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Denial Can Be Dangerous
Then on September 11, in the wake of rumors about a massacre in nearby Aran, a trustworthy Christian who had been sent there came back with firsthand confirmation; the entire community had been destroyed, and the streets were filled with the bodies of Jews. Rabbi Rozowski called a meeting to suggest buying ammunition in order to put up a fight and die with honor: Let us not go as sheep to the slaughter!” he proclaimed. “Let us die with the Philistines.” But still there were people who refused to believe the end was near, who were sure that the Germans were only after Jewish property and money, not Jewish lives, and the meeting ended in dissension. — Yaffa Eliach, There Once Was a World: a 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok*
This post is not written to elicit sympathy for the Jews of the shtetl of Eishyshok, which was part of various Eastern European countries at one time or another. Instead, I want to point out that it is dangerous to live in denial, to ignore the facts, to hide from the truth when your way of life is at stake.
Over and over again, the Jews of Eishyshok learned what was happening to Jews all around them; they knew of the history of anti-Semitism and had learned the value of living peacefully, when they could, with their neighbors. But acknowledging the barbarism that was taking place, and to which they were to fall victim, was simply too much to contemplate. The Germans had been kind to them during World War I; the Eishyshkians believed they would treat them as kindly this time. Until they didn’t.
To live in denial is a human trait. When we are directly at risk, we might tend to go in one direction or the other: we will either obsess about the dangers, or will hide in denial.
So, those lessons can be applied to today. We live in chaotic times, where we see violence, hatred, and destruction all over the country. I don’t believe that it is time for paranoia; instead, I think we must be realistic about the lawlessness that is going on, aided by the media, wealthy supporters, the radical Left, and disenfranchised citizens. Our citizens, through their words and deeds, who are stepping in to support these anarchists, are beyond foolish; they are a threat to our country, to the rule of law and to the Constitution. They think they are fighting for an important cause, but the cause is manufactured. They are planting the seeds of totalitarianism, dooming their children to a bleak future. They have no idea of what they are about to lose, and when they do lose their freedoms, they will deny responsibility. How long will it take before people are killed to justify “the cause”? What will the violence enablers say then?
We must find a way to drag them out of their denial and reticence before it’s too late. We must find a way to get out the truth. Otherwise, anarchy will reign, and we will be unable to find our way back to law and order and to a Republic.
That danger is not imminent, but I fear it is much closer than we think.
*On September 26, 1941, somewhere between 3,5oo and 5,000 people were killed and buried in mass graves.
My thanks to @ontheleftcoast for telling me about this tragic and informative book.
Published in Culture
Me and mine are arming up. I am buying ammo at the rate of $1000 a month. My old guns are being cleaned and put back into service. Old friends that have reached out since they view me as a gun resource on what / where to buy guns and ammo. They are arming also. Loose plans are being made so when the law falls we will band and stand. If this thing occurs I most likely will not survive but it will not be for lack of shooting back.
I hope it doesn’t go that far, @fakejohnjanegalt. But I think we must be ready and armed.
Or you could move to Houston.
There were German Jews in the ranks then. Jews who would be awarded the Iron Cross for their brave service for the Kaiser. Those Jews went to the camps like everyone else. It was the very depths of barbarism.
It’s already begun, Susan, and the enablers deny responsibility. Perhaps they genuinely don’t see their role as such?
A mood comes up in the people…
@zafar, what a horrible incident; I’m so sorry. Do you see this atrocity as akin to what is happening in this country? Who do you see as his enablers?
They don’t care. It doesn’t touch them directly so it doesn’t happen.
I just had a frightening thought . . .
You might wonder why I selected the photo of the child in a Hitler Youth photo . . . I wasn’t sure either . . .
First, we have our children coming out of school with a Leftist education. Second, we have severely damaged the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I’m waiting for someone to come up with a Leftist version of groups for children, where they can commune and share. Their own version of the Hitler Youth. I see it coming . . .
Antifa youth?
Or BLM Youth–take your pick.
Or Pacific North West Youth Liberation Front?
You guys are scary.
They exist.
I am from the hills of Kentucky, if I need to run, I will go back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cQNkIrg-Tk
OMG!! That is frightening. So frightening. And they make it clear that they want to destroy this country.
Just saying.
It’s hard to understand denial of an obvious threat. It’s clearly related to fear, but that ought to work the other way – fear alone, as it functions in reptiles and lesser life, stimulates the creature to remove itself from the threat. The other tropism at that fundamental level is love, the drive to be closer to the stimulus. I doubt that’s the cause of denial.
I’m afraid denial is an unfortunate side effect of intelligence. Intelligence replaces instinct in mammals and birds, so intelligent beings need to learn to deal with fear. Untrained intelligence is prone to denying threats.
Mrs Rodin has a touch of…what I think of as paranoia but which she believes is great intuition. But just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you. The pace of progressive fascism and the too broad acceptance of it is cause for concern and alarm.
So very true, @barfly! But we’ve seen an even greater shift from trusting reason, to relying only on feelings. If we “feel” scared, our instinct can be to fight or flee. But it’s also wise to know why you’re doing either one. People are just stuck in their feelings, so they will rationalize what to do (or not do).
Who’s to say that her intuition isn’t correct? Not me! It can be hard to tell when intuition is in play when there is also great emotion that can color it. I hope she is only paranoid. But I think it’s more than paranoia.
“The Germans had been kind to them during World War I; the Eishyshkians believed they would treat them as kindly this time. Until they didn’t.”
It is very dangerous to believe that (in a political framework) that people/movements.countries who were friendly to you once will always be friendly. I used Eishyshok as an example in my post The phobia(s) that may destroy America:
Yet another factor involved in fear/hostility toward Christians is historical: it is indeed true that Christianity has often been used as an excuse for religious persecutions. Mary Antin, a Jewish immigrant who came to the US from Russia in the early 1900s, wrote that pogroms in her home country had sometimes been led by priests carrying crucifixes and it took her several years to get past an instinctual aversive reaction when passing by a Christian church. (She later became acquainted with several American priests and came to respect them for the work they were doing among the poor.) The Holocaust was perpetrated largely by people who represented themselves as Protestants or Catholics. But in today’s world, hostility toward Israel, which more than occasionally shades off into outright anti-Semitism, is mainly generated by the “progressive” Left. Surely one is far more likely to encounter anti-Semitism among the members of the church that Barack Obama attended for 20 years than among the members of your typical Southern Baptist church or Catholic parish.
It’s important to understand history, but it’s also very dangerous to identify one’s friends and enemies based entirely on historical considerations while ignoring current realities. In the Polish town of Eishyshok at the time of the German invasion in 1941, many of the local Jews viewed the coming of the German troops with equanimity. The town had been occupied during the earlier war, and the German officers and troops of that time had been very well-behaved and even helpful, and those residents who had been POWs in Germany during WWI spoke highly of their good treatment. Too many of the town’s Jews failed to realize that “German soldier” meant something different in 1941 than it had in 1914. Analogously, “Democratic politician” means something very different in 2018 than it did in 1960.
Thanks so much, @davidfoster! And that is a very fine post you wrote. It’s been quite a journey reading Eliach’s book on Eishyshok–I may write another post referring to it. It’s one thing to read about millions of people being killed, usually nameless faces and bodies. But Ms. Eliach tells about many of the people in that community, and as I finish up the book, I feel a real connection to their lives and the tragedy they experienced. (I have visited Dachau, which was so very difficult, and can’t bring myself to visit the Holocaust Museums around the country.)
That’s a great point. I remember reading that American fear of Japanese immigrants during WWII was misplaced. The author compared two different “waves” of pre-war Japanese emigres: One that went mainly to America, and the other that went mainly to Brazil. The Japanese-Brazilians were very pro Japan during the war, while the Japanese-Americans were very pro-American. Apparently, the timing of the two waves made the difference based on what was happening in Japan at different times.
Anne Frank’s father, Otto, served in the German Army in WWI and received a field promotion to lieutenant.
We don’t have to go back very far to realize that alliances/friendships are shifting all the time. Russia? China?
The question of denial is a fascinating one.
I’ve talked to a few “nice normal progressives” about George Floyd; what happens, I ask, if it turns out the police officers had nothing whatever to do with his death? That in fact the behavior recorded on bystanders’ I-phones was not only not an effort to kill Floyd, but represented a legitimate attempt to save his life?
Indignation…and hand-waving as if to say “the facts of the matter don’t matter…” because George Floyd represents all the other black men killed by the police, or unjustly incarcerated or …
What I fear really stands in the way of recognition is the level of moral investment that has been made either directly or on our behalf by the BLM movement.
That is, lots of people have marched and shrieked, but even those who have merely watched CNN and felt sympathy for Floyd and anger toward the police have in some sense expended moral capital. Human nature is such that once we have decided that something is meaningful, and made even small commitments to it, it becomes part of our self-definition and identity. We don’t want its meaninglessness revealed.
One doesn’t have to have marched and shrieked; there is moral expenditure involved in countenancing and excusing (or at least not condemning) riots and mayhem, too. So much has been destroyed, and people have been killed for the sake of a story. With every riot, death, burned-out building…it becomes more and more important that the story be true, that the moment be Important and Historic rather than a mistake. Who will want to believe that he or she has been part of something pointless, destructive and even evil?
I remember, vividly, the day that I realized (belatedly) that the media was biased, that NPR and the NYT were telling lies, that Obama was not a good president or even a good man. In my memory, the floor beneath my feet has turned to jello. It was very unsettling and unpleasant. Among many other disagreeable tasks, I had to consider my own (and various loved ones’) culpability for the damage done; it wasn’t fun.
I so appreciate your whole comment, @GrannyDude, and it’s devastating. I suppose I can think of some area where I believed something but found out it was untrue and was reluctant to give it up. But to buy in to an ideology (although they probably don’t think of it as one) that is founded on lies, and then as the truth emerges, refuse to look at those truths, is a mindset I can’t identify with. Then again, if it becomes part of one’s identity, where one has adamantly said that they know the truth and refuse to see anything different, I suppose they can go into denial; it maintains the illusion of confidence.
You may have been wrong about Obama, but as painful as it was, you saw and acknowledged the truth. That takes some courage and honor.
Fortunately for me, my realignment took longer. I got tired of people telling me that Carter wasn’t an idiot. I spent just enough time with the Libertarians to realize that letters of marque and reprisal are not a national defense strategy and that being the sanest person in the room is a bad idea. After Reagan was shot and partly because he dealt with that like a boss, I heard Clark Clifford’s estimation that Reagan was “an amiable dunce.” Although Clifford had been an advisor to Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, he didn’t quit while he was ahead and became a special envoy for Carter, who I’ve already noted was an idiot. I noticed that the media grabbed every thing Reagan said and twisted it to fit their narrative.
Democrats always overrate intelligence; it’s what they do in deference to academia (although one could seriously question their smarts). Is there any Republican president who was seen as smart? Ike?