(06-25-2018, 06:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-24-2018, 08:17 PM)TheNomad Wrote: As soon as people cite The Holocaust in any way and use the word Hitler, that is when they have lost their barking mind over some doctrinal offense they must sanctify with absolutism.
The references were used to distinguish between objectionable material (opinion), indefensible positions (provable falsehood) and an accurate description of objectionable or provably-false material (the quotations could be themselves truthful. Godwin's Law applies when someone cheaply compares someone or an institution to Hitler, Nazism, or the consequences of either as a deprecation of someone else. Thus an Israeli program to reduce tobacco use is not 'Nazi' simply because the Nazis were opposed to tobacco. On the other hand, if someone really is a vehemently racist, militarist, despotic opponent of democracy then one might have a valid comparison to Hitler. If you are a singing a near-translation of the Horst-Wessel-Lied in an unironic way and not for dramatic or educational purposes, then you are probably a Nazi.
Maybe I could have used the example of someone who has been stopped for erratic driving who proclaims to the police officer who stopped him. "Osshifer, I only had a cupp'la beerzh" and then fails the field-sobriety tests and for whom the Breathalyzer registers a 0.15% BAC is clearly false (it was four beers) or at least deceitful (the beers were 'forties') in his protest of sobriety, the report of the drunk's verbal claim might be accurate.
I hope you realize (and I'm calling this out as I would like to be done unto me) your description of the obviously stereotypical "black" drunk in the story might be offensive to some people.
Butterfly McQueen agreed to kowtow Ms Scarlett in GWTW but she said no to the watermelon when they asked her to eat it on-screen. I mean, there is a limit to these things. I personally have no issue with it. I don't think it could have been more so unless you added that the 40s were Colt brand. I mean, I SAW Billy D Williams in that commercial as a kid.
MOVING ON... I had said people really do - when pressed or feeling cornered in a belief or system - they do grasp for absolutes for what I believe is a personal safety net FOR their ideology. Ideologies over time become as a personal fortress we may built to protect what we believe and want to believe.
Adolph Hitler and Manson and these people are SYMBOLS of evil for many, many people. I do not personally believe in a "devil" figure, but I understand where and WHY that concept came to be. Humans create and/or latch onto people/concepts/religions/etc as mortar to secure the blocks of their own personal fortress. When pressed or feeling pressed about an issue of great importance, human beings will conjure a PARALLEL or a HARD EXAMPLE (to them) they can cling to in order to assess the world around them and the events happening. So, I get saddened when Adolph Hitler is conjured not as a historical figure but as a personal gauge and ultimate evil under the bed by which a respondent to the conversation tosses into the mix when it really does not belong there. For it is incendiary in itself, really has no purpose, and serves only to inflame and nothing more.
I mean, based on what I have seen some here say, aren't we struggling with this now NATIONALLY? With families torn apart, friends not speaking, turning the channel to msnbc or fox or whatever because we know that when we turn it on IT WILL TELL US WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR. Haven't we expressed that this sucks and should not be happening? How do we stop that? Does it not begin by stop hiding inside our fortress and saying "it is all lies out there"?
In short, using absolutism to sort of "end' the dialogue and basically say "this is my standard, this is my personal gauge to asses what you are talking about" it leaves no room for expansion, shuts down the dialogue immediately and is wholly representative of my ultimate "thesis" concerning who and how Prophets are at the heart of all doom in the Saeculum. I would go so far to say that anyone who read the strauss/howe texts can see they, themselves, clearly point toward the idea the Prophet is at the epicenter of the Crisis (always) from sort of beginning to end. We can disagree about that, but to me it was something so clearly represented by the authors it is almost (was) beyond mentioning............. for just assuming it was already understood by anyone studying this subject matter.
I never got the feelz that Heroes were the problem. After all, the authors named them HEROES. Heroes don't destroy, they fix. Artists don't cause drama, they create. Nomads just don't care. So we tolerate everyone else's bullshit fomented by the Prophet. They called it Prophet for a reason. Like I said, this was to me almost beyond even mentioning. We all could argue all day about OUR PERSONAL BELIEFS toward the archetype, but clearly we are here because strauss and howe wrote books and had amazing structural concepts. How is it we then read their construct and then say "no, that's not right". I mean, they made it. If we aren't on the same page with their framework, wtf are any of us doing here? I never heard of the four archetypes or the saeculum or the turnings before that book. They invented this "science" so we should probably go with their findings and/or construct?
It is not trivial or flippant to overlook this, actually it is quite important. Once we start saying "no, the HERO is the problem......." I mean, cmon..... really? Professor X is not Magneto. If you do that, the entire framework of the story no longer functions. Heroes can be serial killers just like anyone. But we are past that, no? We are all smart enough to go above that level of deduction to examine the archetypes as a whole.... and sorry, that involves close to 90% objectivity if not more.
If anyone is saying "Adolph Hitler was born as a Hero so BLAM your theory cannot be right" then, that person really does not belong in the conversation. They just don't have the faculties to engage in this. (btw I really don't know what archetype he is).