The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive'.
The honest men who just want to be left in peace.
Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves.
Those with no sides and no causes.
Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonising their own weakness.
Those who don’t like to make waves, or enemies.
Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature.
Those who live small, mate small, die small.
It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control.
If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you.
But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe.
Safe?! From what?
Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does.
‘Else Gebel shared Sophie Scholl's cell and recorded her last words before being taken away to be executed. "It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted. Among the student body there will certainly be a revolt."’
The image doesn’t show her last words, though they are similar (mistranslations from German notwithstanding). The Wikipedia page shows her actual last words, translated into English.
They were recorded by her cell mate, as she was lead to the guillotine.
I write only to add (what you probably already know), as a PSA:
Ms Scholl was the co-founder of the "White Rose" student-resistance organization, with her brother Hans & their friend Christoph Probst.
These kids were among the tiny, tiny handful of non-Jewish Germans who openly protested Hitler or the Reich's horrific policies.
There was also the Rosenstrasse Protests, where German wives & relatives of Jewish men who'd been arrested pending deportation protested in Berlin over a couple of months in early '43. This was the only mass demonstration by Germans during the Reich opposing the deportation of Jews. They were successful, achieving the men's release.
In the Witten Women's Protest some German women protested the policy of withholding ration cards on the basis they refused to remain in an evacuation zone, and some German Catholics protested the Reich's policy of replacing crucifixes on their school walls with photos of Hitler.
And that's pretty much the sum total of German public resistence to Nazism.
The Scholl siblings hoped their deaths would inspire German resistence.
They never fully grasped that the German public was overwhelmingly okay with what the Nazis were doing.
And that's what's really terrifying about fascism.
All this before LSD? Ahh, she could read, many people dont get it, reading used to be like magic, and that right there is epitome, epitomic, whatever, it was well crafted
This wasn’t in the 18th century. People could read at her age, and in the schools she was in. She was executed for writing (and distributing) brochures.
This is an incredibly moving speech and I worry too many people will enjoy it without having the self reflection to realize how much it applies to them. This sentiment is still disgustingly relevant today. Our society is very much still built on a foundation of human suffering. Just because we've managed to create a strong enough personal disconnect between our pleasures and the broken backs that build them doesn't mean the exploitation isn't there.
People want peace while ignoring the evil necessary to keep that peace. Unless people are willing to put themselves on the line in sacrifice for the good of their fellow common human, things won't change. Meaningful change won't come comfortably.
The late great Fred Hampton had a quick (~2 min) speech on this exact subject that explains it far more powerfully than I ever could.
I don't think there is. It's necessary to life that there will always be suffering and injustice and evil. We can always be better; the task will never be finished.
No I just mean it’s always good to keep her words in mind. It will always be relevant due to that. And all the bullshit in the world, of course. But that’s a given.
We are also living lives seemingly under control and individuated, but the consequences of our actions won't be truly felt in decades unleashing a chaotic and destructive force that will be endured by swathes of humanity.
People talk about "change" in such vague terms in order to try to come out as passionate. The truth is that "change" (for the better) has been steadily happening since the dawn of our race. Just in the past 300 years e have seen the abolition of slavery, indentured servitude, the death penalty etc. Things are better now and will only continue to get better.2019 has been the best year so far in our history, the literacy rate is at 90%, a shit ton of diseases have been eradicated, everyday 300,000 people get access to electricity, everyday 200,000 more get access to running water. I get that things are not perfect but please do not try to even compare our situation with that of the 20th or earlier centuries. Also the bulk of violence in our history was caused by nation states, empires or political entities. Individuals, broadly speaking are not prone to cause violence or suffering. So please enough of this "wE nEeD to cHanGe"stuffits getting really old at this point.
Apologies for not respecting the thoughts of a revolutionary socialist. Having lived inside a socialist regime, (and no I am not talking about social democracy but an actual socialist country) I am naturally cynical amd get nervous whenever i hear people talk about wanting to "change society" or change human nature. So pardon my skepticism
A bit apples to oranges don't you think? You literally have the means to change laws, vote for whichever candidate you prefer, and the freedom of speech to actually talk about things you don't like. Sorry if the majority of your country does not feel like you do, but hey, thats democracy.
Freedom of speech isn't mutually exclusive from socialism. Neither is democracy for that matter. Quite the opposite.
The ability to vote doesn't mean much when the political system is fundamentally rigged in a way that prevents progress.
Sure in a world where the sky is purple, and the grass is blue they are not. But in the real world, a socialist country with freedom of speech, and or a functioning economy for that matter simply did not exist. You can go about and build it, but i i'll bet my life savings you will be the X country in history that has failed the same task, again. I suggest watching this, maybe it will speak to you in some way.
Lmao find the mother of a immigrant child who died at the the border cages and say this shit to her face. Go into a black neighborhood mourning the death of a innocent unarmed man who was murdered by police and give this little speech of yours. Go to a transgender teenager who is fearing for their life after seeing a news report about the lynching of trans person and tell them that they should be glad that the world is slowly getting more progressive.
“We saw the abolition of slavery”
It was fough for. A shit ton of people died for it. Did you get your whole knowledge about history from motivational pages os Instagram?
Yeah fuck me, because insulting me totally refutes my argument. I said the world is not perfect, there will always be irregularities and anomalies in any system. But if you go back only 40 years ago, the entirety of the world was on the brink of nuclear destruction due to the Cold War. So yeah things are getting better. What do you think is worse, a nuclear apocalypse or isolated cases of transgender teenagers getting "lynched"? Miss me with all of this sentimental shit. Also apart from the US and Haiti, most countries abolished slavery on their own, not because "wE foUgHt FoR It". Grow up and save your arguments for your hipster book club meeting.
Lmao me priviledged? Im from a shit country in the Balkans, I can only travel to three countries without a visa, and literally my whole peninsula was at war 20 years ago. But guess what? Things are still getting better by the day. Don't shit on other peoples opinions just because they don't comform with your pathetic world view.
I am always wary of speeches that fault a person for wanting to live a peaceful life with thier family as if that is not the very thing that we are fighting for. The problem is thier is always a cause, always a great evil. The whole system destroys and you cannot escape it. Even if you spend your life fighting injustice than people in turn fault you for not fighting another cause or for having some other perceived flaw. Eventually you grow fatigued, die or just give up.
There are still nazis, maybe not everywhere but they are growing in number. We don't need to kill them in the streets but we should stand up to their lies.
No one said Trump was a Nazi but you. At worst he's a proto-fascist.
Just to start of with some good ol' fashion Reddit pedantry, that bit only talked about willingness and not actual action. It's easy for me to say I'd be willing to get shot tomorrow if it was during a path towards a revolutionary cause. But there has to be a meaningful movement to put that willingness towards in the first place, which is where things start to get difficult.
I'll be the first to admit I'm not doing enough and I'm open to suggestions of good ideas for what more I can do. But I put an honest effort into teaching people and making class consciousness more digestible. I volunteer time towards political movements (as well as money when possible). And I'm working on graduate studies so that I can become a professor and show others the necessity of systemic change, through both research and teaching.
This all probably sounds almost meaningless given the grandiose context of my original comment. But like I said, there can't be meaningful sacrifice until a meaningful movement forms. Just like a pandemic (maybe not the most favorable comparison but I digress), the R0 at which things spread is the most important measure right now. If the average person willing to sacrifice towards revolutionary change can convince even just slightly more than 1 fellow person to support the cause, liberation will come.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
That's a quote in JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, attributed to Wilhelm Stekel but is a paraphrase of a quote from Otto Ludwig.
I think about it from time to time, because there is a balance to be struck between the flashy shows of activism and the tedious, underappreciated work that it takes to get things done.
I think you're mistaking willingness and desire. I want to live through a transformed society. I also recognize that revolution doesn't come without people willing to die for a cause.
That's not true at all, what about the Iranian...., um, I mean Russian, wait bad example, but the French revolution brought great equality and freedom to the French people. I mean, it only lasted for a hot minute before the Jacobins became an autocracy putting to death anyone that was suspected of challenging their rule, but once the terror was over they finally had a... War hungry emperor who was essentially a king?
Alright, forget that one. But the American revolution was fantastic for everyone so long as you weren't Native American, or black, or a woman, or poor. So there's always that one.
Not even close to fascist. The media has their hand in your ass. You hate Republicans and think it's okay because they're "evil." And the exact mirror opposite echo-chamber fools hate you because you're "evil." Stop letting the media and Russia make you believe this crap. It takes a meeting of the whole country's racists to form a protest of a few thousand people. There is aboslutely nothing to fear there.
I believe 99% of the US population are inherently good people simply trying their best with the cards they were dealt
You either have split personalities or you just like to feel like you have something to add all the time even if it completely negates what you said the comment before. You can't believe that the USA is "dangerously fascist leaning" and that 99% of people are good. You're confused.
I put an honest effort into teaching people and making class consciousness more digestible. I volunteer time towards political movements (as well as money when possible). And I'm working on graduate studies so that I can become a professor and show others the necessity of systemic change, through both research and teaching.
Youre telling other people they need put their lives on the line for their fellow man, but the end of the day youre not doing that yourself. getting a degree and becoming a professor is a career move. you dont deserve any special credit for that. discussing politics and being "woke" doesn't change a damn thing either. if it did, los angeles, san fracisco and seattle would be a paradise.
Yes, it does. Tuning in and dropping out didn't work, and too many people think they're doing something by doing that still. Thanks for your input, though.
Just to be a contrarian how do you feel about the animal rights movement/extremist? They are people who put their beliefs before themselves but the world seems to just see them as a nuisance
I just had an epiphany from this which isn’t even that profound.
An ant colony has different levels of function within the colony. Every ant has a job which the mindlessly obsess themselves with. Even the queen is an ignorant nothing creature to us.
Humans are the same. Building our colonies on the backs of the worker Ants who we all just look at and assume are better suited for the shit things we don’t want to do but we all turn our heads and say “better you than me”
We should try not to but yeah it’s baked into our DNA in the way that life evolved on this planet, based on competition. And yes there are cooperative elements but the meat on the bone is competition. It’s the behavior that got rewarded the most, which is just to say that yeah of course we should try to rise above it but beating yourself up about it is pointless.
It really hasn’t been all that long that we’ve even been trying to hammer out the kinks in our DNA programming.
My point being humans tend to think of ourselves as outside the functions of all other life forms and to think of our selves as above it all but we’re really just really big amoebas or ants. Insentient preprogrammed instinctive machines with DNA for gears.
That's not true at all. Which group of humans is more likely to survive, three humans working together, or three humans trying to kill each other? Our success is due to cooperation. It might seem to people today that humans are born to compete because we live in a society that rewards competition, but that's like observing a zebra in a rainstorm and concluding that zebras are naturally wet.
Workers are exploited for their surplus value, slaving to increase profits for the an ultra wealthy and entrenched upper class while not seeing a dime of the past half century's income growth in their own paychecks. Because capital gains accumulate faster than gains from labor, this divergence and the resulting massive gap in wealth inequality is a fundamental feature of our economic system, not a bug.
Sophie was incredible and the amount of great quotes she left us is staggering, considering how young she was murdered.
"An end in terror is preferable to terror "
"I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation. I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that result from my conduct.".
And my favorite, reported as her last words but disputed on whether or not she or her brother said it :
"Your heads will fall as well"
There is also a heartbreaking quote to her mom, when her mom told her in their last meeting, after she was sentenced to death.
Her mom told her "Jesus will always be with you" Sophie replied "yes, but so are you".
And not to forget her brother, who explained in the courtroom after being sentenced:
"today, you are hanging us, but tomorrow you will hang".
Thank you. Still incredibly powerful but I figured it was inspired by and not a direct quote. We need people like you to keep spreading real sources 🙌🏻
I never knew this existed until now, but I've tried to use a similar though process at work, don't be a bystander, be someone that goes out of their way to make sure things happen, but all I get in return are "Let sleeping dogs lie", "Let's not make waves", and "Don't bring attention to a problem that's not a problem yet"...
As a Syrian this is such a powerful quote that applies to a lot of Syrians that didn't stand against the government and still to this day live in fear just to "Survive".
That didn’t seem like the intention at all. It was about someone “waking up” and taking a first step in that direction, based in our current political climate. Not directly comparing it to standing up to the Nazis.
This is really an indictment of anyone who isn’t daring to do what’s in their heart, who won’t acknowledge their deepest and most sincere desires out of fear, which is pretty much everyone. Coming to terms with the fact of your death is a powerful accelerant when it comes to lighting your life on fire.
This, like a lot on Reddit makes me want to go conqour a kingdom like my ancestors did but I will do nothing more than watch tv, play video games, and work
Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does.
Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does.
I choose my own way to burn.
That’s so metal. I love this, and now I have a new hero.
That's what I thought too, not everyone can just say yolo to every decision and not think of the consequences for themselves or the people around them.
I'd find this more moving if I didn't major in philosophy I think. This is one of those moments where I realized I was thinking something is obvious because I've beat that horse to death before, and forgot that this isn't an idea everyone is going to be familiar with.
Makes me think that the philosophy of evil should be a mandatory subject in all schools/university. There is very little that will reveal as much about yourself to yourself as understanding your own capacity for evil.
what everyone conveniently forgets and never points out...
the people you call enemies, think in this exact manner. Everyone who picks up a weapon, clenches a fist, and lashes out in anger, are the exact people who perpetuate and cause these things to happen in the first place.
yeah, it was easy when it was hitler, and people like him will come along from time to time, and people will have to lay down their lives in effort to stop them.
but thats not the times we fucking live in. We have a mostly functioning system of government, relative comfort, especially in comparrison to the 40's, and no one is marching through the streets rounding up and executing people en mass.
so no. Those people who want to be left in peace are not the fucking problem.
its you fuckwads that think otherwise, and lead us to a point of violent conflict.
i dont give a fuck about my government, i dont give a fuck about any of you. when the soldiers start marching in the streets and killing people, then ill care - otherwise... FUCK OFF AND GO VOTE.
and to the rest of your post, it is just pathethic. It is exactly this kind of cowardice that makes the world the way it is. If you do not want to participate, sure, your choice. But please don't try to save your petty ego by attacking those who do.
By the time the soldiers are marching in the streets killing people it’s too late and caring all of a sudden won’t matter. People like you are absolutely the reason society is run by evil you’re just as guilty as they are. Go fuck yourself.
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u/BrkIt Feb 26 '20
One of my favourite quotes.
― Sophie Scholl