've forgotten.
All are big stressors that affected us.
And always, Wheaton's Law. Don't be a dick
The people who work in publishing can be good, decent, well-meaning human beings. People can want good outcomes for other people, like safety, health, and education.
Companies, however, cannot! Companies can only want monetary success. Publishers want to sell their products.
People.