The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum but was theoretically justified by appeals to pragmatism and the denial of transcendental spiritual reality…
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It’s been said that modern politics operates on the basis of the so-called “Hegelian Dialectic,” a method of social engineering based on a rather dismal theory about how precious little people can actually know (or be allowed to know). This theory can be easily traced to the “critical philosophy” of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who taught that the human mind cannot transcend itself in order to apprehend ultimate reality. There are limits or boundaries to the mind’s ability to discover “things in themselves,” and at best we are left with methods (or paradigms) we devise (and imitate mimetically) by which we “manage appearances.” Even hard sciences, such as physics, can only deal with the phenomenal realm of life. The inner working of reality — the “noumenal” — is sealed off as essentially unknowable. We are left only with postulates, hypothetical constructs, models, etc., but knowledge is essentially constrained by fundamental structures of consciousness (e.g., the categories of space and time) from which we interpret any possible experience.
Instead of accepting the limits of the human mind that Kant outlined (the “antinomies of reason”), however, G.W. Hegel (1770-1831) went on to claim that the mind itself is its own endpoint, and therefore the interplay of ideas is itself ultimate reality. In other words, Hegel was an “idealist,” by which is meant that ideas (mental constructs) are the substrata of reality. The phenomenal realm is the product of the mind, after all, and therefore it is the very thing Kant said could not be known — i.e., the noumenal.
The Hegelian Dialectic is what I call “the devil’s logic,” based as it is on compromise, calling evil good and good evil, hissing out a seductive appeal to a supposed “higher synethesis” of esoteric knowledge, claiming superiority to the commonsense truth claims of experience, justifying human atrocities, barbarity, callous pragmatism, and even cold-blooded murder for the sake of power and control. From Hegel sprang Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and from Nietzsche sprang Hitler and modern fascism. Propagandists and disinformation specialists are masters at the “Problem → Reaction → Solution” technique for coercing social change. It’s the prevailing dogma of the princes of this world, and it is regularly at work in the halls of power today.
Audio Podcast:
- Thoughts on the Holocaust (SoundCloud here)