German thinkers are extremely dangerous - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15148719
In my university years my philosophy professor once told me that philosophers (British/American, French, Ancient Greek etc) have traditionally been careful to consider what would happen if their philosophies, especially political philosophies, were taken to an extreme. They were careful in their writings over the centuries, to take responsibility for what their ideas could be used for, good or bad.

Many key German thinkers and philosophers have not taken this same care. German thinkers are radical and revolutionary and dangerous. Nietzsche was dangerous. Marx was dangerous. Hitler and his inner circle were dangerous. Martin Luther was dangerous. Trump is dangerous, following in the great German tradition and his father's nutty teachings.

That's not to say there isn't useful value to come out of the writings of Marx and Nietzsche, but these are radical far-left and far-right thinkers that need to studied with caution because many people have taken some of their thoughts to the extreme and/or twisted them and caused some of the most suffering and death of the last 100 years.

I'm really tired of German thought leaders. English (of the British variety) philosophers have been FAR more reasonable and productive over the centuries. Trump is a sad reminder.
#15148747
"Do not smile at my advice, the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll." - Heinrich Heine.
#15148771
Potemkin wrote:"Do not smile at my advice, the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll." - Heinrich Heine.


And so it did, the ''Play in Germany, that is.

I find it interesting that German Philosophy already found a Nazi-like specimen with Christoph Meiners, in the very time of Kant and the others;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Meiners

To be fair, he was against Kant, but I also hasten to add was as much a product of the ''Enlightenment'' as the others.

And also I'll add what the Wiki article doesn't mention, Meiners was a member of the infamous and much written about ''Order of Illuminati'' begun in Bavaria.
#15148772
Rugoz wrote:1. Let's see. Plato advocated eugenics,
2. Hobbes justified the absolute monarchy,
3. Sartre was a Stalinist,
4. *insert American free-market libertarian here* would starve millions.


1. True. But he lived in a time when science didn't know anything about genetics, and to my knowledge he didn't use it to push racism. He's not Hitler.

2. True. In a time of absolute monarchy he was a conservative of moderation and valued order over war and insecurity. He turned out to be wrong on the monarchy.

3. Some french thinkers have been a bit nutters. The french have had an interesting culture of thought to say the least.

4. Milton Friedman was not British American. I'm no fan of neoliberalism, but Friedman isn't Marx/Lenin/Mao nor Hitler/Mussolini either.
#15148778
Unthinking Majority wrote:1. True. But he lived in a time when science didn't know anything about genetics, and to my knowledge he didn't use it to push racism. He's not Hitler.

2. True. In a time of absolute monarchy he was a conservative of moderation and valued order over war and insecurity. He turned out to be wrong on the monarchy.

3. Some french thinkers have been a bit nutters. The french have had an interesting culture of thought to say the least.

4. Milton Friedman was not British American. I'm no fan of neoliberalism, but Friedman isn't Marx/Lenin/Mao nor Hitler/Mussolini either.


- Knowledge about genetics wouldn't change what Plato had in mind.
- Hitler was not a thinker.
- I wasn't thinking about Friedman. Frankly I forgot the names of those American hardcore libertarians.
#15148782
Rugoz wrote:- Knowledge about genetics wouldn't change what Plato had in mind.
- Hitler was not a thinker.
- I wasn't thinking about Friedman. Frankly I forgot the names of those American hardcore libertarians.


@Rugoz

You might have been thinking of Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner, or these days, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Hayek, Ayn Rand, etc...
#15148784
Martin Heidegger was really sympathetic to the Nazi regime and he did everything to justify Nazi policies based on his philosophical beliefs. His antisemitic ideas tainted the core of his philosophy. Heidegger was as dangerous as the leader of Proud Boys as an enthusiastic supporter of the regime. I think he should be removed from college curriculums. I cannot believe I had to sit through a Heidegger course for a year.

He is widely regarded as one of Europe's most influential 20th century philosophers whose writings inspired some of the important thinkers of the modern era. But almost four decades after Martin Heidegger's death, scholars in Germany and France are asking whether the antisemitic tendencies of the author of Being and Time ran deeper than previously thought.

The philosopher's sympathies for the Nazi regime have been well documented in the past: Heidegger joined the party in 1933 and remained a member until the end of the second world war. But antisemitic ideas were previously thought to have tainted his character rather than touched the core of his philosophy – not least by Jewish thinkers such as Hannah Arendt or Jacques Derrida, who cited their debt to Heidegger.

This week's publication of the "black notebooks" (a kind of philosophical diary that Heidegger asked to be held back until the end of his complete work), challenges this view. In France the revelations have been debated vigorously since passages were leaked to the media last December, with some Heidegger scholars even trying to stop the notebooks' publication.

In Germany, one critic has argued that it would be "hard to defend" Heidegger's thinking after the publication of the notebooks, while another has already called the revelations a "debacle" for modern continental philosophy – even though the complete notebooks were until now embargoed by the publisher.

The most controversial passages of the black notebooks are a series of reflections from the start of the second world war to 1941. While distancing himself from the racial theories pursued by Nazi intellectuals, Heidegger argues that Weltjudentum ("world Judaism") is one of the main drivers of western modernity, which he viewed critically.

"World Judaism", Heidegger writes in the notebooks, "is ungraspable everywhere and doesn't need to get involved in military action while continuing to unfurl its influence, whereas we are left to sacrifice the best blood of the best of our people".

In another passage, the philosopher writes that the Jewish people, with their "talent for calculation", were so vehemently opposed to the Nazi's racial theories because "they themselves have lived according to the race principle for longest".

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/ ... tisemitism
#15148896
Rugoz wrote:- Hitler was not a thinker.

He wrote Mein Kampf. He's not really any different than Lenin. Hitler built a political philosophy and put it into action (fascism/nazism)

- I wasn't thinking about Friedman. Frankly I forgot the names of those American hardcore libertarians.

Well he was arguably the leading neoliberal economist.
#15148916
Unthinking Majority wrote:
In my university years my philosophy professor once told me that philosophers (British/American, French, Ancient Greek etc) have traditionally been careful to consider what would happen if their philosophies, especially political philosophies, were taken to an extreme. They were careful in their writings over the centuries, to take responsibility for what their ideas could be used for, good or bad.

Many key German thinkers and philosophers have not taken this same care. German thinkers are radical and revolutionary and dangerous. Nietzsche was dangerous. Marx was dangerous. Hitler and his inner circle were dangerous. Martin Luther was dangerous. Trump is dangerous, following in the great German tradition and his father's nutty teachings.

That's not to say there isn't useful value to come out of the writings of Marx and Nietzsche, but these are radical far-left and far-right thinkers that need to studied with caution because many people have taken some of their thoughts to the extreme and/or twisted them and caused some of the most suffering and death of the last 100 years.

I'm really tired of German thought leaders. English (of the British variety) philosophers have been FAR more reasonable and productive over the centuries. Trump is a sad reminder.



Power structures can happen without any sort of ideology. There are always opportunists, all they need is an opportunity.

There has never been a Marxist state, I doubt there can be one, at our current level of technology and intellectual sophistication. I know a guy who was really smart, and into that stuff, and he thought it was possible, but he never got around to putting it down on paper.

Anyway..

Nietzsche is usually misunderstood, sometimes by phil. profs. His sister rewrote a lot of his work after he died, for one thing. For another, he was one of many early Modern thinkers that thought along similar lines (read Mark Twain's Letters from Earth). Part of what he was talking about was what he saw. The church was once the center of town, and of the town's life. When markets happened, they literally became the center of town, and commerce became the driving force. The Modern world revolved around economics, not religion.

One last thing, Martin Luther was not in the least bit dangerous. It was the printing press. Martin Luther's writing became the first mass communication in history. In a season his protest spread across the continent, and then set of an era of religious war.

We seem to have a similar problem with social media... Hopefully it won't set off so many wars.
#15148920
Unthinking Majority wrote:In my university years my philosophy professor once told me that philosophers (British/American, French, Ancient Greek etc) have traditionally been careful to consider what would happen if their philosophies, especially political philosophies, were taken to an extreme. They were careful in their writings over the centuries, to take responsibility for what their ideas could be used for, good or bad.

Many key German thinkers and philosophers have not taken this same care. German thinkers are radical and revolutionary and dangerous. Nietzsche was dangerous. Marx was dangerous. Hitler and his inner circle were dangerous. Martin Luther was dangerous. Trump is dangerous, following in the great German tradition and his father's nutty teachings.


Trump is neither German nor a thinker. He is a typical product of US imperialism who wouldn't stand a chance in Germany.

Hitler was a demagogue but not a thinker or philosopher. It takes an American to confound the two.

Marx was a great economist, only American anti-communists would consider him a dangerous thinker today.

Nietsche was an inspirational thinker but not a philosopher who presented a system of thought.

Luther was a religious leader who channeled the protests against the feudal exploitation sanctioned by the Catholic church. Compared to other leaders of those protests, he was a moderate.

While neither of the above is a thinker in the sense of a major philosopher, you ignore real German philosopher or thinkers including Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Goethe and many others.

Like Nagarjuna, every philosopher needs to take his philosophy to "an extreme". Otherwise it would just remain mediocre and common place.

The Christian philosophy of love has been turned into an instrument for massacring millions. Does that make Jesus a "dangerous thinker?"

Pre-war racists constructed Jewish-Bolshevik (or Jewish-Bolshevik-Capitalist) conspiracies. Since it's no more politically correct to pander Jewish conspiracy theories, you replaced Jewish with German in your racist conspiracy theory.
#15148926
Atlantis wrote:
Pre-war racists constructed Jewish-Bolshevik (or Jewish-Bolshevik-Capitalist) conspiracies. Since it's no more politically correct to pander Jewish conspiracy theories, you replaced Jewish with German in your racist conspiracy theory.



Oh, I do like that.

Nice catch, after 9/11 there was a conspiracy theory that had Jews suckering Arabs into doing the attack. They watched from across the river in a white van.

When the Right decided they liked Israel, they kept the same conspiracy theory, word for word, except for the ethnicity of the guys in the van.

Definitely screws loose..
#15148941
Beren wrote:His blatant Germanophobia could rather be typically British, though.


Are the British Germanophobe? Popular British jingoism needs Germany or the EU as enemy, but among the educated classes there is a lot of admiration or fascination for Germany (even for the Nazis). They see Germany as an eternal rival they can beat in war but not in peace.
#15148949
Pre-war racists constructed Jewish-Bolshevik (or Jewish-Bolshevik-Capitalist) conspiracies. Since it's no more politically correct to pander Jewish conspiracy theories, you replaced Jewish with German in your racist conspiracy theory.

Ever since 1945, the Germans have become the new Jews.

Discuss.

:)
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