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Mein Kampf Study

jet57 said:
Satanism is alive and well, and those who are going to believe it will believe it - full stop. Shoving things underground will only drive mystique and attraction. Keeping it above ground and available is the only way to get people to understand it and watch for it: freedom isn't free; you have to work for it.
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I'm not sure it's a binary, though.

Anthrax is kept in labs, for very important and serious work. Some people need access to it. I don't believe our overall freedom is diminished because I don't have access to it myself. I can learn all I need to know about it without handling it or possessing it, or even fully understanding it. I simply know, from the name and what I've been taught about it, that it's bad and that I don't need it in my life. That my neighbours would likely appreciate me less if they knew I possessed it - worse, they would likely have serious concerns living close to me. Because they, too, would have learned that anthrax is bad, and they want to prevent it from breaking loose and spreading to others in a way that would cause harm.

On the other hand, I get your point. As I said, I'm conflicted, not resolute. This is more a point about the unique nature of this book...you can't really look at it like other books, given the number of dead associated with it, and how little redeeming value it offers.
 
bomberfox said:
Depends on mindset. The turner diaries is a convoluted bore mixed with dull instruction manuals and a very hypocritical and psychotic protagonist who leads a literal death cult who even bash the skulls of young white girls. Propaganda of the deed mixed with the demand for unforgiving loyalty and old paranoias. One would have to already be enamored or susceptible to it in order to be that much changed by it.
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For sure...but we have many instances where one person is all that is required to make a massive, negative impact on the earth, due to fanaticism, including the author of the book we're discussing. Not every person who picks up a gun will use it to shoot up a school, but we see demands for tougher gun control because a small number have. I struggle with both of these concepts, because I see valid arguments on both sides.
 
OlNate said:
For sure...but we have many instances where one person is all that is required to make a massive, negative impact on the earth, due to fanaticism, including the author of the book we're discussing. Not every person who picks up a gun will use it to shoot up a school, but we see demands for tougher gun control because a small number have. I struggle with both of these concepts, because I see valid arguments on both sides.
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I agree with this whole heartedly. I should have included this nugget.
 
OlNate said:
And yet, it's also a powerful tool of propaganda and and a muse for authors of human tragedy and human suffering. It's also an important historical reference. I get why some folks want it banned, while others want it preserved and taught. It posses power that few other books, outside of religious texts, ever achieve, with pretty devastating results. To be honest, I'm conflicted as to whether I personally believe it should be banned or taught, and I'm not big on censorship at all.
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In true democracies we do not ban books and I believe freedom of expression is a good value. Added to this is the unreadability of Mein Kampf. It is a mess of repetition and dated turgid topics which belong to a former age. Banning it is not worth surrendering our belief in free speech. It is not in the least dangerous because it would inspire no-one, much as Chairman Mao's little red book is gathering the dust of history.
 
OlNate said:
I'm not sure it's a binary, though.

Anthrax is kept in labs, for very important and serious work. Some people need access to it. I don't believe our overall freedom is diminished because I don't have access to it myself. I can learn all I need to know about it without handling it or possessing it, or even fully understanding it. I simply know, from the name and what I've been taught about it, that it's bad and that I don't need it in my life. That my neighbours would likely appreciate me less if they knew I possessed it - worse, they would likely have serious concerns living close to me. Because they, too, would have learned that anthrax is bad, and they want to prevent it from breaking loose and spreading to others in a way that would cause harm.

On the other hand, I get your point. As I said, I'm conflicted, not resolute. This is more a point about the unique nature of this book...you can't really look at it like other books, given the number of dead associated with it, and how little redeeming value it offers.
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It has no redeeming value: it is a chronicle of someone's mind. The ONLY value it offers, as I said earlier is like that Caligula's diary - if had one. Historians would scoop that up in a heartbeat.
 
Jean-s said:
In true democracies we do not ban books and I believe freedom of expression is a good value. Added to this is the unreadability of Mein Kampf. It is a mess of repetition and dated turgid topics which belong to a former age. Banning it is not worth surrendering our belief in free speech. It is not in the least dangerous because it would inspire no-one, much as Chairman Mao's little red book is gathering the dust of history.
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jet57 said:
It has no redeeming value: it is a chronicle of someone's mind. The ONLY value it offers, as I said earlier is like that Caligula's diary - if had one. Historians would scoop that up in a heartbeat.
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As I said, I do struggle with this one. It seems like an obvious, reasonable thing to ban a book that lead to the deaths of so many....yet I'm generally against censorship. So, when I struggle with stuff, I research it more, to try to understand better, to make a better personal decision (understanding that it's just a decision on my own opinion, not that it's going to drive anything one way or another, in case I was sounding conceited there...hehe). I found the following article, and I suppose I agree with it. I'll drop it below, because it does lend a good perspective on the topic at hand.

Does “Mein Kampf” Remain a Dangerous Book? | The New Yorker
 
OlNate said:
As I said, I do struggle with this one. It seems like an obvious, reasonable thing to ban a book that lead to the deaths of so many....yet I'm generally against censorship. So, when I struggle with stuff, I research it more, to try to understand better, to make a better personal decision (understanding that it's just a decision on my own opinion, not that it's going to drive anything one way or another, in case I was sounding conceited there...hehe). I found the following article, and I suppose I agree with it. I'll drop it below, because it does lend a good perspective on the topic at hand.

Does “Mein Kampf” Remain a Dangerous Book? | The New Yorker
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I am sorry I was unable to persuade you that banning books is not our way and that Mein Kampf is so impossible to read and way outdated that it is a danger to nobody.

Instead you provided a link to an article by Adam Gopnik from The New Yorker because you agree with it. But you do not say what you agree with in the article. So, I guess in this thread which we are supposed to be debating Hitler's book, we are bound to debate the Gopnik article too. I certainly disagree with Gopnik that it is arguable Mein Kampf should be banned because only Nazis buy it. That is a crazy thing to say as he does in not so many words in his second paragraph. He wants to deprive devotees of Hitler from being able to read the book. I consider this a slur on people like myself, scholars, and the general reader, who are not Nazis and whose purchase of the book is not, as he puts it, "a symbolic act before it’s any kind of intellectual one". Please; give us a break. Ordinarily, I would put down the article at this stage, convinced that the author cannot be trusted to be objective. Gopnik lost me by his third paragraph where he calls Mein Kampf "creepy" and says something incoherent about politicians wanting to have "a childhood of a purer folk existence" when writing a memoir??? I have no idea what he is on about. I am supposing you see his point, OlNate.

Gopnik himself, like Hitler, has a style of writing, one I associate with American English, and specifically New York. He is a Canadian Jew who has been living in New York and on the staff of The New Yorker for 34 years. Calling Hitler a "loser" only confirms my opinion that he is pushing a line which might sound alright to an American ear. Gopnik quickly diverges from Mein Kampf and contrasts Hitler with other European fascists of the time. By now we are far astray. His idea is that Hitler sounds too bitter in his book to be inspiring followers. I am pretty sure Hitler never intended for his book to be in any way a substitute for his speeches and his uniformed image of himself and his storm trooper movement.
 
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OlNate said:
As I said, I do struggle with this one. It seems like an obvious, reasonable thing to ban a book that lead to the deaths of so many....yet I'm generally against censorship. So, when I struggle with stuff, I research it more, to try to understand better, to make a better personal decision (understanding that it's just a decision on my own opinion, not that it's going to drive anything one way or another, in case I was sounding conceited there...hehe). I found the following article, and I suppose I agree with it. I'll drop it below, because it does lend a good perspective on the topic at hand.

Does “Mein Kampf” Remain a Dangerous Book? | The New Yorker
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It's dangerous because neo Nazi groups rally around it.

But the book can't be banned in America. https://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf/dp/0395925037




.
 
Jean-s said:
I am sorry I was unable to persuade you that banning books is not our way and that Mein Kampf is so impossible to read and way outdated that it is a danger to nobody.

Instead you provided a link to an article by Adam Gopnik from The New Yorker because you agree with it. But you do not say what you agree with in the article. So, I guess in this thread which we are supposed to be debating Hitler's book, we are bound to debate the Gopnik article too. I certainly disagree with Gopnik that it is arguable Mein Kampf should be banned because only Nazis buy it. That is a crazy thing to say as he does in not so many words in his second paragraph. He wants to deprive devotees of Hitler from being able to read the book. I consider this a slur on people like myself, scholars, and the general reader, who are not Nazis and whose purchase of the book is not, as he puts it, "a symbolic act before it’s any kind of intellectual one". Please; give us a break. Ordinarily, I would put down the article at this stage, convinced that the author cannot be trusted to be objective. Gopnik lost me by his third paragraph where he calls Mein Kampf "creepy" and says something incoherent about politicians wanting to have "a childhood of a purer folk existence" when writing a memoir??? I have no idea what he is on about. I am supposing you see his point, OlNate.

Gopnik himself, like Hitler, has a style of writing, one I associate with American English, and specifically New York. He is a Canadian Jew who has been living in New York and on the staff of The New Yorker for 34 years. Calling Hitler a "loser" only confirms my opinion that he is pushing a line which might sound alright to an American ear. Gopnik quickly diverges from Mein Kampf and contrasts Hitler with other European fascists of the time. By now we are far astray. His idea is that Hitler sounds too bitter in his book to be inspiring followers. I am pretty sure Hitler never intended for his book to be in any way a substitute for his speeches and his uniformed image of himself and his storm trooper movement.
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Actually, quite the opposite. You did persuade me. The way I read this article, it speaks to the fact that it is a terrible book, but, ultimately not a dangerous one. :shrug:

But you might wanna check your tone, re: comparing a Canadian Jew to Hitler, in an effort to discredit him. I make room for English likely not being your first language, but figured I'd mention it, lest you undo your persuasion by sounding too Kampf-y... ;)
 
swing_voter said:
It's dangerous because neo Nazi groups rally around it.

But the book can't be banned in America. Robot Check




.
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Yeah, but the article makes a good point - these feelings and hatreds existed before the book. If they don't rally behind it, they'll rally behind something else.
 
OlNate said:
Actually, quite the opposite. You did persuade me. The way I read this article, it speaks to the fact that it is a terrible book, but, ultimately not a dangerous one. :shrug:

But you might wanna check your tone, re: comparing a Canadian Jew to Hitler, in an effort to discredit him. I make room for English likely not being your first language, but figured I'd mention it, lest you undo your persuasion by sounding too Kampf-y... ;)
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I always try to keep my tone respectful, OlNate. I see nothing sinister in pointing out that an article written in such a hostile way against Hitler's book was penned by a Canadian Jew who has lived in New York since his student days. He has picked up the lingo and tone in a similar way which I mentioned in an earlier post Hitler did from living in Vienna and reading the popular press there voraciously. To deliberately omit that Adam Gopnik is Jewish would be an act of self-censorship for fear of being labeled antisemitic.
 
Jean-s said:
I always try to keep my tone respectful, OlNate. I see nothing sinister in pointing out that an article written in such a hostile way against Hitler's book was penned by a Canadian Jew who has lived in New York since his student days. He has picked up the lingo and tone in a similar way which I mentioned in an earlier post Hitler did from living in Vienna and reading the popular press there voraciously. To deliberately omit that Adam Gopnik is Jewish would be an act of self-censorship for fear of being labeled antisemitic.
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I disagree, I think it's irrelevant... :shrug: To be honest, I didn't even consider the author, I simply read the opinion and logic.

But we're focussing on the wrong part - I'm just letting you know you're maybe sounding a bit edgier than you intended. The important part is that I agree with you, re: not banning. I wasn't 100% for banning in the first place, I simply was struggling with where I landed in general. Thanks for helping me make up my mind...this article brought me to the same conclusion, and I wanted to include it, because it was interesting.
 
OlNate said:
I disagree, I think it's irrelevant... :shrug: To be honest, I didn't even consider the author, I simply read the opinion and logic.

But we're focussing on the wrong part - I'm just letting you know you're maybe sounding a bit edgier than you intended. The important part is that I agree with you, re: not banning. I wasn't 100% for banning in the first place, I simply was struggling with where I landed in general. Thanks for helping me make up my mind...this article brought me to the same conclusion, and I wanted to include it, because it was interesting.
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I confess I didn't make it to the end of the article. I thought he was bringing in too much extraneous stuff. I have little doubt Adam Gopnik knows very well what his readers have come to expect from him and they will not be disappointed.
 
Jean-s said:
In true democracies we do not ban books and I believe freedom of expression is a good value. Added to this is the unreadability of Mein Kampf. It is a mess of repetition and dated turgid topics which belong to a former age. Banning it is not worth surrendering our belief in free speech. It is not in the least dangerous because it would inspire no-one, much as Chairman Mao's little red book is gathering the dust of history.
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Then again we are seeing an incredible resurgence of old hackneyed ideas and pseudosciences. When discussing the marketplace of ideas the actual currency is attention, not truth value. We are seeing the old lugenpresse tactic in the oval office. This is why people are grappling with the decision to ban it or not.
 
He wants to deprive devotees of Hitler from being able to read the book. I consider this a slur on people like myself, scholars, and the general reader, who are not Nazis and whose purchase of the book is not, as he puts it, "a symbolic act before it’s any kind of intellectual one". Please; give us a break.
Depriving devotees of hitler from further death cult insanity would be a mercy. Why would that be a slur if you are not a devotee of hitler?
 
Jean-s said:
I am sorry I was unable to persuade you that banning books is not our way and that Mein Kampf is so impossible to read and way outdated that it is a danger to nobody.

Instead you provided a link to an article by Adam Gopnik from The New Yorker because you agree with it. But you do not say what you agree with in the article. So, I guess in this thread which we are supposed to be debating Hitler's book, we are bound to debate the Gopnik article too. I certainly disagree with Gopnik that it is arguable Mein Kampf should be banned because only Nazis buy it. That is a crazy thing to say as he does in not so many words in his second paragraph. He wants to deprive devotees of Hitler from being able to read the book. I consider this a slur on people like myself, scholars, and the general reader, who are not Nazis and whose purchase of the book is not, as he puts it, "a symbolic act before it’s any kind of intellectual one". Please; give us a break. Ordinarily, I would put down the article at this stage, convinced that the author cannot be trusted to be objective. Gopnik lost me by his third paragraph where he calls Mein Kampf "creepy" and says something incoherent about politicians wanting to have "a childhood of a purer folk existence" when writing a memoir??? I have no idea what he is on about. I am supposing you see his point, OlNate.

Gopnik himself, like Hitler, has a style of writing, one I associate with American English, and specifically New York. He is a Canadian Jew who has been living in New York and on the staff of The New Yorker for 34 years. Calling Hitler a "loser" only confirms my opinion that he is pushing a line which might sound alright to an American ear. Gopnik quickly diverges from Mein Kampf and contrasts Hitler with other European fascists of the time. By now we are far astray. His idea is that Hitler sounds too bitter in his book to be inspiring followers. I am pretty sure Hitler never intended for his book to be in any way a substitute for his speeches and his uniformed image of himself and his storm trooper movement.
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Im sorry you get so triggered by someone calling a book creepy. Perhaps you should get some thicker skin before you begin to show more about yourself. Yes calling the childish want for a purer folk existence for what it is doesnt offend my sensibilities at all because such pure existence never existed and was a fantasy, a rather deadly fantasy. The only people that offends and that would be a slur against would be nazis. Perhaps getting less butthurt would be a great idea.
 
Jean-s said:
I confess I didn't make it to the end of the article. I thought he was bringing in too much extraneous stuff. I have little doubt Adam Gopnik knows very well what his readers have come to expect from him and they will not be disappointed.
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Should always read to the end of articles... ;) At the very minimum, you'll find the summary / conclusion at the bottom, you might have decided the rest is worth reading. And to be fair, can there really be enough extraneous stuff? You seem annoyed that Gopnik talks smack about the book...I don't think that's reasonable. If you're going to say that Mein Kampf is not a dangerous book in 2020, you almost need to have more than half of time on the extraneous (aka qualifying) stuff. It's that bad, from any number of angles.
 
OlNate said:
Should always read to the end of articles... ;) At the very minimum, you'll find the summary / conclusion at the bottom, you might have decided the rest is worth reading. And to be fair, can there really be enough extraneous stuff? You seem annoyed that Gopnik talks smack about the book...I don't think that's reasonable. If you're going to say that Mein Kampf is not a dangerous book in 2020, you almost need to have more than half of time on the extraneous (aka qualifying) stuff. It's that bad, from any number of angles.
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I don't know what more I can say about the Gopnik article. I pointed out several annoying statements he made in the first three paragraphs and he had lost me. People, like me, tend to put aside reading material that is not germane and even boring. I cannot be blamed for that. Incidentally, I couldn't get through Mein Kampf for the same reasons.

I do feel bad about the author of the opening post (Jet57) getting unresponsive comments in this thread. I would like to help him but I hardly know where to begin. He did remark that it was once a very popular book and undoubtedly it could have been found in many German homes in the first half of the last century. But this should not be taken to mean it was read. I suspect people tried but soon gave up.

I do have a suggestion that might breed life into this topic. In my first post, I noted that not everyone will have a copy of Mein Kampf and this could be a problem with referencing the book. If we are interested enough, we could all go to quotes online and begin there. If Jet57 agrees, this would keep us focused on the text itself and be able to debate the merits, if any, of Hitler's own statements. The site is known as Wikiquote and the Mein Kampf section can be found on it here:
Mein Kampf - Wikiquote

Some of us have already remarked that it is unquestioned how Adolf Hitler was a great orator but a writer of little or no talent. This brings me to the first quote from Mein Kampf found on the Wikiquote site: I know that fewer people are won over by the written word than by the spoken word and that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great speakers and not to great writers. (Introduction)
Now I agree with Hitler on this. There is nothing complicated about this statement and I do believe people are generally persuaded more by the spoken word than reading, especially in matters of politics.
 
Jean-s said:
I don't know what more I can say about the Gopnik article. I pointed out several annoying statements he made in the first three paragraphs and he had lost me. People, like me, tend to put aside reading material that is not germane and even boring. I cannot be blamed for that. Incidentally, I couldn't get through Mein Kampf for the same reasons.
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I guess that is the difference between some people.

Myself, I have always believed in trying to read the original source material. Not just relying upon what others say about it. This is simply because most commentators are biased in some way, and I want to read things without the bias.

In fact, one of the most revolting books I ever read in my life was given to me by a military S-2 (intelligence) officer. Even in 1989 he was concerned with the rise of militias in the US, and the infiltration of the Army by Klan and neo-NAZI organizations. The book was revolting and disgusting, but I also walked away from that knowing things that would be important a few years later.

51gAHY2nr7L._SX299_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


And I am glad I did. Because 6 years later after the attack on Oklahoma City, my father-in-law and others were telling me about how the "Arabs had to pay" for doing that. And I calmly told them that it was not Arabs. That when caught, the bomber would be a white man, with connections to the Militia movement. As well as connections to The Turner Diaries.

And when old Tim McAnalViolator was finally caught, that was all true. A white man, connected to the Militia movement, who not only sold that book at gun shows, he actually had pages from it describing the attack he emulated inside his car. Things I would not have recognized if I had only read a review of the book.

Yes, I have read Der Frankfurter's Mein Kampf. And The Turner Diaries, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, even The Communist Manifesto. I have also seen The Eternal Jew, Triumph of the Will, and Battleship Potemkin.

Because I strongly believe you have to "know your enemy". Doing otherwise is stupid.
 
Oozlefinch said:
I guess that is the difference between some people.

Myself, I have always believed in trying to read the original source material. Not just relying upon what others say about it. This is simply because most commentators are biased in some way, and I want to read things without the bias. ... Because I strongly believe you have to "know your enemy". Doing otherwise is stupid.
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Hitler wrote in Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf that reading should have an ultimate purpose of fulfilling the reader's potential: Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses.

I think this restricts the act of reading by eliminating reading for pleasure. Hitler was very politically focused with no time for what he would consider trivia.
 
So Hitler wrote the book and managed to murder 6 million European Jews.

And the surviving European Jews fled to Palestine and created the state of Israel.

The Israelis destabilized the Middle East.

A dozen wars happened in the Middle East which Israel won.

9/11 happened because of the destabilization.

Bush invaded Iraq because of 9/11

Thanks Hitler.
 
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Jean-s said:
Hitler wrote in Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf that reading should have an ultimate purpose of fulfilling the reader's potential: Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses.

I think this restricts the act of reading by eliminating reading for pleasure. Hitler was very politically focused with no time for what he would consider trivia.
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Who said a damned thing about "reading for pleasure"?

Obviously you did not understand a single thing I had said. So there is really nothing further to even discuss, if you think I would read garbage like Mein Kampf, the Communist Manifesto, or The TUrner DIaries for "pleasure". No, I read them because they are sick and twisted writings, created to try and make people ignore reality and in place put their own twisted sense of what should be. ANd sadly, far to many people stupidly believe it.

Reading for pleasure indeed. Begone with you.
 
swing_voter said:
The Israelis destabilized the Middle East.
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That region of the world has never been stable. Look back over 3,500 years of history, and it was always one group fighting another.

The Ottoman Empire only kept it "stable" as long as they did at the point of a gun. And once they left, it went right back t how it had always been before.

9-11 had nothing to do with the "Middle East", it was to distract the US from what was going on in another country far away from there.

And Iraq had not a damned thing to do with 9-11. It was the exact same UN Mandate that Iraq had been fighting against for over a decade.
 
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