[Xmca-l] Re: Hitler's World by T. Snyder

[Peter Smagorinsky]

David, do you think that it was his incoherent ideas, or our guns, that led to his defeat? 

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David H Kirshner
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 4:56 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hitler's World by T. Snyder

David,

I found opening of this window into Hitler's thinking to be very revealing. 
In the past Hitler has been a black box to me, a stimulus to my response of revulsion, a compelling lunatic whose emotive compulsion against the Jews was contagious. 

Now I see that Hitler was a man of ideas--mostly incoherent ideas, but ideas nonetheless. 
My takeaway from the article is that in the end Hitler's ideas were not persuasive. 
In fact, he was inconsistent and somewhat opportunistic in his framing of his ideas. 

But, importantly, he signified to the German people as a leader who was guided by ideas, and whose anger and hatred toward the Jews was justified by ideas, notwithstanding that few people had any real understanding of what these ideas might be. This made him potent as a leader far beyond what he could have achieved had his hatred and compulsion against the Jews been seen in purely emotional terms.

He is a testament not to the power of ideas, but to the power of the idea of ideas.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+dkirsh=lsu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+dkirsh=lsu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Preiss
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 3:00 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hitler's World by T. Snyder

Dear colleagues,

I am sorry. I can't follow your thoughts. I just think that the essay is informative and worth reading. I liked two ideas of the essay:

-The brute notion of nature adopted by Hitler, a strange mix of pseudo-darwinism and, maybe, pseudo-romanticism? In some way it is a naturalisation of culture as well.

-The paradoxical relationship Hitler established with science (or
technology) and how he understood the relationship between science and nature. Technology was part and parcel of nature, ethical thinking not.

It is shocking how such strange blend of ideas could be used to rationalise the extermination of the family of my grandparents and be adopted by such a large amount of presumed civilised and educated people to support the criminals that took over Germany 80 years ago.

When we see what is going on in Syria and Iraq these days, one wonders what is the strange combination of ideas driving human beings to massacre each other in a genocidal way again and how those ideas are not adequately challenged by all of those that witness the events.

David





On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 1:04 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> This thread is enough to make a Buddhist out of one.
>
> With Peekaboo we’re back to Annalisa’s video of the child and the baby 
> gorilla at the zoo playing peekaboo. I googled “peekaboo” and found 
> that it “...is thought by developmental psychologists < 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_psychology> to demonstrate 
> an infant's inability to understand object permanence < 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence>.” Am I wrong, or 
> isn’t Heisenberg showing us that it’s impossible to prove such permanence?
> There’s no there there. As well, the “God particle” is no particle at all.
> It’s a field. Then there’s the closing of each of Mike’s posts from Boesch:
> "It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an 
> object that creates history.”
>
> Thanks to Huw for Tolstoy. War and Peace challenges (some) conceptions 
> of freedom and human agency. So does the quote from Boesch that ends 
> each of Mike’s posts. But doesn’t Snyder point precisely to the 
> failure of Hitler’s nihilistic project to come to terms with Boesch’s 
> dilemma? I guess I’m pointing here myself to the crises of psychology 
> that are at the heart of Vygotsky’s work.
>
> And, aren’t comedy and tragedy both figure and ground to one another? 
> Back to Buddhism. Or am I totally off thread and off my rocker?
>
>  Henry
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 16, 2015, at 8:32 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Peekaboo is the difference between comedy and tragedy.
> >
> > Huw
> >
> > On 16 September 2015 at 15:02, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> ​Peekaboo, not Hitler's view of the world, is the topic thread here.
> >>
> >> mike​
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 9:50 PM, Annalisa Aguilar 
> >> <annalisa@unm.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I hovered in uncertainty to reply, but, um…am I missing something?
> >>>
> >>> Honestly, I got more out of watching a toddler play peekaboo with 
> >>> a
> baby
> >>> ape: I certainly didn't feel nausea at the end.
> >>>
> >>> Oh and by the way, happy new year.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with 
> >> an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
> >>
>
>