You are fixated on racism. I want to suggest that racism is only one example of a wider phenomenon, which could be demonstrated for example in the class warfare.
You answer, quite rightly, that the fact that Hitler drank water is not a reason to stop drinking water, and that Picts and dwarves were smeared by Wagner in Ring der Niebelungen and John Buchan in No-man's land long before the Depression.
All that is quite right. But I would like you to consider the whole problem disregarding the racism. We agree that Hitler did wrong by killing the Jews. The question is whether that was whole of the problem? Or, perhaps, some of his policies would be wrong even if not directed at Jews?
If you consider the German insistence on the German Kultur and Anglo-Saxon and French Zivilisation, on the Anglo-Saxons as the race of shopkeepers, on the immorality of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, pure speculation and trade etc, you will see some similarities, I hope.
Are those things bad or wrong? That is another question. Certainly. it should be considered on its own merits. Sticking you head in the sand, however, and refusing to consider where and in what situation those ideas originated, won't help in their honest appraisal.
You say: "what is most objectionable to me: Hegelism with its denial of the law of non-contradiction, Darwinism in its most brutal and self-satisfied guise, mystical nationalism, and the organic idea of communities and languages" and it seems that you don't notice that your opinions on capitalism are historically simply an outshoot exactly of those ideas. Certainly, if we accept the conclusions we don't have to accept the premises - but we will need to find some other premises at the least.
Remember, also, that the Great Depression in the Germany was not the first stock market crash there. In fact, popular antisemitism in Germany was started by the stockmarket crashes in 1870s.
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Date: 2008-06-13 10:18 am (UTC)You answer, quite rightly, that the fact that Hitler drank water is not a reason to stop drinking water, and that Picts and dwarves were smeared by Wagner in Ring der Niebelungen and John Buchan in No-man's land long before the Depression.
http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a1159.pdf
All that is quite right. But I would like you to consider the whole problem disregarding the racism. We agree that Hitler did wrong by killing the Jews. The question is whether that was whole of the problem? Or, perhaps, some of his policies would be wrong even if not directed at Jews?
If you consider the German insistence on the German Kultur and Anglo-Saxon and French Zivilisation, on the Anglo-Saxons as the race of shopkeepers, on the immorality of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, pure speculation and trade etc, you will see some similarities, I hope.
Are those things bad or wrong? That is another question. Certainly. it should be considered on its own merits. Sticking you head in the sand, however, and refusing to consider where and in what situation those ideas originated, won't help in their honest appraisal.
You say: "what is most objectionable to me: Hegelism with its denial of the law of non-contradiction, Darwinism in its most brutal and self-satisfied guise, mystical nationalism, and the organic idea of communities and languages" and it seems that you don't notice that your opinions on capitalism are historically simply an outshoot exactly of those ideas. Certainly, if we accept the conclusions we don't have to accept the premises - but we will need to find some other premises at the least.
Remember, also, that the Great Depression in the Germany was not the first stock market crash there. In fact, popular antisemitism in Germany was started by the stockmarket crashes in 1870s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression