If you can say and do terrible things, if expanding the official political vocabulary and the language of hatred is also becoming commonplace – there is a revolution of the inhabitants, and on the foreground the leaders of the populists, who transformed from marginal to mainstream.
Brünnhilde Pomsel was a “figure”. Her personal story is recorded in the fields of big history. Brünnhilde is marginal, a simple man, which, as she says, most. In 1942, Posel joined the Nazi party, because it had to be at work — she has held the position of one of the four secretaries of Goebbels. She is now 105 years old, just about her documentary film “German life” (A German Life). If this nice woman is totally evil, it is evil, according to Hannah Arendt, applied to the present criminal Adolf Eichmann, utterly banal.
“The banality of evil”: the times did not choose, they live a simple, humdrum life, with no sense of purpose, adrift. If a country such orders and not others, then the person they inclined to obey, to remain in the mainstream. Being in the middle of the crowd you’re acting just like the whole crowd. If you are uncertain – you drive them away: everybody’s doing it – and I do. “And why not? says today brünnhilde Pomsel, which after serving his term from 1945 to 1950, until his retirement in 1971 he worked for German radio All to do that.”
And it’s okay to adapt, to blend in with the environment, to be like everyone else, mechanically, without thinking, to divide the dominant, that is, the state point of view, not having their own views. In the logic of Hannah Arendt, Eichmann – adaptants, bureaucrat, thoroughly performing its work, the killer responsible for the “final solution of the Jewish question”, not even feel hatred towards their many millions of victims (such an ordinary human being, although not without prejudices – but who doesn’t? — made him and Jonathan Littell in the novel “the kindly ones”). Hey Lee, former student and lover of Martin Heidegger not know how the mechanism of adaptation, as the philosopher betrayed their teachers, friends, colleagues, from Edmund Husserl to Karl Jaspers, Yes, in essence, herself, uttered a monstrous speech to keep a habitual working environment, to stay afloat, to not fall out of the suggested circumstances, be able to think about high regardless of the state system, in his Todtnauberg black forest. Not to mention the fact that Heidegger’s wife Elfriede was real, ideological supporter of Nazism. It seemed that when Arendt wrote about Eichmann, she kept in mind his former lover and guru.
Case Pomsel the same, however, the scale smaller: plain stenographer and typist qualifications. Much the same worked to the East of Germany in the NKVD, MGB, KGB… She was, in General, still: before to get into public service, she had used their professional skills while working at the Jewish advocate and the German far-right activist. And Goebbels What Goebbels: she saw in his chief “noble elegance”, though noted its artistry – the ability Kafkaesque quickly become incredibly rude animal. Well, what can you do – work is work in excellent office, well-paid, prestigious, head even once to his Villa, invited. It is necessary to match the status to join the party – join the party.
How else comes that is the most – at least in the Soviet Union and in Russia today? Join the mainstream. Behave exactly and strictly the same logic as brünnhilde Posel, upscale professional, no not a monster, allowed to play “happy children” Goebbels with his typewriter. Well, Yes, some indifferent, and morally myopic that she is and she is noticed. Dealing with the past she remembers and brought up in the Prussian her addiction to obedience to the laws and regulations of the state.
Justifying herself, she said that there is nothing black and white there are many shades of grey, and even something terrible has its “bright side.” For example, Goebbels was his elegant suit and, perhaps, he was friendly with the staff.
Such reflection on the past is a rejection of reflection. And it is also the property of the dominant majority. Most no feelings of guilt. Famous formula, “I obey orders” — an extreme way of compromise with the age. Sometimes it is enough softer phrase: “I honestly did my job.” The liability is removed or shifted to others.
If you can say and do terrible things, if expanding the official political vocabulary and the language of hatred is also becoming commonplace – there is a revolution of the inhabitants, and on the foreground the leaders of the populist, mostly far-right and nationalist wing, trump, Orban, Le Pen. They are no longer the fringe – they are mainstream. And the crowd feels it, she feels this irresistible gravity of the mainstream, and itself clinging to the leader, justifying his words and deeds. Elite is also part of this crowd.
The project of the USSR was a revolution of the ordinary people. The current Russian political project is the same revolution of the inhabitants, by their indifference and sensitive radar adaptando has made possible the new Russian isolationism. Once democracy, albeit briefly, was mainstream, and now autocracy. To time and place to adapt to the weather. And in the same explanation of the same phenomenon 80% of the support of the leader. Which is not even so much a leader as a shortcut, the name of the mainstream.
Ignorance is no excuse. But stay in the crowd, free from reflection and mental suffering. If the crowd welcomed the speech of 1943 the chief of Frau Pomsel about “total war” is the justification for the Frau Pomsel. Not to mention the fact that one of the four secretaries of the Minister of propaganda, in her confession, she did not even understand the meaning of what is. How, in fact, used mechanical shorthand the words of two of its first customers — a Jewish lawyer and far-right figure, which is the meaning probably of something different.
On a family photos small she is standing next to his brothers, mom and dad. This is clearly a very respectable and law-abiding family. And if the fate of their country was different, this little girl had to serve one of the most notorious criminals of the twentieth century, it was not possible to sit in jail and make excuses for their lives before the documentary, at 105 years. She would have lived a decent life if only because her state was worthy.
But instead she had to join the majority that, even under the smell coming from the pipes of the camp crematoria, or reading the reports about the trials of enemies of the people in the Newspapers, I prefer something not to notice, and something to accept with indifference.
Representatives of the majority, for whom talk and talk leaders and leaders, while remaining marginal in the fields of history, unwittingly contributed to the destruction – physical and moral — million for historical battles, military or ideological.
Environment determines behavior, and most of all she is conformist, and because of the high responsibility of leaders and elites. Because banal is not only evil, but good. If in a particular state, it is the norm of behavior and shared value. Shared by the majority.
