🚀 go-pugleaf

sm> Stephen McIntyre

sm> Perhaps the biggest reason for the attraction of Germans (including the
sm> "intellectual elite") to Hitler was because of the misery caused by the
sm> depression of that era.  People's spirits, as well as their homes, were
sm> broken-- they were a tired nation.  Any hope offered to them was considered
sm> good, even if the man offering the hope was a tyrant.

  Other countries have suffered problems similar to Germany's, and didn't
  turn to tyrants. The US, for one. FDR was highly authoritarian by the stan-
  dards set by previous Presidents, but he was no Hitler.

  It's not just the current set of problems faced by a country that allows
  a Hitler to arise, it's also the set of cultural beliefs that a nation's
  people share. Germans of that era felt that they needed a strong leader
  to tell them what to do, a sentiment shared by many Americans today. That's
  what energized Perot's campaign to a large extent. Those "Ross for Boss"
  bumper sticker's weren't just a catchy slogan.

  Anyway, going back to the world government discussion a bit, what needs to
  be changed for a WG to work is a change from this kind of cultural attitude.
  And, as we've seen, having an educated citizenry isn't a guard against it.
  What else needs to be done to create a planet full of people who don't 
  have these kinds of ideas? Making them smart isn't enough.


--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF