[eaa]

There is an interesting book on this grim subject - the book "Yes to Life" of Viktor Frankl. He managed to survive concentration camps and stay mentally sane person. He describes the life of prisoners there and what was helping them to survive. Sad but remarkable book on both history and psychology.

Also, someone in this discussion said that as more and more people pass away there is less and less truth about WW2 and less and less respect to its lessons. There is also another interesting observation: the more related to WW2 people die the more Cold War #2 we see. Cold War hasn't become "hot" because during these times almost everyone except kids knew what is war and how it looks and that it causes. War heroes were not imaginary movie personalities, they were everywhere. And kids could hear real stories from someone who has seen it all with own eyes. And so, everyone knew that war is hell and that nuclear weapon can make war even worse, so that WW2 will look like a picnic.

But what do we have now? Movies about WW2 with expensive SFX and cheap plot, Call of Duty, etc. War isn't scary anymore. People are eager to fight something. This mad mad mad mad mad world.

[endymi0n]

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

— George Santayana

"I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive."

— Kurt Vonnegut

[karaterobot]

"The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes." — Mark Twain (attrib.)

Makes more sense to me.

[samatman]

"The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" -Karl Marx

Just to keep the quote chain going. Seems relevant to me at least...

[FridayoLeary]

> People are eager to fight something

Believe me, kids nowadays don't want to fight. They'll be sitting in the tanks, on the battlefield on tiktok or something. Worse, (better?) is the ideas they pick up from the movies. Superbly advanced civilizations, with an almost [Edit: actually] unbelievable array of weapons, still hang their fate on individual superheroes. Their principal weapons are (get this) modern day swords and spears and body armour! also, the weapons are quickly abandoned in favour of punching the opponent in the face, with no apparent effect, and they don't even do that properly. If anything, violent superhero movies should be encouraged.

[Supermancho]

> Believe me, kids nowadays don't want to fight.

This zeitgeist is not ubiquitous. There are plenty of newly minted adults who jump into the military. Not all of them are lifers, but the government incentives are very good for the poor facing minimum wage at a McDonald's.

[jopsen]

I suspect OP is saying that something like conscripting people to war wouldn't be popular today.

I also doubt it would be popular with helicopter parents :)

[bawolff]

It wasn't popular during either world war for a lot of people (from what i remember from my [canadian] high school history, quebec in particular wasn't thrilled about conscription)

[rhodozelia]

Thanks for your comment. In ww1 about 25,000 conscripted Canadians were sent over seas, in ww2 12,000. Many more were conscripted but didn’t leave the country. I didn’t realize Canada had conscription at all, or the divide between French and English.

[jopsen]

That's a good point..

But my impression was that it was more tolerated.. with an attitude like: "this is my war", as if every generation has a war to fight.

[bawolff]

At the end of the day, war is pretty different when its a plausible existential threat, instead of just going violent adventuring in some back water that had no realistic chance of ever hitting back.

[derivagral]

I'll second Frankl. I enjoyed his (other) books around love and searching for meaning, drawing from his experience. I'll have to check that one out as well. Very humbling stuff.

[odshoifsdhfs]

It is still one of the most important books i ever read, but quick note, yes to life is the original title, still in german version, but currently in english it is usually published as ‘men’s search for meaning’

[lapetitejort]

The average person on the internet can view more war and carnage than even the average soldier in WWII (remember that the majority of the fighting forces don't actually "fight", per se). We can also connect to survivors of even the smallest of conflicts. We're steeped in the miasma of geopolitics. For sure, it's nowhere near as saturated as post-WWII, but we are still connected to the sad reality of violence.

[throwaways885]

Any casual observer of history knows that reading/watching content about war is nothing like the reality.

[jopsen]

True, but prior to the world wars the general view of war was far more glamorous.

English poets today don't write how war is great for the spirit or whatever...

Sure, there's still plenty who don't quite get how bad armed conflict actually is.. but it's less romanticized today.

[smegger001]

no not in the same way, we instead live it vicariously in movies and games, and if we die we reload and go kill more "other" be it Nazi Communist or Islamic Fundamentalist, we go shoot more enemy a get a steady drip of dopamine with every virtual bullet.

[jopsen]

In "All Quiet on the Western Front" I recall one of the characters teachers encouraging the young kids to go... Did your teacher preach about the glory of fighting for freedom in Iraq?

Reading wikipedia it seems when the book came out it was critically received by some for "it's pacifists agenda".

Sure, we still glorify warfare, but our culture and tolerance for casualties have changed dramatically.

[echelon]

> There is also another interesting observation: the more related to WW2 people die the more Cold War #2 we see.

I might be misinterpreting, but many in Gen Z seem to consider WWII and Nazi history as a kind of meme to joke about. (9/11 too, for that matter.)

I'm worried we might be destined to forget the lessons we learned. The rise of domestic terror, hate, and partisanship doesn't help.

[caslon]

It's called dark humor. Tragic events can be respected and grasped without some puritanical concept of them being "untouchable" subjects. A joke about 9/11 is almost certainly taking advantage of (and probably directly in opposition to) the exact attitude that lead to it becoming "off-limits" in the first place, and playing with it.

[mhh__]

That and it's important to counteract people in high office/s around the world using 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to achieve their own ends.

[tombert]

Wait, really? I'm a millennial, not gen-z, but I feel like Nazi/WWII jokes were way more popular in the 90's and early 2000's than they are now.

For example, in Seinfeld, they had a character called the "soup Nazi", a character that was extremely asshole-ey about who he gave soup to. This was not a controversial episode or anything, and became one of the most quoted episodes of the series. Nowadays I'm not sure if that would be considered "ok."

I feel like the rise of domestic terror, white nationalism, and fascism is scary, but seems to a) by mostly composed of millenials my age and older, and b) a lot more complicated than some edgelord humor.

That said, despite the fact that I love edgey subversive humor, I agree that trivializing things as "just jokes" isn't a good thing; if it means fewer memes, I can live with that.

[kevin_thibedeau]

There is a long history of lampooning nazis for comedic effect, very often performed by Jewish comedians. Hogan's Heroes is a sitcom about POWs sticking it to the foolish krauts. The concept would never fly today but it was standard fare for post war comedy. The children who grew up with that culture continued using it into the 90's.

[tombert]

> The concept would never fly today

I mean I don't know if I would go that far; things like Hipster Hitler got a fair amount of traction, at least for a bit [0]. Hardly indicative of the entirety of human culture, and obviously it's not a major network sitcom like Hogan's Heroes (or Seinfeld).

Also, a staple of the Call of Duty franchise is a tongue-and-cheek mode of running around killing zombie Nazis, isn't it? (I admittedly haven't played it), and it's not like "Iron Sky"[1] was meant to be taken super seriously.

I think it's unnecessarily reductive to say "one generation is ok with subject X and another generation isn't." I don't think humans really form big, homogeneous groups completely based around the year they were born.

[0] http://www.hipsterhitler.com/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky

[Garvey]

JoJo Rabbit?

[rendall]

Anglophone millennials have a reputation for being humorless, self-righteous and fragile. Hopefully, this is untrue.

[tombert]

I think it's kind of silly to act like groups of people separated by year really has any meaning for most things. I (an Anglophone millenial) tend to enjoy really edgy subversive comedy, as do most of my friends of the same age. My grandmother (a bit too old to be a boomer) will get upset if I say any word that could be considered vulgar.

[rendall]

> I (an Anglophone millenial)...

No need to tell us this, tbh. Your easy reference to "the rise of domestic terror, white nationalism, and fascism" to rationalize shutting down humor already marked you as a millennial, my dude, your claims to enjoy edgy humor notwithstanding.

Humor has unsettled fragile, self-righteous authoritarians throughout history, including but sadly by no means limited to, fascists. Attempts to shut it down are always concerning. They will never say "we want to stamp our boot on the face of humanity" as the reason for shutting down humor. It will always be a plausible reason: "we are at war" or "some things are too serious to joke about" or "vulnerable people need our protection"

Embrace your love of edgy humor. It's how people deal healthily with their anxieties and concerns.

[tombert]

So, I guess you didn't really read my other posts in this thread; getting upset about certain jokes is hardly unique to millennials, and it's pretty silly to act like it is.

I realize I didn't make it as clear as I'd like (and that's my fault), but I wasn't suggesting "shutting down" humor. What I was trying to say (unsuccessfully) was that we should potentially be less tolerant of certain humor en masse via social pressures. I'm really not in favor of having a government entity disallowing humor.

For example, throughout the 90's and early 2000's, it used to be somewhat tolerated to use gay stereotypes to make fun of gay people. Eventually we realized (for the most part) that these stereotypes might be harmful, and for the most part have stopped making these kinds of gay jokes. It wasn't like the government stepped in and said "it's illegal to make fun of gay people", we just socially moved on from that.

[tomc1985]

So how does one explain South Park, Chapelle's Show, or George Carlin?

[samatman]

Gen X, Gen X, and the Silent Generation?

[tomc1985]

The first two are most definitely for a millenial+Gen X audience. Carlin is arguably Gen X but as an elder millenial I heard a lot about him from the folks I looked up to.

[bawolff]

Wait what?

Why would making nazis the but of a joke not fly today?

[Applejinx]

Among other things, they would object.

[bawolff]

Pretty sure nobody gives a shit what the nazis think.

[rendall]

Ostensibly, some topics are off the table because it would upset vulnerable people and we cannot have that. The real reason is that authoritarianism is on the rise on both the left and the right, and shutting down humor is one method to assert control.

[shard]

"Iron Sky: The Coming Race" was released only 2 years ago. Have things changed that much since then?

https://www.cinecity.nl/sites/default/files/images/movies/35...

[rendall]

Disclaimer: It could legitimately be argued that these folks were canceled for lack of funny, or for anti-Semitism, and not their Nazi jokes, per se. But canceled for Nazi jokes:

https://www.queerty.com/sharon-needles-banned-from-performin...

https://www.vulture.com/2017/03/samantha-bee-apologizes-to-c...

https://www.thewrap.com/last-man-standing-canceled-tim-allen...

https://forward.com/fast-forward/424615/comedian-isaac-butte...

[cm2187]

When you saw the wide support for communism after the war and the blindness to its own concentration camps and genocides, a lot of people who lived ww2 didn't really respect its lessons either.

[eaa]

Well, your post has no question, but I will comment anyway.

First of all, I am not going to defend soviet concentration camps, USSR has had it's own share of sins. But comparison of Third Reich and USSR is an anti-communist propaganda cliché. For obvious reasons: no jew could become a member of national-socialist party, but anyone could become a communist. So, no matter how disgusting the stalinism was, it cannot be compared to nazism.

As for popularity of communism, well, Red Army was victorious, USSR was one of those who survived and won, so it's ideology was gaining supporters. There were many true believers in ideas of communism. E.g in socialist Czechoslovakia there was an attempt to build "socialism with a human face." In USSR there was a generation called "sixtiers" who were true believers in communism but saw stalinism as something horrible that should never happen again. But, for better or for worse, it looks like believers was the last thing the communist party needed.

By the way, the book "Monday begins on Saturday" by Strugatsky brothers is exactly about a RnD institute (almost) full of people sincerely trying to make world a better place. Strugatsky brothers were believers themselves. To the end of USSR they have become bitter haters.

PS. I am not stating that communism is good or better than capitalism.

[mhh__]

The double agent Oleg Gordievsky was at heart a sixtier, and after hearing about the demise of the prague spring, while either drunk, stupid, or unbelievably brave - if I have the story right - actually indicated his desire to defect, while on duty as a KGB officer in Denmark, by phoning his wife and going on a tearful tirade against the Soviet Union.

He knew the line was bugged, likely by both PET and the KGB. His cries were heard, and after a "chance" meeting at a squash game he became a double agent, years later stationed in London where he nearly became the rezident (~CEO) at the Embassy. He was betrayed by Aldrich Ames at some point around 1985, and went on to become the only (as far as I'm aware) person to be exfiltrated from the Soviet Union directly under the nose of the KGB. Not a bad life story.

[pmoriarty]

"First of all, I am not going to defend soviet concentration camps, USSR has had it's own share of sins. But comparison of Third Reich and USSR is an anti-communist propaganda cliché. For obvious reasons: no jew could become a member of national-socialist party, but anyone could become a communist. So, no matter how disgusting the stalinism was, it cannot be compared to nazism."

Wait, your whole argument for why Stalinism can not be compared to Naziism was that jews could become members of the communist party?

[Viliam1234]

And the Jews who became members of the Communist Party, even those at the top of it, were still not safe from the anti-semitism of the regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD_trial

[eaa]

Not quite.

Stalinism/communism provided you a moral/ideological choice: to be part of it or to oppose it. Although sometimes people who were taking the side of stalinism and were active in whistleblowing and finger pointing in the name of ideological purity were later repressed themselves.

Nazism, on the other hand, gives you no choice if you are a jew. It is already decided for you.

But again, stalinism was awful. I am not going to defend it. I too have some far relatives who died because of it. My grandmother survived thanks to luck. But to compare communism or even stalinism to nazism is wrong.

[baybal2]

Not quite.

> Stalinism/communism provided you a moral/ideological choice: to be part of it or to oppose it. Although sometimes people who were taking the side of stalinism and were active in whistleblowing and finger pointing in the name of ideological purity were later repressed themselves.

The point is there them being repressed themselves. Stalin, & Co. were rather indifferent to who was pointing fingers at whom with regards to who goes to GULAG first.

Very often both the "stukach," and his victim were sharing the same train to Magadan.

[cm2187]

The irony of course being that the soviet union was no stranger to antisemitism (an heritage that a lot of modern leftist organisations perpetuate).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Uni...

[yyyk]

"But comparison of Third Reich and USSR is an anti-communist propaganda cliché. For obvious reasons: no jew could become a member of national-socialist party, but anyone could become a communist."

The main reason Jews could become communist in the USSR is that Stalin died before he could commit his own explusion/genocide. Had he lived, he would have likely used the Doctor's Plot to deport Soviet Jews to Siberia. Read Stalin's Last Crime:

https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-Last-Crime-Against-1948-1953-...

[travismark]

several million people died in the famine during the initial forced collectivization in Ukraine and other soviet states. Walter Duranty, an American reporter lied to the West about the extent of the famines and added to many elites' delusions about soviet communism. this isn't propaganda, it's history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

[eaa]

I know. Four little sisters & brothers of my grandma among them.

[Libkarma]

"no jew could become a member of national-socialist party"

Hitler's no.2 was Jewish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Maurice

[samatman]

That a one-eighth Jewish man was allowed to stay in the Party due to a personal dispensation from the Führer, against Himmler's strenuous objections, does not make the point you seem to be aiming at.

[gotoeleven]

We're fine with the ones in china because we get cheap stuff with two day delivery from amazon

[whythre]

I’m not fine with it, and Amazon’s practices are gross. I wish we as a global community would put more pressure on China rather than turn a blind eye towards their more heinous acts.

Avoiding buying Chinese goods seems almost impossible, we have outsourced also much manufacturing now.

[guythedudebro]

I'd say better evidence that people didn't respect WW2's lessons is the constant equivocation you see of Nazi Germany with the USSR.

[Mediterraneo10]

This is a view held by actual Eastern European Jews who first survived the Holocaust, and then after the USSR's arival saw their compatriots either imprisoned locally or deported to Siberia, or living in constant fear of such for the long years until Stalin died. For just one of many, many examples of this "out of the frying pan, into the fire" feeling, I can recommend the work of Imre Kertész.

[guythedudebro]

The only reason the term "Eastern European Jews" refers to actual living people is because Nazi Germany was defeated (primarily by the USSR).

It's not a defense of Soviet crimes to say that the Nazis were unequivocally worse.

To place their "evilness" on the same order of magnitude means you're not considering generalplan ost's fulfilment as worse than our current timeline.

[d0mine]

it is just the cold war propaganda

[knuthsat]

I think it’s the way history works. Napoleon was pretty horrible, yet even the enslaved Dalmatians forgot what he did and praise him for building roads.

I’m pretty sure Hitler will have a similar public image to Napoleon in a few hundred years. We do similar things with Roman emperors and praise their accomplishments forgetting the massive amounts of suffering they caused.

[eaa]

By the way, this is quite interesting! Most events of 20th century were related to ideology. But before that, in old times maybe only religious wars were close to this. Other wars and conflicts were good old attempts to conquer someone and/or to gain resources and power. But was there as much hatred as produced by ideology? E.g. during the napoleonic wars many people died but does someone hate France because of Napoleon? I guess not. Or take WW1, it was only 107 years ago. Surely a lot of people died. Does someone remember it with hatred? Only as a great tragedy I think.

[knuthsat]

I'm pretty sure that you needed ideology to convince people to go to these incredibly long wars. It just gets washed away by other explanations given by the historians.

I mean, does Russia have memorials of their leaders? Germany also has a bunch of memorials even going back to Prussian days. Yet many of these individuals caused massive suffering.

[rkk3]

Aside from the similarly fated Russian invasions, they are completely different. Napoleon was not genocidal and contrary to his popular reputation was not a warmonger. England & the coalition was generally the aggressor because they wanted to restore the Monarchy (The Bourbons) to France & weren't happy about the Rights of Man and Liberalism that the Grande Army was spreading.

[hollerith]

Was Napoleon the aggressor in his invasion of Russia?

[rkk3]

Yes. The backstory... England was very hostile to France, especially because of Pitt, and France lost its navy at Traflager so Napoleon's only option was to get all of Europe to Embargo England [1]. Russia eventually decided to trade with England anyway which is what triggered the French invasion to enforce the embargo. The other factor is that after Napoleon divorced Josephine, he had the option of marrying the daughter of the Emperor of Austria or Russia, he choose Austria which cooled relations with Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_System

[rendall]

Napolean and the Roman emporers of which you speak had some actual military victories to counterbalance their other atrocities. Hitler brought nothing but ruin and dishonor to his beloved German people, and lost the war to boot. No. History will remember Hitler forever as a blustering fool who invented industrial scale genocide. He'll be sitting alongside Nero and Caligula in the collective memory, not Napolean and Julius Caesar.

[knuthsat]

This is the current sentiment yes, but time will shed a bunch of facts.

I personally find Napoleon and Julius Caesar as completely uninspiring figures. Their accomplishments are worthless but for some reason praised from the perspective of history.

A big reason for this is that history finds explanations after things happened. They attribute to these "leaders" way too much.

[rendall]

> This is the current sentiment yes, but time will shed a bunch of facts.

Reveal these hidden facts! To which facts do you refer, exactly?

[knuthsat]

Facts related to the atrocities committed during his rule. The current sentiment does not really tell how the future will look at the events.

Russians have monuments that praise the rulers that were ruthless and brutally destructive towards the human spirit and it's been less than 100 years ago since these events happened.

Just because current rule in Europe/Germany finds him horrible it does not mean that in 200 years these events will be looked at with the same eyes.

[rendall]

> Facts related to the atrocities committed during his rule.

If I had asked "The facts to which you refer are related to what?" then that would be an excellent answer to the question!

I asked "To which facts do you refer?": What are these facts?

[samatman]

That strikes me as unlikely.

Attila the Hun is to this day considered a ruthless barbarian and killer. Practically no one could tell you who he was or what he did, but everyone knows he was a bad dude.

Hitler will be remembered for the ovens, long after everyone has forgotten Archbishop Ferdinand.

[samatman]

Apparently there are enough Hungarians around to punish me for this one!

Apologies to my Magyar friends! But what I said is certainly true in the English-speaking world.

We can only hope that Hitler doesn't become a culture hero on the same fashion.