Nuremberg Trials

The discussion about the Nuremberg Trials today interested me, because it reminded me of my uneasiness about international law. I see an intense necessity for it: how else can we prevent wars and bring criminals to justice? And World War II demanded a new definition of crime for the sheer scale of human brutality. The killing of civilians has rightly become a crime against humanity, and the Holocaust is particularly shocking partly because it had little to do with actual combat. Murdering Jews by the millions can only be vaguely described as terror tactics, but they weren't meant to terrorize the Allies. Though we're uncomfortable with the "victors" deciding what is right and what is wrong, the horrible crimes involved were not just German crimes, but human ones, and thus the determination and trial of these crimes should involve the whole world. In that sense, I think the Nuremberg Trials were justified; they also brought to the front (through a sort of show, as we discussed) what the new definition of morality in war was going to be. We accept that this sense of right and wrong in combat is generally just and good. And yet. It seems hypocritical for the droppers of the atom bomb to define what a war crime is, and there is still the issue of imposed morality. Who gave them the right, or jurisdiction, to try these men? I am reminded of the ICC's arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the leader of Sudan. It seems odd to me that this court in The Hague should have the authority to try a sitting head of state for war crimes, at risk of perhaps upsetting an uncertain peace process. But if the court does not bring him to task for his crimes, who will? Does the good of humanity necessitate such international courts? But who decides what is for the good of humanity?

p. 965-974

On the book's perspective in general: I was struck anew by how much World War II was (and is) seen as a battle between good and evil. The Allies are good: they hold out against the forces of darkness, their will cannot be broken. The inspiring picture on p.950 (also here) seems to me to show a bias towards the British people, illustrating their resilient spirit and refusal to give in. The Allies always fight courageously against the advancing Nazis and towns are "liberated." I wonder how much this portrait is over-simplistic. We want to believe that the British are only honorable fighters, to have heroes in this devastating war. The Nazis were monsters and killed millions more than the Allied powers, but we forget too easily the atrocities committed by the other side: the Dresden bombing, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both events were because of similar reasons to those used by the Axis powers, namely, terror. The killing of civilians cannot be justified on either side, and I think perhaps this war should be less the war that America loves to remember and more the war where we feel shame for our part in jump-starting nuclear warfare.

Germany Today?

Leigh's post about skinheads and Neo-Nazis brought to mind for me the backlash in Germany against all things Nazi and Hitler related. Nazi symbols, such as the swastika, are banned entirely, and Mein Kampf is not allowed to be published in Germany, though it is legal to own a copy. Holocaust denial is similarly a crime. It's a strange juxtaposition: we know that Holocaust denial is an entirely unethical (and irrational) stance to take, but what about free speech? Perhaps because Germany has a direct connection to a Nazi past, they felt they must overcompensate to gain the respect of Europe once more, or because they were afraid of slipping back into an older mentality. The symbolism of Germany banning such potent objects from their past seems more significant than if, say, the U.S. passed anti-Nazi laws as well. Things are a little more gray when you come to far-right-wing parties, however, that are associated with Neo-Nazism. I'm not sure which radical party ban Leigh was referring to, but according to this BBC article, the National Democratic Party won 9% of the vote and thus seats in a German state assembly. Representation is still regulated by election, no matter how radical.

Economics of Fascism

In our debate last week, we only briefly addressed the economics of fascism, which was apparently a strong point for the pro side. Fascism has no clear-cut economic platform, but any aspect of fascism stresses the primacy of the state over the individual. Though anti-communist, fascism and capitalism can coexist, but the capitalist system must be modified to a "corporatist" one. Especially true in Italy, the state plans economic goals and coordinates an economic strategy. Businesses are regulated by government into "confederations" which were controlled by government agencies; this business-government collaboration is very much an interventionist policy, as government control is necessary to make private interests serve the state's. Companies rely heavily on so-called "corporate welfare", where they are propped up by state subsidies. Importantly during World War II, the large amount of control the state had over the economy allowed it to change the economic focus to military spending. Close cooperation between the government and businesses made it easier for the state to regulate economic goals to further political ones.

Essay on fascist economics. Interesting article, but deviates in talking about how America still relies on fascist economic principles: "Are Internal Revenue Service agents really our 'servants'?"

p. 926-936

The beginning of the pervasiveness of American culture worldwide began in this era, with the advent of mass culture. Popular culture is one of America's biggest exports, and it started to become so in the 1920s and '30s, as American movies, music, and fashion spread across the Atlantic. The fears expressed by Europeans then are the same that are expressed today: that the U.S.'s mass culture creates uniformity and decadence. Europeans at the time were also worried about the destabilizing effect such uniformity could have on their old hierarchical orders. If everyone embraced such appealing materialism, what would be the result for the carefully cultivated traditions of the elite? There was a division between those who avidly devoured films and novels and between those who were frightened of what exported mass culture would change about what made their country unique. Yet we still see this struggle today, where American culture is popular in countries where the American government is detested and citizens mourn the loss of their traditional ways.

Summary of an NPR debate about whether Hollywood's undisputed global influence fuels anti-American sentiment abroad. One of the arguments is that is depicts an unflattering view of American life (violent, lots of sex, generally decadent) and Americans.

p. 939-953

The Spanish Civil War reminds me a little of the Greek War for independence in how involved foreign countries got involved in fighting on one side or the other. That war was one of Christian liberalism versus the Turkish invaders, but this war became, in the end, a proxy war. It was fascists versus everybody else that was left of the center political line. It remained ostensibly a civil war because no other governments were officially involved, but many of the Republican fighters were foreigners there of their own volition and the Soviets and Germans provided much of the firepower and practiced tactics that would come into greater prominence in World War I. This article from The Times of London was written April 28, 1937 and shows the horror that was felt (by the press, at least) at the mechanical nature the war had taken on. The writing here portrays the conflict of one of machines against humanity, especially with the detail of the bravery of the Basque clergy, as seeming approval of the Christianity of the Republican side. But such a horrific event cannot help but inspire such emotional coverage, even if ruthless efficiency in destroying a town does not lend itself to reports of a glorious struggle or deeds of heroism. It is interesting that Guernica is in Basque territory, meaning that the Basque autonomous government had, in fact, sided with the Spanish Republicans. Did they make themselves a target by voluntarily siding with the Spanish, or did they have no choice under the rules of their autonomy?

In a tenuous connection to Leigh's post about the dire state of German finances after the Great War, I would like to tell you a story that my dad told me the other day, which he heard from a former general manager of the organization involved. As we all know, Germany was required to pay war reparations after WWI. What is not so well known, however, is that they continued to pay them, "like clockwork," until the spring of 1945. So for the entire time that Europe was at war, Germany was continuing to dutifully pay off its debts. They did this through an institution called the Bank for International Settlements, established in 1930 for just this sort of purpose; it continues to act as an intermediary in international financial matters. The reparations were often paid in the form of gold bullion piled up in truck that were driven to a BIS office, often in neutral Switzerland, and handed over through them. Near the end of the war, the Allies were putting pressure on Switzerland to close its borders to Germans because they were afraid high-ranking officers would try to flee carrying valuable looted works of arts or large sums of money, often in gold coins. At this time, a German major was entrusted with the monthly task of driving the reparation trucks, so he drove up to the Swiss border. But the Swiss refused to let him in because he was trying to bring so much gold bullion out of Germany. He tried to convince them, even showing them an order from his superior officer that he was to deliver the gold to the BIS, but he was still refused entrance. Eventually, he drove back into Germany and went to the first branch of Deutschebank he saw, deposited all the money, put the deposit key in an envelope, and drove back to the border. He handed the envelope to the Swiss border guard and told them to deliver it to the BIS, as per their agreement. Months later, the delivery of bullion ceased when Germany collapsed, but throughout the war, Hitler's government oddly continued to honor the agreement that the former German government had made with the enemy.

Intellectuals in Russia

Dear Leigh, Comrade in Arms,
The place of intellectuals in the USSR seems to me to be an interesting one, because they were highly valued if they supported the regime and furthermore used their talents toward making the state stronger and sent to the Gulag if they expressed opposition. The intellectual elite is always an especial threat to totalitarian regimes because of the respect they command for their education. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is one of the most famous examples: though he served in the Red Army during WWII (showing, perhaps, how the threat of Germany transcended political beliefs to some extent), he was later sent to the Gulag and exiled from the Soviet Union for writing comments critical of Stalin in a private letter to a friend. His threat to the state seems minimal, but the authorities cracked down hard and in the process created a worse enemy than they started with. His most critical books were written after his first-hand experience of conditions in the Gulag; whereas before he could only take issue with what he saw directly, the management of the Red Army, now he had been exposed to an entirely new aspect of the system: the prisons. And nothing says quite so much about a country as its prisons. (Read an excerpt from his excellent book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, here)

p. 919-925

Nazi propaganda emphasized a sense of nationalist duty for the every man. The German state was more important than anything else, both in the present and in the future. The blame is never thrust on the idealized people themselves; they are simply reminded that they must continue to do their duty and everything will turn out right. All rotten states of affairs are squarely thrust upon the enemies of capitalism, communism, and Judaism. If Germany has been corrupted, it is the fault of the outsiders who brought this upon the people, but now "we the people," the nationalist socialists, are called upon to drive them out. And as the pamphlet on p. 924 of our book shows, propaganda leads people to believe that they are besieged on all sides and that there is only one way out: national socialism. They cannot appeal to capitalism or communism because "Big capitalism and bolshevism work hand in hand; they are born of Jewish thought and serve the master plan of world Jewry." So not only are each of these enemies big and bad in their own right, but they're part of a huge Jewish conspiracy, working together to bring down the German farmer. This image of Hitler showcases many of the values of the Third Reich: Hitler is portrayed as the brave leader of the people, with Christ-like rays and a dove behind him, while his faithful, idealized legions follow him, the representation of the state, wherever he goes. There was a cult of the individual around Hitler, but the soldiers are all the same, reinforcing that true Germans support the state and that is their sole identification. Hitler's is supposed to be the one and only face of Germany.

p 903-913

No, Stalin's methods were not justified. Killing 54 million people is never justifiable, not even for what seems like necessary economic development. I admit that I don't see another way that Russia could have industrialized in time to meet the German attack, but preparedness for war strikes me not exactly the worthiest of goals. According to totalitarianism, the State is everything, and militarism is also high on the list. One of the major tenets of communism, it seems to me, is that the strength of the state comes from the strength of its people. Stalin's approach is only justifiable to himself under a totalitarian system, not a communist one. Industrialization and collectivization, while allowing the Soviets to beat off Germany, only marginally improved the lives of Russians. This article, while it contains some strange sentence structure, brings up a number of good points on both sides of the argument. It shows to me, however, that collectivization did not drastically change grain harvest outputs (indeed, famines resulted) or unify the peasants in nationalist feeling. The main positive point seems to be that it supported industrialization. And while industrialization made Russia ready for the war with Germany, the huge emphasis on large amounts of fast production in Stalin's Five Year Plan made meeting production targets more important than the goods themselves, in terms of quality and utility, so the system was not sound for the long term. Stalin sacrificed the welfare of the people for a long term goal of strengthening the state, but by compressing the long term into a short amount of time, he weakened his system.

p. 913-919

A quote from our book: "Activities like these [political rallies, youth marches, etc.] offered people a feeling of political involvement though they no longer enjoyed political rights" (917). The main thing fascism had to offer was an illusion: the illusion of a stable, strong state, the illusion of national unity, the illusion of efficiency, economic growth, and the return of traditional values. By promising all these things and keeping the people occupied with exercise programs for young people and parades, Mussolini could give them a feeling of being part of something larger and more important than themselves, even as they sacrificed all real participation in the country's rule. The ideology and rhetoric of the time changed, but the actual running of Italy remained mainly in the same hands, using the same methods. One of the successes of Italy is that while nothing much was different, people felt it to be different through their community organizations and family mobilizations for fascism. The new order changed only the face of the country, not its true foundations, but it hardly mattered. With all the outward signs of progress (rallies and parades), who could not believe that Mussolini was making a difference in Italy?

Lenin's Legacy?

I found Leigh's post on Lenin's legacy to be particularly intriguing, but I had a few small quibbles. While I agree that Russia has maintained the element of terror and government-sponsored assassinations throughout the years (consistent with the continued existence of an authoritarian regime), I don't know if enough of a direct connection can be made between intellectuals today and kulaks of the past. Journalists are being gunned down because of their efforts to criticize and reform the Russian state; the kulaks were simply more prosperous peasant farmers, among many peasant farmers who opposed Stalin's policy of collectivization. It became a catch-all term for agricultural enemies of the state, and you need not have committed a terribly treasonable act to be sent to the gulag as one. Though you could argue that the assassinations are an attempt to cow the group of intellectuals as a whole, they seem to me to be more directed at individuals and to be vague warning to all. The kulaks were "liquidated", evicted and deprived of their possessions until they failed to exist as a class or contribute to the agricultural economy. Millions were targeted as part of a larger goal of reconstructing the Communist state; the killing of journalists merely maintains the status quo in Russia today. So while I agree that violence is a traditional tactic of the Russian government, I shall be nit-picky and say that the correlation of kulaks and intellectuals may not be entirely an apt one.

Freud and mob psychology

I found both Jonathan's and Alex's posts about Freud and the mob to be interesting, but I find myself agreeing more with Alex than with Jonathan. The collective has a powerful effect on people, but I don't think it can fundamentally change human nature; it only brings out the worst (or infrequently, the best) in each of us. If the collective has the ability to make people's actions violent and aggressive, then doesn't each individual thus have latent elements of violence and aggression? Perhaps (and this might be a reach) mobs might bring out more of the unconscious than an individual acting alone. The constraints of society are lessened by the influence of others and mob psychology, and baser instincts dictate the individual within the group. I don't know if the decision to become "the savage wolf" is as conscious a decision as Alex portrays it, but I do think the presence of the mob lessens rational behavior and allows the unconscious more free reign.

Freud

Not having been in class on Wednesday, I have the powerpoint and the reading to go on in this post about Freud. I am puzzled by an aspect of these theories, as illustrated by this quote: "[Freud's theories] bought to fore a powerful critique of the constraints imposed by the moral and social codes of Western civilization" (Coffin, 856). I don't fully understand what the authors are saying here. That the constraints of society forced people to go mad? To sublimate and repress urges that, for true satisfaction, should not be sublimated or repressed? Though I don't know that much about Freud, it seems to me that his notion of the power of the unconscious and the ability of the superego to control it suggests that the power of reason and morality (as imposed by society) is stronger than natural impulses. It seems to support the power of human reason, not question it. But maybe the question is about whether reason is powerful enough, but about whether reason should be powerful enough. Are social restraints harnessing too much of what is natural in human beings, a natural power and tension that should be relieved and set loose? But wouldn't society break down without its moral and social constraints? How would removing them be a good thing? I would appreciate opinions.

p.855-862

The reading raised an interesting point for me, namely how new scientific theories such as those of Darwin and Freud were disseminated to the masses. It was not often that people read and learned from the sources themselves; more often they read about them in newspapers or heard about from others. Here we see the increasing influence of the much maligned "mass media", defining what the general public reads, hears, or thinks. Higher literacy rates did not mean that readers became more discerning, but in fact more voracious. Publications that were sensational, readily available, and cheap became the most popular, and it was these that defined mass culture through mass readership. What had started as an effective way to make money became an even more powerful tool for influence not only on culture but also on world affairs, such as when Hearst famously "started" the Spanish-American War because of some especially provoking journalism. The opinion of the public mattered a great deal to the success of businesses, governments, and ideas, and there was no better way of reaching the public than through the newspapers. However, there was no guarantee that the message would not be misinterpreted by the middlemen. Darwin and Freud's theories could be incorrectly reported by subjective writers who were interested in making a point, not scientific reporting. Unfortunately, perhaps, for some thinkers, it was writers concerned with selling papers who had the most influence on the public.