Now, this is the sort of thing I'd like to see on Sky's History Channel, AKA, the WWII channel. (Where would the History Channel be without Hitler?) What I'm talking about is Stephen Hicks' superb video presentation Nietzsche & the Nazis.
How did one of the most educated nations in Europe turn into a Nazi dictatorship? How philosophical were the National Socialists? How socialist were they? What influence did heavyweight intellectuals such as Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and Oswald Spengler have? And to what extent was Nietzsche a forerunner of the Nazis? All these questions and more are asked and thoroughly answered in Hicks' film.
But don't just trust me about how good it is. Read Tibor Machan's review -- and watch the first few minutes online at YouTube.
7 comments:
What we're now waiting for is Darwin & the Nazis.
One of the common arguments of Christian Apologists is that Fascism and Communism resulted from the Enlightenment and Darwin. This is what "Godless Darwinism" leads to; ie all those gas chambers. Even a relatively secular conservative like David Horrowitz makes the argument that the Enlightenment led to the Nazis. Leo Strauss (father of modern Neo-Conservatism) made the same arguments. Does Hick's refute this in his video? I read Hicks PostModernism book and I liked it. I'm hoping he answers the religionists on this issue.
In America, Apologists like Dinesh D'Souza are making a living raising specious challenges to the Enlightenment like this one; he even calls it "the Fallacy of the Enlightenment."
Bob Sanders
You're a funny guy Berend, but this is a serious subject.
An excellent look at this question "How did one of the most educated nations in Europe turn into a Nazi dictatorship?" is found in Michael Burlegh's book - he is interviewed by Clive James here:
http://www.clivejames.com/audio/burleigh
nice strawman Bob. Always works.
Well Berend,
It was Christian prejudice and racism in Eurpoe fueled the holocaust. In fact, that was probably the cause. The Nazis didn't start anti-semitism, they adopted Christian ideals.
LGM
Yes LGM, extermination camps are Christian ideals, how could I have forgotten that!
Ultimately, yes. The camps were the result of an application of Christian anti-semitism and prejudice. Face it, European Christians had been viciously anti-semitic for hundreds of years prior to the Nazis. Jews were the targets of much Christian hate. It was expressed in regulation and legislation, bias in pretty much every sector of public life, theft, toture, murder- you name it and they did it to the Jews. All this barbarism was excused by the mantra that "the Jews killed Christ." So that made excluding Jews as non-human OK.
After several hundred years of Christian anti-semitism Europeans were well loaded and ready to eliminate them. The Nazis exploited the fertile ground prepared for them by generations of Christian doctrine.
Actually it's worse then that. the Lutherans were about to declare Hitler the return of the son of God!
LGM
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