It’s okay, Jochen, but I do want to avoid false equivalences. If one refrains from using the term fascism until one has committed to meaning a specific thing by it, and then tries to use that meaning as an aid in sense-making, that is not the same as hurling epithets. Fascism looms not just over Germans, but over people. It happened to Germans and Spaniards and Italians and Argentines in particular eras, and they will unfortunately not only carry the latent rules of the game like everybody else does, but also almanacs of how various courses of play unroll, which are then available as a learning set for others. I wish there weren’t any people who suffer under that, but given that the past has happened, it seems not at all wrong to try to learn from it where possible.
Hindsight in the US will be 20/20, but if we are going to recognize that there is a serious problem and try to find some way to head it off, now would be a very good time to do that. Much better than after the problem has played out and we can affirm that, yes, that was the collapse of American society into barbarism. And later historians can say, as they always say, “How did people just let it happen, when surely there were many of them for whom that wasn’t at all wanted?” Well…. Perhaps — a Total Waste of Mailing-List Time — I can entertain you with how I ended up at Riefenstahl. 1. Joshua Cheptegei from Uganda won the 5k in the Tokyo Olympics, a race that was adjacent to the one I was urgently eager to watch, which was the men’s marathon in which Eliud Kipchoge created the kind of moment of grace I had been hoping for. 2. Last year in Atlanta, while riding in an Uber, the driver-woman was very concerned about flooding in Uganda, and I was aware I didn’t have a mental picture of Uganda’s location, topography, and geography. 3. Cheptegai seemed somehow similar to a Kipsigis name, but I was unsure, and wikipedia’d him. There I learned that he has a middle name Kiprui. Aha! He is a Kalenjin! 4. So where exactly is Uganda? Oh! It is just a continuation on the Kalenjin side of the part of Kenya spanning the East-African rift system on the north side of Lake Victoria. Of course. Why then are there fewer really successful Ugandan Kalenjin runners than Kenyans? Is it something about national wealth or corruption or development index? Or have the populations changed a bit going east. We can see, within Kenya, that the Kalenjin, the Maasai, and the Luo have very different relations to running (the Luo not eat all, the Maasai rarely and more in middle distance), and for some of these differences it is easy to understand why. 5. Related to that: since we know there was successful Bantu migration as far east as Kenya, Bantu groups among the major political pillars often opposed to the Luo, is there a large Bantu presence in Uganda? How does that affect politics and opportunities there? 6. I realize I _really_ need to fill in gaps in my knowledge of the population structure of the Nilotic peoples across that regions, and check whether I can reasonably-reliably identify them by look, as I normally think I can. 7. Riefenstahl had this photo-book of the people she called “Die Nuba”, which I saw many years ago (not a real group, which is in keeping with a woman of not-great intelligence but Dunning-Kruger levels of energy and self-assuredness): who were those people? My memory of them is of a Nilotic look, were they? (Never found a reliable answer to that question). 8. And oh, by the way, I remember criticism of Riefenstahl’s having skewed or staged things about the lives of the people she lived with; but had no frame to have a view of the criticisms at the time; do I have a frame to have a view now? 9. Somewhere in that stream, I ran across Sontag, realized I didn’t remember who she was or why she was at one time a meme, and off we go down the track of reading I forwarded. 10. That track of reading helps clarify places where I feel confused on many fronts. I hard long seen Nietzsche as an antidote to Platonism — where here, circling back to Nick’s question a week ago, I mean people who prefer their own preconceived notions to faithful witnessing of experiences — and a precursor to the existentialists. But Sontag makes me aware and cautious that Nietzsche is a more complicated figure than that. He is full of what she calls the fascist aesthetic: “My eagle and my snake”; living on “honey, ice-fresh” etc. Just stuff that seems arbitrary and nonsense if you aren’t coming from the ecstatic perspective. Honey is about as far removed from ice as anything I can imagine having in my mouth. So Nietzsche is coming from this complicated, scattered sensibility, as it seems in my eyes. On one hand, his life-affirming philosophy wants to get away from much of what I regard as poisonous in platonism and in christianity, and profoundly healthy. On the other hand, those who wanted to peg him as an icon of Nazism have material to draw from, and his own protestations, that he is not “a good German, but a very good European” become complicated to evaluate. But of course, who would possibly write all that irrelevant digression into a mailing-list post…. Eric > On Sep 24, 2021, at 7:03 AM, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]> wrote: > > Leni Riefenstahl? Ugh. Sounds like an example of Godwin's law: as an online > discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler > or Nazis approaches 1. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law > > Here in Germany there is nearly every week a documentary on TV about the time > of the Nazis, often at midnight. Hitler's dogs, Hitler's drugs, Hitler's home > in Austria, etc. For me it feels as if the past is haunting us. There might > be a psychological aspect behind (collective) spooky phenomena :-/ > > -J. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: David Eric Smith <[email protected]> > Date: 9/23/21 23:45 (GMT+01:00) > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] ivermectin > > So the Monbiot article below is really interesting. > > Let me put in the link to a pdf (I don’t know whether legitimate or in > violation of some paywall) to an article I mentioned before: > https://campus.albion.edu/gcocks/files/2013/08/Fascinating-Fascism.pdf > <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcampus.albion.edu%2fgcocks%2ffiles%2f2013%2f08%2fFascinating-Fascism.pdf&c=E,1,GD2kduWeTsQVaHex1Um8pFzIjkTJGq6FbLdUPmPYq-Ie7n_v8dwyTsarS140673LSz4XngkRXIx3D26xDKrwmYNXxkrCRYTCos402V0ekx_L&typo=1> > specifically the first section on Leni Riefenstahl and what Sontag called > “fascist aesthetics”, a term that appears to have quite strongly affected my > thinking, because many things keep coming back to it and taking an > orientation from it. (n.b. the criticism of Sontag’s philosophical style in > the great-fun article by Justin E.H. Smith that Glen forwarded a few days > ago; I am aware of that at the same time as sending this link because I think > there is worth in it.) > > That the Nazis should have advocated many things that (raised in other > contexts) we consider good choices, like non-destructive land management or > things of that sort, the Sontag article brings me to the question of not what > they endorsed, but why they endorsed it. > > I would quasi-summarize her idea of fascist aesthetics in a line or two by > saying that it wants ecstatic experience to be the ground for choosing. I > couldn’t tell you why my dislike for this orientation is as intense as it > appears to be — I”m sure it reflects something wrong with me, but I don’t > really care, reflecting something else wrong with me I’m sure — but it seems > to be commanding decision-making in a lot of areas at the moment. (b.t.w. > this is also why I can’t summon the delight in William James that some people > keep wanting me to experience, people who seem to think James and Peirce were > of a piece on what Pragmatism is, where to me they seem almost poles.) > > There seem to be communities that are now dismayed, or just bored, with the > way scientific argument gives you a back-trace to its conclusions. Arguing > that they follow from “first principles” is I think an error: all this > language is very much middle-out, and figuring out how to properly use a > middle-out language is a profound and interesting problem (“problem” sense of > “puzzle to be worked on”, not sense of “thing to be denied or rejected”). > But the back-trace connects some choices to other choices, and its big value > is that it is more than nothing. Getting more than nothing is rather a rare > prize, and something worth working toward and then protecting if you can have > a little bit. > > But those bored with it, who seem to endlessly repeat their position, and > when asked to clarify, will repeat it again, seem to have a position > something like “you’ll see when you see”. It is distastefully close, in my > perception, to those who will say “you really are a spiritual person, and you > just won’t admit it. When you stop resisting and admit it, you will come > around to where I am, and you will see.” That doesn’t seem to me like any > way to make decisions that differs from what leaves us in our current mess, > since people have been doing it forever. Yet those who are into it now are > convinced that this time they hold the true innovation. > > Very hard for me to understand. > > Eric > > >> On Sep 24, 2021, at 1:57 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fcommentisfree%2f2021%2fsep%2f22%2fleftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power&c=E,1,YQWY-Qx-D6GAp4uFSbw9DpsNm0UPherqjbJBTzVjSG_of5c03uW3M1Peo6dUo_IiTgPC8e0gxQA9PhkeNnQbLgsUGzPtJnH2zqUVd0qr3S7PDBI,&typo=1 >> >> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fcommentisfree%2f2021%2fsep%2f22%2fleftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theories-anti-vaxxers-power&c=E,1,YQWY-Qx-D6GAp4uFSbw9DpsNm0UPherqjbJBTzVjSG_of5c03uW3M1Peo6dUo_IiTgPC8e0gxQA9PhkeNnQbLgsUGzPtJnH2zqUVd0qr3S7PDBI,&typo=1> >> >> "The notion of the 'sovereign body', untainted by chemical contamination, >> has begun to fuse with the fear that a shadowy cabal is trying to deprive us >> of autonomy." >> >> On 9/23/21 5:24 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: >>> Well, I for one am always very suspicious of what my doctor tells me. >>> >>> It's not that I'm against modern medicine, IMO they do wonders, but are >>> their interests always aligned 100% with mine as a patient? Me thinketh >>> not, modern medicine is money-driven.I go to the doctor for advice, but >>> ultimately I claim responsibility for my own body; I don't abdicate my >>> health to somebody else. >>> >>> For example, I just listened to a documentary "Big Pharma - How much power >>> do drug companies have? "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z_W3yRA9I8 >>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z_W3yRA9I8> on Youtube, going into >>> details of the greed of the pharmaceutical companies. >>> >> >> -- >> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." >> ☤>$ uǝlƃ >> >> >> .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> un/subscribe >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,7QY-CB0jY0-3m9FXskvIwFDd6gkxOSryK3iKrpu8Kpq_xLuoWLeD8aDpo_2iCSo7lvmJRNfFLd2ZgFMsf8VaVIp3uU1n9mj6svjFnIv6NSpxC9TgfYIPkw,,&typo=1 >> FRIAM-COMIC >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,WpeKIobLFuTzoz0fxZwqZ7kE9SSkkusCGENMmVR9TgGBT_KAOh30A8j8-G7o_rBERbu62Fhu_SkruUgqknfMAQKaw3PWYDKunFdFF8nwftBENwcpO5fAwmTi5w,,&typo=1 >> archives: >> 5/2017 thru present >> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,Lttkm_XosvvuZ1Uc8nT4E07ohGjNgoMlt7w0RNXECcvxy3K9qkRHibfC8hjz_GFnqQdUPKmiShNEDUlyVt7ZDCbUtmv1iASjEUZbZUgFIxhpCSWDbw,,&typo=1 >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,eAY45PgVr1PP9Dvt9i1C1vUSAVBQbB_BnOdVViXBGss6ktCTtCz421VlmDY3EhelTqI4YNmHo6B2Ohsh70X4UcMkQ5cmN8IBkikskrWcO9Dcyum0NW17&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,ktRFDMexkCkr0eHOE4Oa1oU5BAAetJlogEEyywtkS9HJXM2LTlTZA7PvVA4pEK8jcAdOVD8eKw286jMPVQG00jbhodnAftpItdt3MUom&typo=1 > archives: > 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,WDNFbg5-sSNfeoyi-LGE3ojc6-2zlCDTFjB4hFuHr-rjcQJkGx0i_5tV93XpmmpUjO4kW9jJdI5N9u33tVMasNCuDUPi37VcovvctQGcmJZ-eytW-ydMNH0,&typo=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
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