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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   9403 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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At least with hitler, as long as you weren’t… a jew, a slav, a jehovah’s witness, a political opponent, a homosexual, a cripple… you were sort of safe cravenly heil hitlering your way though the war-torn hellscape

I agree with you that Nazi persecution was more predictable and narrowly targeted than that of the communists, but you left one important group off your list of those who were marked for death by the Nazis: people who would not keep their mouth shut and their tail between their legs. The fact that there were so few of these is a testament to how ironically wrong Hitler was about the alleged greatness of the German Volk. Hitler pointedly lambasts sycophants in Mein Kampf, but he hypocritically demanded it of his vassals and subjects, on pain of death. Hitler reigned over a nation of Spucklecker (spit lickers; his term for sycophants) -- and if they hadn't been, he couldn't have.

I don't think spit-licker is too unkind a term for someone who professes Christianity, and yet silently, passively watches the Nazi persecution of the Jews. I have never done anything so brave as stand up to a murderous tyrannical regime, and so I cannot claim that I would have done anything different than what most Germans did, even most of the ones who recognized Hitler as a ruinous, berserk tyrant. Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn't. What I am saying is that those of us who are (or might be) spit-lickers should recognize those among us those who demonstrably aren't, such as Deitrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller, as better men than us in the most important way. In the words of Solzhenitsyn,

And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul, let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.

Not to be all atheist, but one of the things I find most discrediting to the Church’s claim of providing moral guidance was its shameful compromising with hitler. Even though it was clear to church leaders that nazism was both generally evil, and opposed to the power of the church as such. Unlike the german people, who were more bribed than threatened into compliance with the regime (so can be said to be morally corrupted, and complicit), the church’s behaviour reflects pure moral cowardice.

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