Maus banned 1 1

[Joshua33]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:38 AM, szav said:

I'm not sure if having a family history tied to the events gives us any sort of moral high ground or superiority to comment on this subject.  Anyway, my Polish grandparents were enslaved by the Germans during world war 2.  All their meager possessions and property were taken, and they were put to work on the farm of a family who's men were off at war in Germany.  It was lucky for them they were catholic or their fate would have been worse I know.  Still they had some horror stories for sure.  One night in the town they were captive in, there was a murder  of a German citizen, one of the families that owned the local farms.  My grandfather was put into a line where every 10th person was shot in the head.  My uncle was literally born into slavery, and my mother missed being born into slavery by a few months.  She was born in a displaced persons camp after my grandparents having been liberated by American soldiers (incidentally, my thanks to those who gave their all, including their lives, to fight for freedom across the world or I wouldn't be here).

My grandparents didn't want to talk about it, ever.  My mother and uncle would share the details when asked.  They had their own way of dealing with it I guess. 

Anyway I'm going to try and take the middle ground here.  I personally think its kind of dumb that they're removing the book, but the people of this area should be free to choose how they want to raise their kids.  I think trying to hide nudity/violence etc from them is a losing proposition, these parents must never have done a google search.  I think any insinuation that what they're doing is in any way antisemitic or akin to holocaust denial is ludicrous, and a very shallow attempt to paint people with a different ideology than theirs as villainous or contemptable.  The school board made it very clear what the objection was (I disagree that its that objectionable, but it's their kids not mine), and they made a very pointed comment that the book and the subject of the holocaust are very important to acknowledge and teach.

At the tender age of 10 in 1984 my mother took me to see the movie The Killing Fields in the theater, truly an amazing movie and I remember being overcome emotionally and crying.  Anyway, my mother felt I was ready for it, and in retrospect I was and I think it was a very positive formative experience for me.  So you and I may have been ready to learn the lesson of how cruel people can at a young age, but not all kids mature at the same rate, and not all parent's have the same plan for when they're going to introduce their kids to life's harsher realities.  My seven year old could probably handle The Killing Fields, she asks about death and war all the time, but I'd like to let her stay innocent a bit longer.  Maybe these parents just have a different plan for how to raise their kids than you would.  

Again, I don't think my kids wouldn't be able to handle a book like Maus or a movie like The Killing Fields well before the 8th grade even, but if other parents feel differently about their own kids, I'm fine with that.  Their kids, their choice on how slowly to teach them about how horrible people can be.  Those parents in the area that disagree can buy the book themselves last I checked.  With all the pressures kids face today relative to the past, with media, social media, toxic in your face politics, and the push by some to turn all kids into activists before they even stop pooping themselves...it's not surprising that some parents would rather give their children a bit more time to ...you know be kids?  Again, I'm fine with each parent deciding for themselves what the appropriate age for the kid is and how they want to introduce them to the worst humanity has to offer, even if I have a different plan than they do for it.

 

[Rick2you2]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:21 AM, Joshua33 said:

We permit parents to contribute to those decisions, so that those decisions aren't controlled by modern nazis. 

Sorry, but parents can be at least as fascist as school boards— some are worse.

[Joshua33]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:45 AM, Rick2you2 said:

Sorry, but parents can be at least as fascist as school boards— some are worse.

I agree, but it's their PARENTS. Not a small entity that tries to thought police every child within their jurisdiction. Its like I always say... you can pick your nose and you can pick your butt, but you can't pick your family.

[Joshua33]

Wonder when the title of this will change from Maus Banned to Thread Banned?

[Rick2you2]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:50 AM, Joshua33 said:

I agree, but it's their PARENTS. Not a small entity that tries to thought police every child within their jurisdiction. Its like I always say... you can pick your nose and you can pick your butt, but you can't pick your family.

Ahh, parents. The ones who are probably responsible for a healthy dose of the psychoanalysis needed by kids turned into adults? Or like my mother, who once told me, in so many words, that blacks should be treated equally to whites, and have the same opportunities as whites, but she didn’t want a family living next door? (Good thing my father never heard that.). Sorry, NO ONE gets the privilege to engage in bigotry, racism, anti-semitism or the like, except my dentist, and only if he has a drill in my mouth.

[Rick2you2]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:53 AM, Joshua33 said:

Wonder when the title of this will change from Maus Banned to Thread Banned?

Did I mention the artwork in Maus is excellent? 

[vodou]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:40 AM, Rick2you2 said:

The more basic problem I have is with the way history is now taught. The focus on the way people lived instead of the way events and people shaped it undercuts the importance of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is, in essence, an event.

Interesting. I might be misunderstanding, but if not...completely disagree: "an event."

The Holocaust was the full, obvious and public expression of Malthusianism that had been first percolating then later running rampant among the "educated" class for nearly 150 years. Population control, "favorable" mixing (or not) of the races/classes to reinforce and/or eliminate specific "traits", sterilization of inferiors (and the poor and "feeble" minded) to prevent reproduction...all of this falls under the broad canopy of Eugenics. The Holocaust, if "an event", could more properly be called "an iteration". And the 20th century, in particular, enjoyed quite a few "iterations" due to the Industrial Revolution and the technology it gave genocidists. Eugenics has been a really dirty word since about 1938, the "educated" class prefers genetics today.

On 2/1/2022 at 11:40 AM, Rick2you2 said:

What makes the Holocaust slaughter special was that it wasn’t just to take over territory or riches, but to deliberately wipe out a people.

Yes and no? There were plenty of other categories of people targeted too and we'll never know "what next" after The Final Solution was completed, because it wasn't. I doubt leadership would have suddenly gone all kumbaya when the last Jew was executed and retired to the French German Riviera.

Edited February 1, 2022 by vodou
clarity

[vodou]

It's as good a time as any to add this:

All the above occurs very simply: loss of empathy.

Hang onto that and you may not be part of the solution but at least you won't be part of the problem (and yes Whoopie, I'm looking at you).

[jaybuck43]

On 2/1/2022 at 12:05 PM, vodou said:

Interesting. I might be misunderstanding, but if not...completely disagree: "an event."

The Holocaust was the full, obvious and public expression of Malthusianism that had been first percolating then later running rampant among the "educated" class for nearly 150 years. Population control, "favorable" mixing (or not) of the races/classes to reinforce and/or eliminate specific "traits", sterilization of inferiors (and the poor and "feeble" minded) to prevent reproduction...all of this falls under the broad canopy of Eugenics. The Holocaust, if "an event", could more properly be called "an iteration". And the 20th century, in particular, enjoy quite a few "iterations" due to the Industrial Revoltution and the technology it gave genocidists. Eugenics has been a really dirty word since about 1938, the "educated" class prefers genetics today.

http://jpattitude.com/IHTM/eugenics.jpg

Yes and no? There were plenty of other categories of people targeted too and we'll never know "what next" after The Final Solution was completed, because it wasn't. I doubt leadership would have suddenly gone all kumbaya when the last Jew was executed and retired to the French German Caribbean.

I do not permit anyone to only half cite that term.  It's not The Final Solution.  It's either Endlösung der Judenfrage or The Final Solution to the Jewish Question.  These are the only acceptable terms, as it should never be forgotten that the issue was specifically regarding the extermination of the Jewish People.  And no, while other groups of peoples were considered "undesirables" and had less rights then Aryans, no other had a full meeting at Lake Wannsee to coordinate the top 15 levels of power to lay out the system for complete and utter elimination of their entire race.  

[Rick2you2]

On 2/1/2022 at 12:05 PM, vodou said:

Interesting. I might be misunderstanding, but if not...completely disagree: "an event."

The Holocaust was the full, obvious and public expression of Malthusianism that had been first percolating then later running rampant among the "educated" class for nearly 150 years. Population control, "favorable" mixing (or not) of the races/classes to reinforce and/or eliminate specific "traits", sterilization of inferiors (and the poor and "feeble" minded) to prevent reproduction...all of this falls under the broad canopy of Eugenics. The Holocaust, if "an event", could more properly be called "an iteration". And the 20th century, in particular, enjoyed quite a few "iterations" due to the Industrial Revolution and the technology it gave genocidists. Eugenics has been a really dirty word since about 1938, the "educated" class prefers genetics today.

Yes and no? There were plenty of other categories of people targeted too and we'll never know "what next" after The Final Solution was completed, because it wasn't. I doubt leadership would have suddenly gone all kumbaya when the last Jew was executed and retired to the French German Riviera.

Nice artwork (save this thread!).

Yes, the Holocaust was a product of Eugenics run wild, but I don't think that's true with a lot of mass slaughters. It was more about taking land and riches from the haves, while making sure they were in no position to reclaim it after they become have-nots. Luckily, I was not taught history in today's school system, I only recollect what my kids told me. As I recall from my days, we were herded into an auditorium and shown films containing newsreels of what was discovered in the death camps after they were liberated.

I expect that if the Nazi's had been successful, they would have moved on to killing gypsies, homosexuals, etc. 

[filmboyuk]

On 2/1/2022 at 5:29 PM, Rick2you2 said:

I expect that if the Nazi's had been successful, they would have moved on to killing gypsies, homosexuals, etc. 

They were doing that at the same time. As was Stalin.

[Rick2you2]

On 2/1/2022 at 12:44 PM, filmboyuk said:

They were doing that at the same time. As was Stalin.

Yes, I know. They just would have been more focused. They had an informal alliance with some Muslim groups, so they may have left them alone.

[Taylor G]

I would not equate the Holocaust with Malthusian economics.  Malthus simply said population was self-regulating: Too many people, the population gets reduced by mass starvation (He did not consider that new technology could improve the productivity of the land).  The Great Famine was a successful Malthusian experiment (though with obvious racial undertones, the Irish were considered subhuman by the British government, and they were still exporting wheat from tenant's payments, even while those tenants were starving because the potato crop had failed).  But the British did not set out to exterminate the Irish as a race.  They just didn't give a damn.  The population of Ireland was 8M before the famine, by the 1950s it was down to 2.5M, today it is still just around 5M.

The Nazis set out to exterminate the Jewish race, because they considered that Jewish genes polluted the gene pool.  Their inspiration was the way the US cleared Native Americans off their land and into reservations in the 19th century.  Hitler expresses his admiration for this in Mein Kampf.  As the war progressed, the killing wasn't going fast enough (even the SS soldiers were being traumatized by all the mass shootings), so they turned to industrial methods.  Watch the documentary above.  They even patented the design of the ovens!

An analogue in modern times is the attempted extermination of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda less than thirty years ago.  Perhaps the sobering takeaway from that is the part that talk radio played in coordinating the extermination.  Presumably today they would be using Facebook (as was done in Myanmar).

BTW in that CNN interview with Spiegelman linked earlier, he asks the interviewer what she thinks the Holocaust is.  He answers for her: "I think it's a harbinger of what's to come."

Edited February 2, 2022 by Taylor G

[vodou]

On 2/1/2022 at 1:10 PM, Taylor G said:

I would not equate the Holocaust with Malthusian economics.  Malthus simply said population was self-regulating: Too many people, the population gets reduced by mass starvation (He did not consider that new technology could improve the productivity of the land).

I do because it gives a certain intellectual air, thus easing acceptance by a naive and compliant population, of those in power determining winners and losers. That's broad strokes, the iterations I wrote of gets down to the specifics of which power, peoples, times, and places.

Every time a vested power asks the greater population to accept that the lesser portion of that population must make some "small" sacrifice for The Greater Good, think: Malthus. Not every such request ends up with the worst kind of iterative outcome, no, but all those outcomes start in the same place. These dangers of government ("those in power") overreach were very well recognized 250 years ago, and that's why we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights documents, to absolutely (we suppose) protect the minority 49% -at a certain defined base level- from the tyranny of 51%.

[Taylor G]

We are definitely in bizarro land when Malthus, the epitome of laissez-faire economics, is being cited as a Socialist.

The Irish tenants starved because the British government wouldn't do anything to alleviate their situation.

As opposed to the Nazis, who organized the mechanisms of state to exterminate millions of people.

Let's stick to Maus, before this thread gets pulled.

[vodou]

On 2/1/2022 at 2:05 PM, Taylor G said:

We are definitely in bizarro land when Malthus, the epitome of laissez-faire economics, is being cited as a Socialist.

 

Malthus's strong influence on Charles Darwin and his cousin Francis Galton is the start of the professional justification for eugenics, leading to formal policies by "those in power.". That's hardly the same as citing him as any "ism".

On 2/1/2022 at 2:05 PM, Taylor G said:

Let's stick to Maus, before this thread gets pulled.

As far as I'm concerned this entire thread is all Maus all day long. People are wondering how the book could get pulled from a reading list in 2022. Others are wondering how the experiences related in that book could have happened to begin with. All Maus all day long.

However, if you and others keep invoking that concern, it might just happen. Maybe don't poke the bear?

[Randall Dowling]

On 2/1/2022 at 10:40 AM, Rick2you2 said:

 look at what Joshua did

 

On 2/1/2022 at 10:45 AM, Joshua33 said:

I don't know what it means but I'm pretty sure it means something.  

[Rick2you2]

On 2/1/2022 at 6:30 PM, Randall Dowling said:

 

I don't know what it means but I'm pretty sure it means something.  

My apologies. According to the Bible, When the ancient Israeli’s were told by G-d to take over Canaan to settle the Land of Israel, he didn’t just order the Israeli’s to order their exile, but to leave nothing left alive—no men, women, children, even animals were to be killed. Supposedly, they were sinful. An extermination order is genocide, yet it was at G-d’s direction? In fact, it served the purpose of justifying mass killing for a clear purpose—preventing Canaanites from returning. There is no such rationale for the Holocaust.

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 2/2/2022 at 3:16 AM, Rick2you2 said:

My apologies. According to the Bible, When the ancient Israeli’s were told by G-d to take over Canaan to settle the Land of Israel, he didn’t just order the Israeli’s to order their exile, but to leave nothing left alive—no men, women, children, even animals were to be killed. Supposedly, they were sinful. An extermination order is genocide, yet it was at G-d’s direction? In fact, it served the purpose of justifying mass killing for a clear purpose—preventing Canaanites from returning. There is no such rationale for the Holocaust.

"rationale" is a dangerous term to use for any genocide, but even more so if it could lead to an inference that a "rationale" based in a religious text is acceptable.  

There was plenty of "rationale" behind the Holocaust.  Nazi "scholars" wrote high-sounding mellifluous tomes extolling its purported necessity and virtues.  Some of them quoted the New Testament to justify extinction of the Jews.  

Most of the major religious texts have, nestled amidst the laudable talk of kindness and virtue and loving one another, descriptions of horrible yet supposedly acceptable acts in the past which are lawyered by horrible people today in the defense of horrible acts today.   

Edited February 2, 2022 by BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

[Rick2you2]

On 2/2/2022 at 3:50 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

"rationale" is a dangerous term to use for any genocide, but even more so if it could lead to an inference that a "rationale" based in a religious text is acceptable.  

There was plenty of "rationale" behind the Holocaust.  Nazi "scholars" wrote high-sounding mellifluous tomes extolling its purported necessity and virtues.  Some of them quoted the New Testament to justify extinction of the Jews.  

Most of the major religious texts have, nestled amidst the laudable talk of kindness and virtue and loving one another, descriptions of horrible yet supposedly acceptable acts in the past which are lawyered by horrible people today in the defense of horrible acts today.   

Then let's change the word "rationale" to something like "hard dollar benefit"? The point I was trying to make is that the extermination of a people who occupy land that you want is a "time (dis)honored" (sic) practice, and presumably, since the Bible was written after events occurred, words were needed as justification (and G-d said...). Killing on the basis of a claim of racial/religious inferiority may mix into the equation (we want their land, but they were inferiors, so its okay)(as it did with our killing of Native American "heathens", or what the Spanish did in the New World), but not like the Holocaust (where Nazi's did expropriate Jewish property, but more as an extra than a goal). Sorry if this isn't clear.