“I want to also mention a very difficult subject … before you, with complete candor. It should be discussed amongst us, yet nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30 to carry out our duty as ordered, and stand comrades who had failed against the wall and shoot them — about which we have never spoken, and never will speak. That was, thank God, a kind of tact natural to us, a foregone conclusion of that tact, that we have never conversed about it amongst ourselves, never spoken about it, everyone … shuddered, and everyone was clear that the next time, he would do the same thing again, if it were commanded and necessary.
I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said. [quickly] “The Jewish people is being exterminated,” every Party member will tell you, “perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating[2] them, a small matter”. [less quickly] And then along they all come, all the 80 million upright Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. [mockingly] They say: all the others are swine, but here is a first-class Jew. [a few people laugh] And … [audience cough] [carefully] … none of them has seen it, has endured it. Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 are there or when there are 1000. And … to have seen this through and — with the exception of human weakness — to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned. Because we know how difficult things would be, if today in every city during the bomb attacks, the burdens of war and the privations, we still had Jews as secret saboteurs, agitators and instigators. We would probably be at the same stage as 16/17, if the Jews still resided in the body of the German people.
We have taken away the riches that they had, and … I have given a strict order, which Obergruppenführer Pohl has carried out, we have delivered these riches [carefully] to the Reich, to the State. We have taken nothing from them for ourselves. A few, who have offended against this, will be judged in accordance with an order, [loudly] that I gave at the beginning: he who takes even one Mark of this is a dead man. [less loudly] A number of SS men have offended against this order. They are very few, and they will be dead men [yells] WITHOUT MERCY! We have the moral right, we had the duty to our people to do it, to kill this people who would kill us. We however do not have the right to enrich ourselves with even one fur, with one Mark, with one cigarette, with one watch, with anything. That we do not have. Because we don’t want, at the end of all this, to get sick and die from the same bacillus that we have exterminated. I will never see it happen that even one … bit of putrefaction comes in contact with us, or takes root in us. On the contrary, where it might try to take root, we will burn it out together. But altogether we can say: [slowly, carefully] We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have suffered no defect within us, in our soul, or in our character. – Heinrich Himmler, Speech to the SS at Posen, October 4, 1943, celebrating their utter annihilation of empathy for their victims as a triumph of German courage
Post-Christian Liberalism tends not to care too much about the aesthetics and outward pieties of the Christian tradition, while largely holding fast to its core moral and social ideas: exaltation of the poor and the underdog, distrust of riches, a sense of responsibility for the common good, belief in hope and charity and fidelity to honor.
Tom Holland makes a very similar point here:
The irony is that it is overwhelmingly the uber-pious Post-Christian MAGA conservative with his smells and bells and schmaltzy Precious Moments Figurines and country western piety and guns and Bibles who exalts sociopathic swine like Musk and Trump and the ethos fully articulated in the Melian dialogue from the great History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, when Athens puts the screws to the other Greek city states and meets a plea for compassion with “The strong do as they will. The weak suffer what they must.”
It is the allegedly “godless liberal” that is typically the deadly enemy of such Nietzschean supermen as Himmler and Musk and Trump and their Cult of nihilist power.
It puts me in mind of Jesus’ Parable of the Two Sons:
“What do you think? A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” (Mt 21:28–31)
Gooey piety layered over spiteful cruelty to the least of these is just honey on shit. But as Paul says:
When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Ro 2:14–16)
People who imagine they are “not religious” but who love their neighbor are (whether they realize it or not and whether they like it or not) responding to and obeying they Spirit of Jesus Christ since (as he himself says), “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Conversely, “If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20).
Talk, especially pious talk, is cheap. What we do, or at the very least attempt to do, is what matters.
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Mt 25:37–46)
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7 Responses
It’s curious how so called “Good Christians” are more than willing to throw the poor under the bus and cut taxes for billionaires. They see no conflict with the actual Gospels, like Matthew 25.
Indeed, the MAGA “Christian” seems to think that the poor are poor because they are lazy, immoral, etc, thus should be punished. This is a variation of the “Prosperity Gospel” which is on vogue with many Right Wing Catholics and Evangelicals.
The Prosperity Gospel is the Protestant Ethic on steroids and the worship of money. The whole idea that Jesus loves the rich more than the poor is a perversion of the real Gospel. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are not the messiah. They are not going to save us. It’s amazing that people appear to actually believe this.
It is that, the Prosperity Gospel, and much more. It is the re-emergence of the 19th Century’s Social Darwinism in American life caused by the new Robber Barons whom we now call oligarchs.
Musk needs to go watch BLADE RUNNER. The defining characteristic of being human is empathy. I get the impression Musk spent too much of his childhood playing video games instead of enjoying stories, filmed or otherwise.
I also find it interesting how our understanding of words of have changed. When language ceases to have any real meaning, it’s a dire sign for society. But most of today’s “conservatives” are anything but conservative. They are exactly what our forefathers would have defined as “liberal” — obsessed with personal liberty, autonomy, and every man for himself. True conservatives are almost extinct in the USA, at least in terms of a cultural / political force.
Todays GOP cannot be properly be termed either conservatives or liberals.
They are nihilists who demand a libertarian, practically anarchic regime for themselves and absolute totalitarianism for everyone else.
Musk really needs to just go all in. Shave his head and start petting a cat nonstop.
Does that make Trump his Mini-Me?
It is a frightening time to be a citizen. the absolute silence of Christians is deafening. I am not the only one to think so and have been meking some noise. But my fear is too little too late.