Theme: Agency

“ENCOURAGING FELLOW GERMANS OUT OF VICTIM MENTALITY” by Daniel Gurpide With the purpose of encouraging my German comrades to grow out of an unhelpful and debilitating victim mentality, let me add my two friendly cents: Modern Germany (1871) had the potential to rejuvenate old Europe, to extend the European age, and the primacy OF Europe, in the world for centuries to come. They destroyed this prospect because of their obsession with their own primacy IN Europe, finally and perhaps irrevocably, during the II WW. Often stronger, and on occasion more thoughtful than others, Germans, from Nietzsche to Spengler to even Hitler, would speak of the dangers to Western civilization, to the race, and to Europe. In practice, instead of consolidating europe, they would mightily contribute to the perils of the West, of Europe, and in the end, of their own Germany. There is no isolated virtue. Perhaps the very introspective qualities of the Germans obscured their better understanding of other peoples. Through a kind of offensive shortsightedness, together with an eventually disastrous alliance, they threw themselves into the First World War. The traditional order of Europe was mortally wounded during that struggle. The wounds of the German people were terrible, but far from mortal. They were sick at being treated with a great deal of injustice, as pariahs among the nations of Europe, at least for a while. Soon they would rise again and treat in turn, with far more injustice, the other nations of Europe as their pariahs. Let us also not forget that in 1917 the Kaiser and his Prussians (self-proclaimed champions of Western civilization) chose to make it possible for Lenin to re-enter Russia. In 1939 the anti-Bolshevik Hitler and his nazis chose to make it possible for Stalin to re-enter Europe. They were very successful in the short run. They destroyed themselves in the long run. Would the Bolsheviks have been able to make their revolution in 1917 if Lenin had stayed closeted in Zurich, or would Stalin have been able to get to Warsaw, not to speak of Berlin, if Hitler had not started the IIWW?

“ENCOURAGING FELLOW GERMANS OUT OF VICTIM MENTALITY” by Daniel Gurpide With the purpose of encouraging my German comrades to grow out of an unhelpful and debilitating victim mentality, let me add my two friendly cents: Modern Germany (1871) had the potential to rejuvenate old Europe, to extend the European age, and the primacy OF Europe, in the world for centuries to come. They destroyed this prospect because of their obsession with their own primacy IN Europe, finally and perhaps irrevocably, during the II WW. Often stronger, and on occasion more thoughtful than others, Germans, from Nietzsche to Spengler to even Hitler, would speak of the dangers to Western civilization, to the race, and to Europe. In practice, instead of consolidating europe, they would mightily contribute to the perils of the West, of Europe, and in the end, of their own Germany. There is no isolated virtue. Perhaps the very introspective qualities of the Germans obscured their better understanding of other peoples. Through a kind of offensive shortsightedness, together with an eventually disastrous alliance, they threw themselves into the First World War. The traditional order of Europe was mortally wounded during that struggle. The wounds of the German people were terrible, but far from mortal. They were sick at being treated with a great deal of injustice, as pariahs among the nations of Europe, at least for a while. Soon they would rise again and treat in turn, with far more injustice, the other nations of Europe as their pariahs. Let us also not forget that in 1917 the Kaiser and his Prussians (self-proclaimed champions of Western civilization) chose to make it possible for Lenin to re-enter Russia. In 1939 the anti-Bolshevik Hitler and his nazis chose to make it possible for Stalin to re-enter Europe. They were very successful in the short run. They destroyed themselves in the long run. Would the Bolsheviks have been able to make their revolution in 1917 if Lenin had stayed closeted in Zurich, or would Stalin have been able to get to Warsaw, not to speak of Berlin, if Hitler had not started the IIWW?