Der Fuehrer's Face, Part EinThe M.A.P. tells a funny story about an old philosophy (or maybe communications theory) professor of his, who when asked what Heidegger's work had to say on a certain issue, lowered his chin & glared over the top of his spectacles as he scowled & drawled, "I don't truck with no Nazi." (There is a great deal of physicality involved in the recounting of this anecdote, as there is in most of The M.A.P.'s storytelling, & it is from this that the real hilarity of the episode is derived.)
In the ninth grade, a fellow student, a classmate of mine in Honors English 9, accused me of being a Nazi. This most grave accusation was leveled behind my back, of course. The class we shared had been given a two-part assignment: {a} read a biography or autobiography & {b} give an oral presentation on the contents, in the first-person narrative mode as the subject of the biography or author of the autobiography. My mind seized upon the idea of reading
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, & that's where all my troubles began. I sought permission from our instructor before, approaching her furtively. Though unaware of any such notion at the time, I suspect I'd have been relived if she'd refused to accede. I was not an adherent of National Socialism, not even as a youthful dalliance. What I was was curious; I wanted to understand an evil that to this day remains incomprehensible, & in my naïveté I thought evil might best be understood by going right to the source.
I do not recall if I borrowed
Mein Kampf from the school library or the public library, but I took great care that no one saw me with the awful thing. I didn't want people to get the wrong idea, I didn't want people to think that I was a Nazi. The book was an eye-opening experience. I had thought beforehand, given the work's incredible popularity in Weimar Germany & it's influence in the Nazi rise to power, that it must be a work of diabolical subtlety, lines of such cunning persuasiveness that even the agile of mind found themselves under the spell of Hitler's topsy-turvy logic. Not so.
Mein Kampf is a rambling, self-indulgent claptrap, clearly the result of a diseased mind, one twisted out of all recognition by arrogance & hate. In discovering this, in slogging through the whole of that unorganized mess, I found myself even farther away from my goal; the evil the Nazis had done remained as inexplicable as it had always been.
I was nervous before making my oral presentation before my classmates. I was not as comfortable with public speaking then as I am now—I was a fat, absurdly pimply fourteen-year-old after all—, but the subject of my presentation was the real source of my anxiety. Nevertheless, it had been my choice to select
Mein Kampf, & now that I'd made my bed I would lie in it. My good friend Nicky the Greek, in his presentation on Gaius Julius Caesar (I doubt he read
Commentaries on the Gallic War, but I've no idea what biography he did read), wore a toga & employed extensive props to recreate the Siege of Alesia, but I made my presentation without such aides. I wore no costume, no combed my hair differently, no did I even briefly entertain the idea of sporting a faux toothbrush moustache. I did my utmost to base the presentation solely on what I'd read in
Mein Kampf, excluding my relatively extensive—for a fourteen-year-old putz—knowledge of the course of the Second World War & the rise & fall of the Third Reich. I was then, as I am now, nothing if not a showman; which a heart full of apprehension I gave my audience the grand finale: I stepped back from the lectern & made the Hitler salute (
Hitlergruß). Some might say this was too much, that I went too far, but I maintain that in the moment, when I was giving an autobiographical narrative in character as Adolf Hitler, the most evil human being ever to have lived, it was the right choice, at least creatively. The defense I offer is showmanship.
I found out some time later that my classmate had accused me of adhering to Nazism. I was in equal parts aghast at the suggestion & indignant over by whom it was made. I didn't want people thinking I was a Nazi, but at the same time I was confident that I was not. I'd never cared for the kid who leveled the whispered charge; I'd always thought him a preppy snob. He might well have been a snob, in all honestly I must admit that to this day I've never had a real conversation with him, never exchanged more than the most perfunctory of words. One mitigating factor in his defense: he's Jewish; so, an additional degree of sensitivity on his part might well be excusable. On the other hand, if his concerns were genuine, might not he have been better served by openly denouncing me as Nazi scum?
This incident was not a source of ongoing trouble. I am not a Nazi, I have never been a Nazi, & thirty seconds of conversation with me are more than enough to reach this pleasingly factual conclusion. The accusing classmate was never a friend of mine; we had a few meaningful interactions after the
Mein Kampf presentation as we'd had before. I've no idea if he continued to believe me a Nazi, or if he shared this spurious opinion with anyone else, but either way word never again reached my ears (admittedly, ears rather deaf & oblivious to all the latest gossip) of any such accusations floating around, not that I was a popular fellow or in any way a regular conversational topic of the chattering class. I was insulted by someone for whom I didn't give a toss, subjected to an insult with only the most torturous basis in reality. The only place where the accusation would continue to be discussed was within the parliament of my mind, as we shall discuss in our next installment.
To be continued...Vote for KodosWell, last night's N.B.C. News/Politico Republican Candidates Debate from the Reagan Library was a wee bit of fun. I enjoyed the united front the candidates adopted against intramural "baiting," because I enjoy a certain contrariness if for no other reason. (Of course, there is another reason: my disdain for the haughty, self-appointed tribunes of the Fourth Estate, well-documented in our occasional feature, "Lies, Damned Lies, & the News.") I shall have to give Governor Huntsman a closer look; at present I favor Governor Romney over Senator Santorum & stand firmly opposed to Governor Perry, Representative Bachmann, Representative Paul, Speaker Gingrich, & Mr. Cain.
All that said, I was very disappointed by the hostility toward Chairman Bernanke of the Federal Reserve Board. Alas, those evidencing mindless hostility was not limited to the loathsome Governor Perry, who has already earned himself my deathless enmity, & yours, too, I hope, by describing Chairman Bernanke's wielding of his clearly delineated authority as "treasonous." All I could do was shake my head at the deplorable ignorance of basic economics that so many persons seem to wear as a badge of perverse honor.
All the RussiasA thoughtful piece from
The Economist, on the present & future of Russia:
Rodina-link. Corruption is the handmaiden of tyranny, & Vladimir Putin's regime (even with him temporarily out of the presidency) is nothing if not tyrannical. Corruption is the archfoe of the rule of law that is integral to the growth & stability of a liberal economic order, what we know as appropriately-regulated capitalism. So long as the Russians are not free, both politically & economically, their vaunted Motherland is doomed.
My Time Among the VampiresI had occasion to drive by the downtown American Red Cross building today & saw a handful of rain-drenched strikers; I'd heard mention of the labor dispute on the radio, but did not know that action was already underway. (I know not the details of the dispute nor which side is in the right, though I am wary about the A.F.L.-C.I.O. ever being in the right.) It was a supremely curious image, to see a unionized picket line walking back & forth in from of a van bearing the marking of Red Cross disaster relief. Early in the summer my mother asked me if I'd care to accompany her to our church, which was holding a blood derive; I pointed to my arm, at the tattoo I got in May. I'd have been game to help, but the Red Cross's rules prohibit blood donation for a full year after tattoo acquisition.
