20.11.25. Warnings from the past..

20.11.25. WarningsFrom the past...

Our large national vacation this year is over, but everything they have said in connection with it and what the crucial politicians of different options have overlooked, including the president of Poland, what the social media breathed, including remarks about Christmas marches, but besides images, specified as trampling on the flag of the European Union or exposing banners with the slogans of "polexitum" and "white Europe", is inactive resonating powerfully in public space.

In this context, any might do well to read the 2 books that have been mentioned here before, namely Tim Marschall (1)Inmates of geography and(2)Geographical Powers (See Entries of 11.03.2021 and of 28.10.2021). By the way, a reminder that there is besides illustrated Tim Marshall album under the titleInmates of geography. 12 maps to aid you realize the world. This album is addressed to young readers, but adults could besides aid them to realize something better. In any case, knowing that the geographical location of the country is essential for its political, social and cultural situation is undoubtedly important. Marshall's books are the only ones paying attention to that.

Some, however, seem to overlook these facts, especially erstwhile they practice politics and have their immediate political interests in mind. From this perspective, they usually initiate building border walls and support their decisions with suggestions that this is what ensures security.

In addition, it seems equally crucial to have a real cognition of past and a willingness to discover in it the repetitiveness of certain human behaviors and, most importantly, the causes of this repetition. This is what the book of the well-known British historian, whose Polish edition was published just after our National independency Day, is November 12. The book is called The Nazi mind. 12 past Warnings Jan Dzierzgowski, Wielka Litera, Warszawa 2025). Her author, Laurence ReesFor 30 years now, he has been investigating problems in this work. In the introduction we will read that it focuses not so much on explaining, "where did the Nazi worldview and reasoning come from," but alternatively on what is worth noticing in fresh events due to our modern times. In doing so, he uses the findings of psychology, in peculiar evolutionary psychology. So it is not about examining the specificity of the minds of circumstantial Nazi players, whose names are mostly well known, but about discovering what is circumstantial to their actions and what is commonly repeated in certain situations due to the past of the evolution of human brains. In the beginning explanations of the thought of the full book, the author states clearly:

I wanted to compose a past book supported by the findings of psychologists, not a intellectual book supported by the findings of historians. I do not see the point in diagnosing various disorders in the most crucial Nazi leaders, especially eighty years after their death (Mind...( p. 17).

One of the impulses that led Ress to undertake signalled investigation was – we read immediately at the entrance – a gathering with a erstwhile Waffen-SS member, who after the war made a serious career in 1 of the German automotive companies. The conversation took place in 1990, and it was clear that this erstwhile Nazi continued to follow his Nazi views. Rees, commenting on this story, writes:

Since that meeting, I have been trying to realize how it is possible that so many years after the war, this foolish man continued to preach specified views. Among another things, I later interviewed hundreds of people who lived in or under the 3rd Reich.
Of course, archival materials are the primary origin of cognition for the historian, but I understood the past primarily through meetings with her witnesses. No 1 can enjoy this privilege anymore due to the fact that all the people I interviewed in the last 30 years have left.
In the 1990s I worked on a tv documentary series and a book The Nazis. past Warning. I was inspired by the words of German philosopher Karl Jaspers: “What happened is simply a warning. Forgetting her is the fault. It should be kept in mind.”
Today, after years of researching the mentality of the Nazis, I would like to encourage a small more detailed warnings that we should take from history. So in this book, I'm not just focusing on explaining where the Nazi worldview and reasoning came from; each of her 12 chapters is simply a circumstantial informing that I think is worth listening to in the present era. [distinguished – sk].
The historical events I intend to tell here are inactive important. In many countries, democracy is facing large threats today, so it is worth examining the methods that people who want to take our freedom will most likely use. But I wanted to compose a historical book, not comment on the current policy, due to the fact that if we want to full realize the warnings of the past, we request to get to know it first (Mind..., pp. 13-15).

And then again:

A fewer words on the title and content of the book. erstwhile I compose about "the Nazi's mind", I don't truly mean 1 peculiar kind of mentality. Furthermore, I am not limited to examining the beliefs of members of the National Socialist Workers' organization (NSDAP) – I besides consider another people who have supported the government in various ways. Although I'm focusing on the perpetrators, I'm not going to whitewash them in any way. knowing doesn't mean justification. Everyone I compose about had a choice: they killed and caused suffering due to the fact that they decided so. It is simply a real scandal that after the war ended only a fistful of them were held accountable.
The book is chronologically structured, so we can observe how different types of Nazi mentality changed over time (Mind..., p. 19).

Here we add: in the next 12 chapters the communicative of Germany after the unification in 1871 is shown in this book. In detail, this account covers planet War I, the interwar and the time of the Second War until its end, and in the background Hitler's beating himself up with his rhetorical talent for the national Messiah.

Someone here might want to remember a literary masterpiece. Sándora Máraia of his Marauders, this is simply a description of the conduct of a Nazi rally involving the chief (see. Entries of 25.07.2024). Rees' findings confirm all this, and told by him history is read without difficulty, even if individual is not a historian by education and if so far has not focused on these matters. For the final, it serves the chapter entitled Rees. 12 Warnings (see besides Mind..., p. 362-373). They are marked with the title slogans of the preceding chapters. This is – emphasizes the author –

twelve warnings to democracy based on that terrible time. All related to the issues discussed earlier in the book. They should not be regarded as an expression of my support for the right or left – I am simply a man who does not want democracy to be replaced by a dictatorship (Mind..., p. 363.

During the full reading, it is striking that the actions, statements and slogans analysed by Reese from the Nazi past function as if nothing in “ours today” in “ours here and now”, indicating the evident rebirth of Fascism.

Conspiracy theories, which lived during the analysed period of Germany, besides show everyday life in our planet present (see reading from the erstwhile episode of these Entries, including text Robert Stefanicki Coincidence? I don't think so. from “Books of the Magazine for Reading” and Piotr TarczyńskiSlender tentacles, known forces. past of America in conspiracy theories; for respective days there is besides a movie directed by Jorgosa Lantimosa p. Bugonia – its title is rooted in a story mentioned, for example, in Georgia Virgil, it's inThe first century B.C.E., and the action, maintained in a black-comedy style, tells the communicative of 2 contemporary heroes "discovering" in their surroundings of aliens coming to Earth to annihilate the human species...

It is characteristic of the Nazis to divide people into those whom we “we” represent and those to whom “they” belong, so it is hard to miss out on “Our” and “Other”, “Our” and “The Aliens”. Just as it is hard not to hear suggestions made by crucial politicians that “Others” are not people, but, for example, worms or weeds, which would be best to remove napalm, which sounds almost like the Nazi proposition of utilizing social Darwinism, that is to say to practice “used biology” to those who were not “real Germans”. To make leaders as “fathers of the nation”, propaganda built on lies, fueling fear, eliminating resistance, engaging in political competitions of university professors, carrying out human rights assassinations, so, for example, attempts to censor journalism or literary texts, escalating racism, exploiting faith, corrupting young people by politically set public education, our modernity besides knows well.

The reading of Reese's book allows all of this to be clearly understood. In turn, the only way to overcome the evolutionaryly justified pitfalls which lead to fresh disasters seems to be well thought out education. Unfortunately, however, we inactive “know as much about ourselves as we have been tested” – as in the poem One minute of silence after the Lorenzo Ludwika Wisława Szymborska wrote in her time – as well as in the fact that we have ideas about education more to the last point. Nazi tendencies were enthusiastically accepted and implemented by well - educated people. And today, it would be questionable to keep crucial participants in social games who have the diplomas of good universities. possibly evolution is entirely liable for this.

However, it may be essential to consider seriously what a "good education" means, what it should be focused on, what its quality depends on, and why, erstwhile and how to think about it should be modified. For example, a fresh book that has been published could offer interesting suggestions on specified issues. Krzysztof Maliszewski Pedagogical imagination in Babel. Introduction to Education Philosophy(PWN, Warsaw 2025). However, it should be noted that this is not a reflection based on circumstantial school practices and does not lead to the recognition of specified practices. It is besides not addressed to those who have always known what and how to teach and what beneficiaries of specified education are then to recite during exams. However, it shows the request to constantly make imaginations about how to realize pedagogy.

The answer to the question of why the author of the pedagogical imagination connects with the Bible figure of the Tower of Babel, naturally requires thorough explanations and who is curious will find them in the quoted work.The strongest conviction on this subject appears in the final paragraph of the book epilogue. It evokes the words of Paweł vocalist from his analysis Midrash. He writes:

Paweł Spiewak mentions a Talmudic tale that mentions that Babel was so tall that it took a year to scope the summit. The consequences of this accomplishment became disturbing: “In the eyes of the builders, the brick was more precious than human life. erstwhile a man fell, no 1 paid attention to him, but erstwhile a brick fell – they cried due to the fact that a year had to wait for a fresh one.”

The quote closes with a comment which could be treated, in peculiar with respect to the scourge of our educational reforms, as a request for a solid thought update relating to the problems of educating young people with the Reese warning. Miłoszewski:

I have a black belief that today's education can't imagine anything but towering and lamenting over a brick (Imagination..., p. 176).