05-08-2020, 12:06 PM
(05-08-2020, 07:42 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(05-07-2020, 07:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(05-07-2020, 04:40 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: If crisis wars are not driven by rationality, exactly what are they driven by?
My views on that are very close to John's. And here you are, in his thread! Just read back through it and you'll find him expounding on the issue repeatedly. He might even have some boilerplate that he can post for you.
Should be covered in the virtual Generational Dynamics book?
People assume that they act rationally, yet they show otherwise -- bigotry, selfishness, tribalism, anger... people might be extremely cunning and clever in doing horrible things and think themselves fully rational. Just because people can put something into bureaucratic language (think of the Wannsee conference in which Nazi security, legal, judicial, and administrative officials plotted the extermination of the Jews) does not make it sound. The Nazis knew that they could never get away with mowing down Jews in countries in easy range of American and British bombers and that doing so would discredit satellite regimes that wanted the Jews out of their countries but did not care what happened to them once the Jews were out. So take them to Poland, where there was no pretense of any local satellite regime, where people could be told that if they exposed what was going on in the camps that they too would go up the chimneys to the incinerators. Concealment was essential. It all had to be kept secret.
At that rationality isn't enough. Empathy keeps us from doing heartless things. Morals kee-p us from doing monstrous deeds. Conscience tells us that a bad deed has questionable consequences.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
