This morning I watched a recorded episode of 60 Minutes while doing my stretching and flexibility exercises. It was about the discovery of a photo album that belonged to a Nazi officer who took part in the horrendous killing of 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, about a million of whom were Jews.
You can see the episode via this You Tube video.
The photo album mostly showed the everyday side of living at Auschwitz from the German perspective. Several photos showed a Nazi shaking hands with his dog, just as many dog-owners do. There were pictures of smiling Germans listening to a man playing the accordion, along with Nazi officers flirting with female secretarial staff.
A man talks in the 60 Minutes episode about how he was surprised to see his grandfather in the photos, as I recall that he said he didn't know much about what his grandfather did in the war. A family photo showed the grandfather at a post-war gathering, looking like a kindly senior citizen. Asked to describe his relationship with his grandfather, he said it was normal.
Yet his grandfather was one of the Nazis who murdered over a million people at Auschwitz. Most would say that anyone who did this is horribly evil. But after the war, his grandson didn't view the man as evil. He was just an elderly relative.
There's no end of theories about how otherwise kind and gentle Germans turned into Nazi war criminals. I'm not at all an expert on this, and what I say below is very much open to criticism. While it makes sense to me, I realize that some will feel that I'm being too easy on the perpetrators of the Auschwitz horrors. So be it.
After I watched the 60 Minutes episode, I did my usual pre-meditation reading. I began reading a book that I'd bought after I'd seen it mentioned in a comment on my blog by Ron E., who has similar views on the mind, neuroscience, and selfhood (or the lack thereof) as I do. I just had time to read the Introduction to Selfless: The Social Creation of "You" by Brian Lowery, a social psychologist and Stanford professor.
Wow. Very impressive writer and thinker. I was instantly taken both by Lowery's style and message. Here's how the Introduction ends, with a summary of his central thesis.
I won't pander to what we want to believe about ourselves: that there is someone in there, inside you, waiting to be set free, to live the life of your dreams. Or that we are, or can be, in complete control of our lives or even know our selves deeply and truly.
We live our lives in complex relation to people and systems. Your parents, siblings, friends, and romantic partners affect who you were, are, and can be. The way we operate within society's institutions limits what we can do, and what you can conceive of.
Daydreams of who you can be, what your life might be, or have been, are limited by the cultural materials you have to work with. We can only create from what's available to us.
You are the product of the social world you inhabit. As such, there is no simple formula, no paint-by-numbers route to "fixing" your life. To change your circumstance — to take care of your self — is a collective effort.
Others create us and we create them. If we want to understand our selves, we must first understand this give-and-take.
In the 60 Minutes episode, when asked to explain how tragedies like Auschwitz could happen, a woman said that it is when a government gives permission. She didn't say that evil people are responsible. After all, there is no such thing as an evil person. This assumes that we humans come with simplistic labels attached to us: good, evil, saintly, sinner, genius, idiot.
Which almost certainly isn't true, because it goes against what we've come to know about human behavior. This is very much in line with what Lowery says in his Introduction.
It's obviously not just who we love. What we think of as right or wrong, for example, is also deeply affected by the social world we inhabit. Should children be allowed to play away from their home without supervision? At what age is marriage appropriate? Under what circumstances, if any, is it okay to kill another human being?
Answers to these questions have differed across time and continue to differ across cultures and communities.
If you read any of the wildly popular self-help books out there, you might get the impression that we should not want to be shaped by our social environments. Many of these books focus on helping you be unapologetically, unreservedly, your true self.
This book doesn't argue against this aim as much as argue that it's not possible. People want and need social engagement, which means we can't live completely free of external influences and constraints.
…What you believe about me affects the way you interact with me; your beliefs and actions, in turn, affect the nature of my self. Whether I accept or reject your view of me, it will change me. We bring multifaceted selves to our interactions, and in these interactions co-create each other again and again.
Selves don't emanate from some ineffable light within people. Instead, selves are created in relationships.
During World War II, social causes and conditions led the man's grandfather to become a Nazi who cruelly participated in the killing of over a million innocent people at Auschwitz. After the war, social causes and conditions led the same man to be a kindly grandfather to his family.
Different selves arise in different social circumstances. This happens with all of us. It just is much more dramatic when it happens in a setting like Auschwitz.
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In short .. I am not to blame for what I do … I was my hands in innocence like Pilate.
Because:
[1] there is no god = no authority besides myself to account to
[2] there is even no self, whatever i do etc is done by material processes
[3] and those things that are done are caused by the social circumstances
There is no actor that acts and can be held responsible for the effects of the action.
There is only material…material in movement
Time for coffee.
“Kurt Gerstein (11 August 1905 – 25 July 1945) was a German SS officer and head of technical disinfection services of the Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS (Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS). In 1942, after witnessing mass murders in the Belzec and Treblinka Nazi extermination camps, Gerstein gave a detailed report to Swedish diplomat Göran von Otter, as well as to Swiss diplomats, members of the Roman Catholic Church with contacts to Pope Pius XII, and to the Dutch government-in-exile, in an effort to inform the international community about the Holocaust as it was happening. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote the Gerstein Report covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died of an alleged suicide while in French custody. ”
“In the 60 Minutes episode, when asked to explain how tragedies like Auschwitz could happen, a woman said that it is when a government gives permission.”
This reminded me of the Milgram experiment of the 1960’s where volunteers were given roles of ei-ther teacher or learner. Under the supervision of an authority figure (person in white coat) the teacher was told to administer electric shocks to the learner (who were pre-told to yell out whenever they felt a vibration.) The upshot of the experiments was that when the authority figure told the teacher it was right to proceed, then they would administer shocks (they believed) up to 450 volts (which was actually just a mild vibration) although the learner was crying out in pain. Interestingly, when the authority person was Out of the room the teacher would keep the shocks lower.
The experiment purportedly showed that ordinary, otherwise reasonable and moral people would, given a significant reason, perform acts that under normal circumstance they would never consider.
I guess it needn’t necessarily be a government; any authority figure or leader who is able to gather people around a particular issue or cause, could incite them to fight to the point of violence. Even some conspiracy theories, put forward logically enough are sufficient to generate aggressive and offensive replies – and sometimes actions.
Lowery: – “You are the product of the social world you inhabit. As such, there is no simple formula, no paint-by-numbers route to “fixing” your life. To change your circumstance — to take care of your self — is a collective effort.”
Even though the self is a construct, as Lowrey points out it is a complex mixture of our particular social worlds that has been influenced and continues to be influenced through our continual exposure to the particular cultural environment we inhabit.
The self does exist, but is not what we think it to be. It is what we believe to be our identity – our gender, our culture, beliefs, work or career, skills, strengths and failings along with the many experiences we identify with. All these – and more – are what we believe our ‘selves’ to be. They define our lives – but within that framework, we have the ability to choose (not free will) from this vast store of experiences.
The ’not-self’ concept is more about understanding what constitutes the ‘self’, how it arises and its effects, so instead of believing we have a fixed, permanent identity, the self is seen, as Lowery indicates, an on-going collection of experiences garnered from our interaction with our social environment.
Our choices then are dependent on our experiences. But choices can change; all that is needed is to be able to assimilate other experiences, perhaps facts that we have not considered and to allow them into our mental repertoire.
Sh*t in = sh*t out.
In other words — ‘Start with a false premise and automatically you’ll reach a false conclusion’.
The plandemic proved just how easily the majority of humans could turn against a minority of humans. Those humans who were simply maintaining a HUMAN right to have autonomy over their OWN bodies. All for a now proven LIE.
Also, all you need to do now, is watch how the world allows a “monster” to commit genocide in Gaza, and allows the same monster to have nuclear weapons,. This same monster who tries to annihilate others for having those same weapons, even if they just think they have them
I rest my case. Who OWNS the world? We all know. Pure evil for greed and no love or compassion there. This monster state can criticise anyone and everyone, but low and behold if anyone dares to criticise “him”.
What I should have added, is, you are all full of pedantic garbage. The truth of the matter is, YOU the vaccinated believed the mind controlling LIES, and completely turned against the unvaccinated, IN VIOLENCE. Your rhetoric is total bull shit.
Pari, not trying to insult but you need counseling or psychiatric help.
😂😂dj,
How is the argument any different from those who betrayed the Jews to the Nazis? Neighbours betraying neighbours, friends betraying friends. About how humans can so readily turn violently against one another when under mind control and imagined, or very real fear. Were you one of those who ostracised the unvaccinated and took away all of their liberties because of a flu strain , and you actually believed the garbage? Proof to make a point – EVERY SINGLE person I know who has had the mRNA poison along with boosters, keeps getting sick Every single person who has not, does NOT. There are so many doctors and scientists speaking out now ( and then) about vaccine injury and deaths.
I was merely drawing a comparison to how easily and readily human beings can be manipulated into committing pure evil. Including what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza. While the world looks on because Black Rock Inc owns everything.
You just don’t get it DJ. You can’t help being ignorant, poor one.🙏🕊️☮️
PARI, you’re completely wrong. The covid vaccines are safe and effective. They’ve saved millions of lives. Everyone I know has been vaccinated. Everyone I know is healthy. Covid is what causes long term health problems, not the vaccines. Side effects are usually minimal. I just get a sore arm. Because you’re peddling ridiculous conspiracy theories, I will delete any additional comments from you about the covid vaccines. I strongly support free speech. I also strongly support not allowing dangerously false information about the vaccines to be on my blog.
How you have just completely revealed yourself Brian. RADHA SOAMI JI. You forgot to do your simran. I will never read your egotisical blog again. Bet you don’t post this. I don’t believe it? Unbelievable!!!🙏🧚☮️🕊️🧘♀️
@Brian, as they say,….The proof of the Puddin is in the eating.” Neither my Wife nor I caved in to take any of the jabs. Neither of us got Covid. But the Jabs are STILL being touted by our Medical Clinics, every time we go for blood checks. My sister and brother both took the jabs and boosters, and each got covid 3 times. All of my brothers In Laws took the jabs, and all got covid, with the mother in law dying of a stroke. My Mother also died inside a locked down Memory facility, after they locked it down a week after she arrived, and wouldn’t let us visit her. She died BECAUSE of Covid, not of. We don’t know if they gave her the jabs or not. Most likely, they did. Ishwar Puri took the jabs and died of Covid. So, the only way I will ever get jabbed is if forced to, by brain washed Jabanatzis like you.
You just sent me to the gas chamber Brian.🧘♀️🧘♀️☮️🧚🙏🕉️
Radha Soami Jim Sutherland.🕉️🙏🧚☮️🧘♀️🕊️❤️🤗. Thanks. So sad and so true.
I had covid in the spring of 2020 and was never sicker. It was like the flu but much worse–fever, congestion, sweats and headache and body aches so bad it was an effort to turn in bed. I thought it was the flu until I realized that I lost my sense of smell completely. Every scent and odor was a blank from perfume and incense to cat poop and Lysol! A nasal swab confirmed covid. I was down for a week or so.
Subsequently I had Pfizer’s mRNA vax multiple times. My reaction to vaccines is a little worse than a sore arm. Typically I experience a day with slight fever and body aches. Flu vax, shingles vax, covid vax–all the same reaction, but I’d take those minor symptoms any day over full blown infection. When the Omicron strain hit hard around Christmas 2021, a number of my coworkers missed days, but I was fine.
Covid is very mutable. That’s how vaccination might not protect completely. It’s the same with flu. A different strain than expected might make the rounds. I’ve gotten sick in spite of vaccinations but never for more than a couple of days and nowhere near as severe. Was it flu? Was it covid? It could also have been something else.
Ishwar Puri was 94. At that age anything could’ve carried him off.
Do we see smallpox, polio or diphtheria anymore? Thank vaccines! Oh, but measles and whooping cough are making a comeback, you say? Yes, among the unvaccinated! Polio is still endemic to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Guess why? Vaccination campaigns are hindered by security concerns, cultural obstacles and widespread misinformation.
Thank you umami…. it is that simple.
This could be the story of every day life for thousands upon thousands … we still remember here the consequences for the children of orthodox Christian communities that refused vaccination against polio
Sorry Brian, I do think many of your articles are really quite thought provoking and interesting. Not that I visit here very often. Perhaps I forgot to do my simran. 🙏I really will keep my opinions to myself in future. That is the best tactic. RS.🧘♀️☮️🕉️