[mellow2020]

> I just sometimes ask myself if people in previous centuries thought and lived as superficially as today. Or if, piece by piece, as times fade, their bad aspects retreat to the background and their goodness shines especially bright? At any rate I think that the individual, regardless of outcome, has to be vigilant, and especially when it is made hard for them. You also believe that this can never be levelled upwards, as desirable as that seems. When there is levelling, it always happens downwards. But here, too, there is a brilliant opportunity offered by fate to prove ourselves. Maybe one should not underestimate that, either.

-- Sophie Scholl

[jacquesm]

Great quote and great person. And how her life ended is a good indicator that what I wrote isn't nonsense. But I actually meant it in a more present day technical and less all-out fascism way. Still, the principles remain the same.

[mellow2020]

She was arguably a bit careless in the moment that lead to them getting caught, and since pushing that stack of fliers wasn't really useful for their greater aims, that kinda proves your point as well. The idea of the White Rose not getting caught, so rather shortly before the end of the Nazi regime, and Sophie Scholl writing more letters, or even books, is fit to make me cry with homesickness. It's an unspeakable loss.

But otherwise, if you read the interrogation transcripts, I don't think she regretted anything. She knew what she was doing and why she did it, and she knew she did well. IMO her life ended so much better than that of people who just give in to pressure against their conscience. It's not like those are immortal, and then they have to spend the rest of their time with who they became, too. Some find a way back, most don't. As Shakespeare wrote, the coward dies a thousand deaths -- Sophie Scholl died but one, and it was rather majestic, if you squint just right.

I still wish she would never had a chance to prove her greatness in this particular manner and had survived instead, so don't take this as me negating your point.

[jacquesm]

All fair. And I feel much the same way. Pick your battles, know when to expose and when to stay anonymous. Evaluate everything in a situation like that from a risk perspective and make sure that you indeed engage those risks that will allow you to look back and say you don't regret any of it.

This can be very hard.