Have more stuff to think over in this context. On the one hand...
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
"How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions? An obvious answer to this question would seem to be that the minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and makes its tool of them.
"Yet even this answer does not provide a complete solution. Another question arises from it: How is it that these devices succeed so well in rousing men to such wild enthusiasm, even to sacrifice their lives? Only one answer is possible. Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state, it emerges only in unusual circumstances; but it is a comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis... Here I am thinking by no means only of the so-called uncultured masses. Experience proves that it is rather the so-called 'intelligentsia' that is most apt to yield to these disastrous collective suggestions, since the intellectual has no direct contact with life in the raw but encounters it in its easiest, synthetic form--upon the printed page."
... and, with the spread of media, and how very much that's impacted white and blue-collar workers, I think the average person falls much more into Einstein's description here of 'intelligensia.' I also think it's kind of interesting and amusing from the perspective of people being able to go nuts intellectualizing at each other far more easily these days; here were two of the greatest minds of their time, and they're basically having a "coffeeshop at 2AM/stoned in co-ops/etc" type of conversation. It doesn't make me want to go back in time somehow to mock them, it makes me want to go back in time somehow to hug them very tightly.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-30 08:11 pm (UTC)"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Hermann Göring
I also wanted to point out http://pagesperso-orange.fr/chabrieres/texts/whywar.html - partly because of Einstein's comments about;
"How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions? An obvious answer to this question would seem to be that the minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and makes its tool of them.
"Yet even this answer does not provide a complete solution. Another question arises from it: How is it that these devices succeed so well in rousing men to such wild enthusiasm, even to sacrifice their lives? Only one answer is possible. Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state, it emerges only in unusual circumstances; but it is a comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis... Here I am thinking by no means only of the so-called uncultured masses. Experience proves that it is rather the so-called 'intelligentsia' that is most apt to yield to these disastrous collective suggestions, since the intellectual has no direct contact with life in the raw but encounters it in its easiest, synthetic form--upon the printed page."
... and, with the spread of media, and how very much that's impacted white and blue-collar workers, I think the average person falls much more into Einstein's description here of 'intelligensia.' I also think it's kind of interesting and amusing from the perspective of people being able to go nuts intellectualizing at each other far more easily these days; here were two of the greatest minds of their time, and they're basically having a "coffeeshop at 2AM/stoned in co-ops/etc" type of conversation. It doesn't make me want to go back in time somehow to mock them, it makes me want to go back in time somehow to hug them very tightly.