A new nuclear-capable submarine built for Israel by German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp is on its way to Haifa Port

Shameful

  • geissi@feddit.orgEnglish
    11·
    6 days ago

    your understanding of history must be so mutilated

    I beg you to open a history book and look up when the rise of fascism happened.
    In 1924 the NSDAP was a bunch of violent thugs pretending to be socialists. Their rise to power happened a decade later. The only fascist was Mussolini and he had not yet fully implemented all that we nowadays call fascism.

    You have not made one single argument that actually ties anything in the book to fascism.
    You keep quoting articles about Mann’s later life but the only reference you made to the book itself was mentioning the eve of WWI which at least time-wise sets the action before the rise of fascism.

    You have not identified one anti-fascist theme in the book nor quoted any literary analysis that does so.

    If you desperately want to make this argument, then you have to ask yourself:
    What is fascism? What are its defining characteristics? Where does the book address them?
    And which themes are specific to fascism? Contemplating mortality as such is not.

    • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      You have not made one single argument that actually ties anything in the book to fascism.

      So you did not bother to read the article I linked before responding?

      Yes I have.

      • geissi@feddit.orgEnglish
        11·
        6 days ago

        Yes I read it.
        It has not a single reference to fascism in the 1920s.

        The Weimar Republic was embattled primarily by monarchists and socialists/ communists; the NSDAP had not yet risen to power and not established fascism in Germany.
        The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933, a decade after the book was published.

        Again, you have not talked about anything actually in the book that relates to fascism.

        • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          So is Mein Kampf not fascist because it predates 1933 too?

          Get out of here with this lazy shit, Naptha is clearly a fascist in all but name in The Magic Mountain.

          • geissi@feddit.orgEnglish
            11·
            6 days ago

            Are you claiming The Magic Mountain is a reaction to Mein Kampf, a book that had not been published by then?

            Naptha is clearly a fascist in all but name

            Now, this is actually an argument engaging with the material.
            It’s been ages since I read the book, can you remind me what Naphtha says and does and how the book critically engages with that.

            • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              Are you claiming The Magic Mountain is a reaction to Mein Kampf, a book that had not been published by then?

              …no?

              • geissi@feddit.orgEnglish
                11·
                6 days ago

                So, did Mann know what Adolf would write in his book or what the Nazis would do in the 30s and 40s?
                Did he know what Mussolini would get up to in the next decades?

                No? Then he couldn’t have reacted to that. So none of that can be relevant to what he had written in 1924.

                Now, it’s not unheard of that authors can see the proverbial writing on the wall and anticipate future events to some degree. But to argue that you would also have to actually point to his writing and draw parallels. You can’t just point at later events as proof for what is in the book.

                • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPEnglish
                  1·
                  6 days ago

                  Now, it’s not unheard of that authors can see the proverbial writing on the wall and anticipate future events to some degree. But to argue that you would also have to actually point to his writing and draw parallels. You can’t just point at later events as proof for what is in the book.

                  Have you actually read any literary analysis of The Magic Mountain… or like… just read the damn book? Were you not paying attention to the conversations with Naptha and how Hans Castorp changes in his disposition towards them over the course of the novel as WW1 ripens on the limb…? Go read the book again, I will not waste my time handing you things just so you can throw them at the wall like a baby.

                  Your desire to bifurcate periods of time and development of ideologies into artificial divisions is childish.

                  • geissi@feddit.orgEnglish
                    11·
                    5 days ago

                    As I said it’s been a long time, so let’s see what we find for analysis on Naphta:

                    Naphta is termed a “revolutionary” and “socialist”, but Settembrini sees Naphta’s fantasies as emanating from an anti-humanitarian reactionary revolution […]
                    The association here between Naphta’s advocacy of terrorism and two extremely conservative movements – Prussian militarism and Jesuitism – is a huge political shift for the novel.

                    Yes, revolution and militarism, well known concepts at the time, unlike fascism.
                    Almost like references to the forces that embattled the Weimar Republic at the time, the socialists who wanted to join the world revolution and the military who wanted to re-start the war they claimed to have lost only because of the cowardly politicians.
                    Funny how that fits together when you consider the actual time it was written instead of the 30s or the cold war.

                    Ah, and here is a review that explicitly covers authoritarian nationalism:

                    he wrote and delivered his speech, On the German Republic.
                    In it, he publicly embraced the postwar Weimar Republic and the principles of its democracy, distancing himself from the types of authoritarian nationalism […]
                    By the time he finished writing, the work had been transformed from a satirical novella into a sweeping Bildungsroman, focused on moral education and psychological development. It was now also an allegory of European civilisation teetering on the abyss – a “world festival of death”, as Mann puts it in the novel’s final sentence. […]
                    Specifically, the phrase is a reference to World War I. More broadly – and just as powerfully – it reflects the sense of postwar disillusionment and social malaise that shaped the novel.

                    Authoritarian nationalism is certainly also an element of fascism but not exclusive to it.
                    It has been prominent in the German Empire before WWI and indeed this review draws the direct link to the war, which is something that Mann knows about and can react to unlike the rise of fascism which happens later.

                    Your desire to bifurcate periods of time and development of ideologies into artificial divisions is childish.

                    Sorry, I live in a world of linear time where later events and ideas cannot influence the past.

                    What i find more childish is your stubborn insistence on a point that you simultaneously refuse to prove.
                    It’s funny how you claim to be handing me things when all you’ve done is quote unrelated third hand accounts of Mann’s life and nothing from the book. Not even a literary analysis that supports your claim.
                    All while completely ignoring that I’ve repeatedly shown you ways how you could make your case.

                    I agree that this was big waste of time, lets agree to not do it again.