One State, One People

Ordnung.

To the German of late 1920's, early '30's, the idea of "order" was important. It wasn't until the mid-30's that the forces of the Green Police were accumulated into what was then known as the Orpo. The Germans of the early Twentieth Century were known as the driving force of progressive thinking. There was a well-established "organic" school that spent time popularizing an idea that there were culturally instituted beliefs that would help a culture "rise" to a new level of understanding the human condition. Relying, in great part, to the writings of Sir Charles Darwin, the organicists of the 19th century decided that human development would, and should necessarily, follow the path set forth by Darwin's expositions of evolution. Relying solely upon a sentiment of self-importance, these new organicists developed a theory of the New Man, which related their interpretations of how the human race must develop, as opposed to a theory that left open the question of how man will develop.

This determinism was exhibited as rather a faulty theory, post-Hitlerism and post-Nazism. But the theory of determinism seems to be alive today. (There is a brief, yet trenchant discussion of determinism here.

Determinism seems to rely upon the notion that at least one person knows more than all other persons. And absent that, that some group or cabal will know more than all other persons. Now, sometimes, that can be the case. As a coach of little kids playing soccer, baseball and basketball, there were times that I could predict the outcomes of games that were yet to be played.

But, if I had coached those kids as if they would never win, I would never, should never, have been a coach.

This is the error of determinism and its followers.

This is a kind of important thing to think about in the coming months and years. How well will you be able to accept that American values are nothing more than a misapprehension of how to live well, and how to live your life? If you accept that we, as Americans, are wrong in believing that we have a better system of living, a better system of government, and a better way of comparing our thoughts and deeds to others living in our world--as does President Obama--then how do we differentiate ourselves from those who seek to achieve a determinist outcome?

That is, if we accept that we as Americans are no different--and probably worse--than others living in the world, how is it that we can do anything but accept that we must become what the determinists insist we must become?

Here is an enjoyable and brief essay (.pdf) on the the role of the Lutheran church during Hitler's ascendancy in Germany.

It ends up begging a whole lot of questions about the rise of national socialism in the 1930's in Germany. Like, where was the Church--in all its forms--during the rise of anti-humanism?

Determinists have as a common fault a belief in their own infallibility. Rationalists have as a common fault a belief in humanity's perfection. It is not going to be any single individual that saves us. It will be the loud, maundering chorus of us, we crowd, we lot of mangy people. The People. We, the People.

So all I can ask of the elitists who temporarily populate Salem and Washington, D.C., please, don't hate us. We will overcome. We always have. We always will. Your search for ordnung is understandable. We've been through it before. What it isn't, is inevitable. And you've been through that before.