The Beginning — Stories of Nazi Germany
Both my parents survived Hitler growing up in Germany, they were WWII children, just teenagers when the war ended. No, we aren’t of the Jewish faith, but one side of my family has Jewish heritage and did resist Hitler. I won’t say which side here but I’m really proud of that side of my heritage. My Opa (grandfather) and Oma (grandmother) openly spoke out against Hitler and the Nazis until they could no longer do so without fear their children would be taken away or harm came to them. The village Mayor took my Oma aside one day and said “Stop attacking Hitler or I won’t be able to protect you and the kids anymore”.
My Opa, left his clubs and civic groups when they said they were part of the Nazi party. They ran their little farm and secretly gave safe haven to Jews who were fleeing and protected those who were “assigned” to work on their farm. It was my Opa that said to one of my parents, when just a wee little one “Hitler gives dumb people power and dumb people get mean when they have power”. It’s simplistic and not all right wing conservatives are dumb but there is truth in that statement. I grew up listening to some deeply horrible stories that I won’t share in detail here, but which have shaped my world view and stories which are being lost as the WWII generation dies. Stories which have caused me to wonder all my life, how can any society and it’s people get to the point of allowing and committing such atrocities? It’s multifactorial but one way is to deny the true nature of people and what some of them are capable of.
Accepting But Not Normalizing, Coping But Not Hating, The Middle Way
Now I’m NOT saying core trump supporters are Nazis but through them I start to see how the seeds of Nazism were sown in Germany and why it’s important to not worry about changing their minds as much as limiting their power. Trying to change minds and hearts isn’t possible for many of the conservatives/trump base, those who have voted republican all their lives and those who’ve voted republican since about 1964. Sure there are some on the fence types that may switch but based on the data/polling I’ve seen, about 30% are pretty hard core, life long republicans. There is some science to explain and support why it’s almost impossible to change their minds.
We can accept people for who they are while understanding why they hold such world views without hating them or giving them space to grow and gain power. Hating them won’t help fix any of the problems we face. This does not mean we have to allow their ideas to be accepted or normalized either, there is a middle way. Understanding their reasons and underlying drives allows us to live with them without letting the darker angels of their nature upend civil society.
The Science Behind Cruelty
In addition to the personal stories of WWII I grew up with, the lessons of slavery and history, I’ve witnessed some mean to atrocious acts in my life and developed a theory: The human ability to ignore reality is one of the greatest causes of unnecessary suffering. So the question which follows is; how can humans ignore reality, allow, aid and create such suffering? One part of the answer is lack of empathy. Some people lack empathy naturally, they are born that way.
A new study published today suggests that how empathic we are is not just a result of our upbringing and experience but also partly a result of our genes.www.sciencedaily.com/...
Many of the trump supporters show signs of the inability to empathize with the suffering of others. Even if someone else is going without health care or even food. They’ll rationalize away any cognitive dissonance they may have quickly. I’ve observed this with some of my trump voting friends. I was going through chemo and treatment for my cancer prior to the last two election cycles and asked them please, please don’t vote for trump or republicans this time, I need the insurance I have through the ACA. It was interesting to watch their reactions, the momentary widening of their eyes, as for a split second they contemplate that someone they care about may suffer. Then they snap back, their well defended world view was like a rubber band that’s been stretched and quickly released. They voted republican/Trump and happily celebrated the victory right in front of me and on FB. I know I’m not alone in this experience. Some I know have used CHIP and food programs in past years themselves but can rationalize reducing or taking it away from others hardly skipping a beat. They can talk about a neighbor or friend not having the money to see a doctor and not really worry too much about it later on, they accept it and move on. It’s a phenomena that progressives and liberals have pondered for years now. A lack of empathy enables them to distance themselves more easily from the suffering of others, even those close to them.
Sociology — Conservative and Liberal Morals, We’re the Same and Different
Trump said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters”, he’s not the smartest guy in the room but trump knows his base and how to manipulate them. Hitler did as well. A look into the psychology of conservative/trump supporters yields more clues as to why some simply will never, ever change their minds and why trump was quite literally correct in his statement. We all have the same basic morals. The difference between liberals and conservatives is how we weight or value these morals. Top level view, liberals tend to value fairness while conservatives tend to value ingroup loyalty and authority. I’ve been following Johnathan Haidt PhD for many years now. I’ll link his TED talk at the end of the diary for those interested. Here’s some information from a paper he co-authored. PDF linked below.
“the negative slopes for Harm and Fairness (the individualizing foundations) means that conservatives rated these issues as less relevant to their moral judgments than did liberals. Conversely, the positive slopes for Ingroup, Authority, and Purity (the binding foundations) means that conservatives rated these issues as more relevant to their moral judgments than did liberals.”
www-bcf.usc.edu/...
Figure 1, page 1033 of above link.
It’s not black and white, there is a slope and we can’t put people in simple boxes but there is a clear pattern. A group of people who value Ingroup (loyalty) and Authority over Fairness and Harm, who are less empathetic and possibly weren’t raised or nurtured to be more empathetic, combined with a lack education are people who are more likely to support and enact cruel policies. They’ll be more likely to scapegoat groups, ignore and commit horrible acts, such as the holocaust, support or turn a blind eye to slavery. On that continuum they’ll certainly not feel bad about someone dying due to lack of healthcare or deporting a mother or dreamer. They are willing to vote against their own best interest for the sake of loyalty to tribe/ingroup too. This is especially true if they perceive the harmed person(s) as being out of their group, different from them. Sometimes people surprise, change can and does happen, they’re the outliers though. Combine this with lower levels of empathy and we start to see why and how some people react and fight against social programs and tolerate oppression.
We had to fight a civil war to stop slavery and WWII to stop Hitler. Wars didn’t change Hitler’s hard core followers, nor did the Civil war change the minds of those who supported slavery. The wars forced those groups out of power and the most extreme of their ideas to the fringes of society. They and the ideas continue to exist.
How the Germans Deal with the Extremists- Acknowledge they Exist, Don’t Give Them Platforms to Organize or Proselytize
You won’t see any monuments depicting Hitler proudly seated on a horse holding his hand high anywhere in Germany, for starters. There are a lot of outside conditions which helped create and empower people like Hitler and the Nazis (The Austrian School of Economics, Treaty of Versailles and other societal pressures) but I’ll stick to what enables them right now, platforms /social media and organization.
As Germans can attest, you have to keep certain sociological impulses in check and not allow them to become empowered political extremists. The people whose inclination towards extreme ingroup loyalty and authoritarian leadership will always be with us. The Germans don’t give them the space to grow and build a following in media.
Unlike the United States, Germany places strict limits on speech and expression when it comes to right-wing extremism. It is illegal to produce, distribute or display symbols of the Nazi era — swastikas, the Hitler salute, along with many symbols that neo-Nazis have developed as proxies to get around the initial law. Holocaust denial is also illegal.www.nytimes.com/...
Germany does NOT allow “fake news” to be propagated, such as holocaust denial. A lie repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth. I know this runs right smack into the 1st Amendment but there are limits to free speech and the Germans are not an oppressed society with local newscasters repeating verbatim speeches from Big Brother Sinclair. It’s hard enough that we have groups of people who fall in the spectrum of tolerating oppression and cruelty, we also allow them to have platforms and organize. We allow politicians to validate, pander to, whip up and normalize the most negative impulses of their natures. This does not happen in Germany. Free speech can exist without allowing hate and propaganda.
How Many Does It Take to Tip the Balance Away From a Civil Society?
It’s an interesting parallel that the steady support number for trump has been falling in the 30ish% range, Hitler and his party couldn’t do much better. Admittedly this is only two data points and doesn’t prove anything about the human population as whole. Since Germany/Hitler and U.S./Trump were similar in that they weren’t supported by a majority, it’s fair to say, be mindful of the 30%!
Although Adolf Hitler had the support of certain sections of the German population he never gained an elected majority. The best the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) could do in a election was 37.3 per cent of the vote they gained in July 1932. When Hitler became chancellor in January 1933, the Nazis only had a third of the seats in the Reichstag.spartacus-educational.com/...
Hopefully the E.U. will continue to be successful in preventing hate and propaganda based groups from gaining power, especially important now that the U.S. is not leading the way on this issue.
Hardwired Humans
Humans, homo sapiens, have been cruel to each other (and animals) since the dawn of our existence. Some of that nature probably helped us survive, bullies protected tribes and tribes survived because of ingroup loyalty. It’s part of our evolutionary history and some aspects are hardwired more into some people than others.
A friend told me once, “Humans are trying to operate in a modern world with 50,000 year old software”. We are products of nature/genetics and nurture/environment/experience. There are people who are genetically predisposed to supporting leaders like Trump and have also been raised and reinforced to see the world the way they do. It’s also worth noting that a lot of them didn’t really choose to see the world the way they do, or believe the things that they believe.
Accepting the reality that we cannot change core republican/trump voters does not mean we are bad or ‘racist’ either. It also doesn’t mean we must dehumanize them or hate them. That’s a false zero sum argument that’s not supported in history, fact or even recent science. Hopefully I’ve helped the reader see a more detailed picture of why about 30% of people see the world the way they do. They aren’t all bad and we rely on some of their strengths. By seeing people for who they are, strengths AND weaknesses we are better prepared to not allow the worst of them, the worst of their innate nature to take advantage of us or our institutions. We can’t change most of them. They will be a part of our nation and culture for the foreseeable future. We can and must live with them only by being aware of what they can and will do given too much leeway, maintaining a balance. Sometimes we need their strengths to balance us out.
The focus should be on how we can move out of their oversized shadows and maintaining a healthier balance. Just know some of them will be kicking and screaming and complaining all the way.
Johnathan Haidt’s Phd — TED talk for those interested in learning more about his work in Moral Foundations.
Johnathan Haidt’s TED talk linked below, two warnings — it’s 18 minutes long and he’s got a right leaning slant to how he presents his data, but it’s not too bad. His work has helped me better understand why conservatives are the way they are. Also how we progressives/liberals could learn from this to understand where our weaknesses are, but I’ll save that for another day, another diary!