Every Society Has Nazi Impulses

There was nothing unusually different about German society in 1933 as Hitler rose to power. We humans all have within us wonderful and vicious impulses. Our egos are always looking for some threat to our existence or success, and when we perceive, rightly or wrongly, that “others” are in our way, we can become ruthless in reaction to such an impediment.

It is only when enough of society falls prey to blaming outsiders does the bottom fall out of civilization and the mean spirited ravage the normal order. For a complex combination of social and technological reasons the United States, along with most of the world, seems to be entering a particularly bad and dangerous period. Personally I believe it has everything to do with probability balance, but I won’t go into that theory here.

In any event it would seem that much of the same fears and hatreds that reached critical mass in Germany and around the world in the 1930’s are again in play as each layer of new generations are apt to forget the lessons of the past both because ego wants what it wants and because it is stupid.

In the last century hundreds of thousand of young Americans died to defeat the very ugliness that is currently bubbling up within the United States, a destructive form of nationalism.

If it were possible to go back in time and exchange those of our own Alt-right with members of the Nazi Party, the dark historic period of Germany would be hardly different. So of course this means that America and the world in total are in for a rough ride ahead.