Sunday, September 01, 2013

Don't mention the war

The last Jew in Vinnitsa [1941]
One of the worst consequences of living in a post-war era is that all the talking heads will then be trying to fix whatever they believe were the set pre-conditions leading up to the war they have just been through. Sometimes they get it right and implement worthy policies such as having an independent central bank, a policy first implemented by the Bundesbank in order to avoid a similar situation to the Weimar Republic's hyperinflation in the 1920s, which is usually seen as one of the determining factors of Hitler's rise to power.

Sometimes, however, they get it all wrong. One of the most common arguments put forward by proponents of military conscription in Germany has been that it is necessary to keep very strong ties between the military and society so that nothing like the Schutzstaffel will ever again be conceivable. While it is true they were a paramilitary organisation, just like many others which came to life throughout the Weimar Republic, this obviously ignores the fact Hitler was democratically elected and used the full force of the existing military apparatus for his own purposes. And what could possibly be better for the state than having a very submissive population - by the very nature of the mandatory conscription - who has been trained to kill people and obey their military superiors without question? Well, having a submissive population who has also been ideologically indoctrinated.

Homeschooling is currently illegal in Germany. Not very surprisingly, the ban dates back to the third Reich:
One of Hitler and his buddies' first acts on taking office was to establish the Reich Ministry of Education and give it control of all schools, including private schools. Nobody was to have the right to teach children from a different point of view than the State (with a capital "S"). There would be no right to teach from a distinctively religious point of view, especially. As Hitler said on May 1, 1937, "The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of innoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing."
This also seems to be the actual position of the German state in the present day:
German homeschoolers have told us on numerous occasions that your calls are working despite the response many of you have received from the [German] Embassy [in the United States]. In part, the Embassy stated that homeschooling should not be legal because "The public has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole."
Yes, I'm afraid you've read that right. The best way to get a healthy society is to make sure everyone gets their education approved by the government, all the while erasing every sign of individuality and killing any seeds of political dissident before they are even allowed to coalesce by making everyone conform to the same standard. I wonder what could possibly go wrong. If you thought Milgram and Asch's experiments had taught us anything, you are now probably wondering how long we'll have to wait for the 'burning of books and burying of scholars'.

Alas, we reach the point of this diatribe of mine - a couple of days ago something curious happened in Darmstadt. I recommend reading the whole article:

The children were taken to unknown locations. Officials ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing their children “anytime soon.” (...) Moreover, Germany has not even alleged educational neglect for failing to provide an adequate education. The law ignores the educational progress of the child; attendance—and not learning—is the object of the German law.

So, how do you prevent a society from turning into a totalitarian state? It appears the answer is to act pre-emptively and make it turn into a totalitarian state as quickly as possible.