Stephen Fry - The power of words in Nazi Germany

[DeSwiss]

Ed Reeves * Uploaded on Nov 17, 2011

Stephen Fry talks about the power of words in Nazi Germany relating to the Jews.

An extract from Stephen Fry's talk on his BBC series Planet Word.

Full video podcast available here:
https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/stephen-frys-planet-word-special/id473109627?mt=2

- Mr. Fry's perspective on how language can enable atrocities to happen, seemed apropos right about now.

[pa28]

1. Well said by Mr. Fry.

The lesson of Nazi Germany is not that Germans are especially bad, it's what all people are capable of doing or being complicit to under the right conditions.

This is a good topic to spend some time considering right now.

[DeSwiss]

2. Agreed.

- Now more than ever, even.

[JDPriestly]

3. + 1000. That is precisely why we need to refrain from

demonizing one side and idolizing the other. This is a human dispute. There are humans on both sides, fear on both sides, hopes and dreams on both sides. And both sides need to negotiate. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are bad (although DU is into viewing Israelis as really bad right now). Both sides need to compromise and negotiate a peace and then, and here is the hard part for the Palestinians, enforce that peace.

The Palestinians are divided so if one sector wants to negotiate peace, another sector comes in and stirs the pot to oppose peace.

That is also true on the Israeli side, but at this time, Israel gives the impression that it is unified behind Netanyahu. That may change depending on how the world deals with Israel and what message Israel sends to the world.

Moderation in all things, especially amger.

[GeoWilliam750]

4. Thank you for posting this

Everywhere in the world these days, some one is dehumanising "the other". Asia is particularly loud at the moment.

The question then is whether we on the left dehumanise the right as much as we perceive them doing to everyone else.

[DeSwiss]

6. De nada

- In your last line you raise a very discerning point. One that I'm afraid is missed here on a daily basis.

[KurtNYC]

5. Bullying in schools, workplaces and some hate crime attacks on the street begin with language

The target is identified and isolated with language -- loud rude comments about alleged sexual preference, body shape, ethnicity, clothing, etc. During this first step groups form: those with the attacker and those, if any, with the target. This is a crucial period for the victim because the attacker(s) is looking for confirmation that they can continue to attack the target without repercusions.

On the street, when someone shouts from a car for example, the target needs to take that seriously because the next step is often something physical. On a country-to-country scale it is a similar pattern and these days the target is usually described as some kind of threat to the attacker.

Even Zimmerman's assassination of Trayvon Martin was preceded by his use of very specific language that sought to give justification to the murder. The major difference being that his Zimmerman was speaking to the 911 operator with the knowledge that his conversation was being taped and would be key to his SYG defense: "real suspicious guy...on drugs or something" and this sentence "He's got his hand is his waistband. And he's a black male." And of course, "these assholes, they always get away"

[DeSwiss]

7. All acts are first thoughts.

Whether conscious or subconscious. And when those thoughts can be nurtured with hatreds, envy, and religious intolerance these are the elements which often precede the enlistment of government control and ultimately the formation of the Police State. Through the manufacture of consent.

Because in a ''Nationoflaws'' people aren't supposed to think, just act and do as they've been instructed. It's all reward or punishment. No one knows who writes these rules. Only that they must be obeyed or you can be ostracized from the game.

There is a solution to all society's ills but we are too afraid and weak to even approach it. We revere its name and call it out almost daily - in vain. Because it is known as something superficial and is confused with lust and desire. It has been mythologized by religions, exploited by Hollywood and inculcated into our collective thought patterns by the likes of Gandhi and of King.

- And that is that UNCONDITIONAL LOVE is the only answer. To everything.

An evolutionary changed is required now. The potential to achieve this lies within everyone. There is no ''right way'' to do this. Where and how we start this process individually and collectively, is at the only place where we can: Unconditional LOVE.

Unconditional LOVE is the default position in which we all agree to respect the right of free will and of the right of existence to all others. Any system, any state we create without this as its central theme, will fail us in the end. Like all the others, ad infinitum.

This is what we've been here to remember all along. That, and who we are.....

[ffr]

8. I believe subtleties of visual and spoke words fit into this category.

[DeSwiss]

10. Quite.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Yup, it's all dog whistles and code words. nt

[drynberg]

9. Yah, Frauline Palin is a stirring trouble when she says "ReLoad"

I personally don't see progressives or leftists using language to provoke violence and hatred...am I wrong?

[DeSwiss]

11. Progressives, leftists they are all Granfalloons.

- But what many of us do, or have done, is to laugh and make fun of their ignorance. Make fun of the inconsistency of their thought patterns. Their beliefs. Elitist, in other words.

That's not a good feeling in grammar school, nor in real life either when one is on the receiving end of that kind of ridicule. So I quit doing it because it made me feel bad to make fun of someone because of what they were born with, and where they were born, and whom they were born to.

Because I've been laughed at for some of those same reasons, too.



~DeSwiss

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. See also George Lakoff's videos on Framing the Language, as practiced by Republicans. nt

[Gumboot]

14. And we also have those who willingly...

... sit watching Fox News or listening to hate radio for 7-8 hours a day (some ingest even more than that), voluntarily conditioning themselves to respond to those 'dog whistles' and coded messages.

They get sucked in and eventually find themselves unable to process anything that does not fit in with the narrow worldview foisted upon them.

That's what scares me the most about the use and abuse of language in 21st century America. And the right has a seemingly endless supply of resources with which to harness and direct its extraordinary power.

[DeSwiss]

15. I believe that many Americans are brainwashed.

And they are caught up in a self-defeating cycles which will not allow them to easily escape their plight. Reasons, excuses and blame is needed to defray the explosive emotions this creates. Racism, sexism, nationalism, religion are all used to stir the pot and keep the focus of hatred of their condition away for its actual source and toward liberals, blacks, Hispanic, gays, et.al.

- And they keep doing the same things over and over to keep things going, because it works. They are under others' control.....