Your Inner Nazi
Daily Meditation #370–3/1/2023
In 2021 I had the sobering chance to visit the Auschwitz.
Imagine a room maybe half the length of a football field but nearly as wide.
Down the middle of it is a walkway maybe 15 feet wide.
The remaining space on either side is a floor-to-ceiling glass case — the ceiling around 10 feet tall.
Inside the cases are mountains of human hair filling them, the full length of the room. Hundreds of millions of strands from countless heads of Jews, gypsies, and other “undesirables.”
And there was another room of similar size filled with glasses. One with shoes. Another of clothes, if I remember.
And that’s to say nothing of the sheer size of Birkinau — the fields of squat, bunk-stuffed shanties stretching out for hundreds of acres before the berms where the gas chambers were.
“I don’t understand how a human could ever do this to another human. I would never do such a thing.”
We all say this phrase when Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia come up.
But, in saying it, we are lying and denying the unfortunate and human fact that almost every single one of us would’ve been (unfortunately) swept up into the utter ideological possession of the zeitgeists of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.
We are all susceptible to the hypnotizing power of the zeitgeist and conformity to narratives, regardless of how individualistic or empowered or aware or compassionate you perceive yourself to be.
But, we can often exercise our power to think:
Each day — watching the news, listening to your friends or family, or even just seeing headlines — it is highly beneficial to take time to think:
Are there any current themes or narratives I have possibly become enslaved by?
What groups do I assign myself to?
What identities do I believe I am part of?
Which movements do I ascribe to?
Each and every group, belief, or movement very well could have talons of ideology sunken into the flesh of your mind, rendering you into a marionette for “the good of the party.”
You do not need to change your beliefs. You don’t need to leave the groups.
Just be willing to embark on the somewhat unpleasant journey of asking yourself “Am I possibly part of something using me to a nefarious end? If I was, could I figure it out?”
And if you are unwilling to believe you would ever be part of “the bad guys,” then I wish you all the best in the world and dearly hope you are correct.
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
