Who are these happy people?

[Apech]

[Nungali]

Its the Hitler Youth Secretariat  having their morning  cereal  and skirt length inspection   ( the inspector is  lying just OOF at the bottom you can see his  head and arm and his stripped measuring stick next to him ).

 

As was the custom then , all dress and underwear inspections where accompanied by the  official 'accordianmeister'  - which is further evidence of their heartless inhumanity .

 

 

 

 

[Geof Nanto]

10 hours ago, Apech said:

 

Members of the SS Helferinnen (female auxiliaries) and SS officer Karl Hoecker (the adjutant to the last commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp) sit on a fence railing in Solahuette (an SS retreat centre located near Auschwitz for members of the camp staff) eating bowls of blueberries. In the background is a man playing the accordion.

 

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1163643

 

To me happiness has always seemed a dubious goal of practice. As this photo confirms, it arises spontaneously when we feel at one with our comrades and the collective ideology, regardless of what that ideology may result in us doing. The danger here is obvious, it's an extreme example, yet it lurks beneath the surface within all group identities, be they spiritual or secular. 

 

Edit to add:

@Apech  Your photo and Nungali’s typically half wise, half whacky response got me curious, so I looked it up. But I’m still curious to know why you posted it. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Yueya

[silent thunder]

9 hours ago, Yueya said:

To me happiness has always seemed a dubious goal of practice.

Well said Yueya. 

Some time ago I realized the state of happiness was experienced as unstable.  I realized it was unsustainable and rather manic, much like anger. 

 

Gratefully, my process seems to be settling into stable contentment, instead of happiness or any sense of great accomplishment (again fleeting).

 

Release is still the active process and after releasing, contentment seems the natural, stable and sustainable result (until the next trigger/life event/challenge).

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Yueya said:

I’m still curious to know why you posted it. 

Agreed.

Edited December 9, 2021 by silent thunder

[Apech]

11 hours ago, Yueya said:

 

Members of the SS Helferinnen (female auxiliaries) and SS officer Karl Hoecker (the adjutant to the last commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp) sit on a fence railing in Solahuette (an SS retreat centre located near Auschwitz for members of the camp staff) eating bowls of blueberries. In the background is a man playing the accordion.

 

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1163643

 

To me happiness has always seemed a dubious goal of practice. As this photo confirms, it arises spontaneously when we feel at one with our comrades and the collective ideology, regardless of what that ideology may result in us doing. The danger here is obvious, it's an extreme example, yet it lurks beneath the surface within all group identities, be they spiritual or secular. 

 

Edit to add:

@Apech  Your photo and Nungali’s typically half wise, half whacky response got me curious, so I looked it up. But I’m still curious to know why you posted it. 

 

I don't know if you have heard of or read this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution-ebook/dp/B01G1F0F84/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ordinary+men&qid=1639063142&sr=8-1 which describes how a group of policeman (who were non political and family men basically i.e. not SS Nazis) were dispatched to the Eastern Front in WWII and ended up executing people in the street including pregnant women.  The point of the book is to examine what ordinary people will do in extreme circumstances ... and to pose the question what would you or I have done ... we like to think we would have stood up to the oppression but it is by no means certain.

 

Someone posted this pic on twitter and at first glance I thought it was a group of girl scouts or something and that they looked quite jolly.  Obviously when I found out who they actually were I had to re-examine both the photo and my feelings about it.  The optics are very different to the 'reality'.  Although one has to ask what these people were actually like - could they take part in the bureaucracy of genocide and just not realise what they were doing?   Can good people do evil things - and so on.

 

So I just wondered if I just posted it if people would pick up any or all of this and what they might think.

[Daniel]

.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Daniel
nevermind

[Geof Nanto]

7 hours ago, Apech said:

 

I don't know if you have heard of or read this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution-ebook/dp/B01G1F0F84/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ordinary+men&qid=1639063142&sr=8-1 which describes how a group of policeman (who were non political and family men basically i.e. not SS Nazis) were dispatched to the Eastern Front in WWII and ended up executing people in the street including pregnant women.  The point of the book is to examine what ordinary people will do in extreme circumstances ... and to pose the question what would you or I have done ... we like to think we would have stood up to the oppression but it is by no means certain.

 

Someone posted this pic on twitter and at first glance I thought it was a group of girl scouts or something and that they looked quite jolly.  Obviously when I found out who they actually were I had to re-examine both the photo and my feelings about it.  The optics are very different to the 'reality'.  Although one has to ask what these people were actually like - could they take part in the bureaucracy of genocide and just not realise what they were doing?   Can good people do evil things - and so on.

 

So I just wondered if I just posted it if people would pick up any or all of this and what they might think.

 

I well aware of these complex themes that go to the heart of what it is to be human. I’m under no illusions about my own moral fibre in that I’ve been a street junkie and seen a great variety of behaviour from desperate people, myself included. Under pressure a few retained great integrity –they were like saints – while others lied, stole and cheated with total abandonment. I was somewhere in between, neither entirely corrupt or overly honest.  In retrospect, after a profound spiritual awakening and a few decades of practice, I feel no connection to the person I was then, yet I’m well aware that I’m no saint.  

 

I haven’t read the book you mention but I recently reread Bernhard Schlink, The Reader which explores with great sensitivity aspects of the holocaust and our chaotic human heart. It's a very personal account. The book has been made into a movie of the same name which I haven't seen but I've watched the preview on YouTube. 

 

When I looked up the Goodreads reference, I read the first review written by BlackOxford and titled ‘What About the Children?’ It’s a long review but well worth reading in that the powerful narrative of The Reader spurred the reviewer to question our pervasive corporate culture and speculates as to why even people who feel the harm it’s causing don’t stand up to it. To this he offers no answers but shows plenty of insight. While there’s no comparison between the intensity of harm caused by the holocaust and that caused by corporate culture, I like it that the reviewer doesn’t see the rise of Nazism as an aberration of history but looks to how we all, in less blatant ways, support activities that are harmful. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Yueya

[ralis]

The Milgram Experiment as well as the Stanford Prison Experiment are worth reviewing. Obedience to authoritarians whether religious or political can and will lead to the worst of atrocities. 
 

https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

 

https://www.prisonexp.org

 

 

[Nungali]

9 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Well said Yueya. 

Some time ago I realized the state of happiness was experienced as unstable.  I realized it was unsustainable and rather manic, much like anger. 

 

Gratefully, my process seems to be settling into stable contentment, instead of happiness or any sense of great accomplishment (again fleeting).

 

Release is still the active process and after releasing, contentment seems the natural, stable and sustainable result (until the next trigger/life event/challenge).

 

 

 

Agreed.

 

'Real' happiness  includes contentment but is more than that .   And if it is a real 'spiritual' happiness it is stable ; amidst the natural turmoil and 'suffering' of life .

 

Unless it is real turmoil and suffering  .... not the type of 'suffering' I often hear westerners complain of .

 

I think we all know about 'those people' that have  'nothing '   and yet ;

 

[Apech]

12 hours ago, Yueya said:

 

I well aware of these complex themes that go to the heart of what it is to be human. I’m under no illusions about my own moral fibre in that I’ve been a street junkie and seen a great variety of behaviour from desperate people, myself included. Under pressure a few retained great integrity –they were like saints – while others lied, stole and cheated with total abandonment. I was somewhere in between, neither entirely corrupt or overly honest.  In retrospect, after a profound spiritual awakening and a few decades of practice, I feel no connection to the person I was then, yet I’m well aware that I’m no saint.  

 

I haven’t read the book you mention but I recently reread Bernhard Schlink, The Reader which explores with great sensitivity aspects of the holocaust and our chaotic human heart. It's a very personal account. The book has been made into a movie of the same name which I haven't seen but I've watched the preview on YouTube. 

 

When I looked up the Goodreads reference, I read the first review written by BlackOxford and titled ‘What About the Children?’ It’s a long review but well worth reading in that the powerful narrative of The Reader spurred the reviewer to question our pervasive corporate culture and speculates as to why even people who feel the harm it’s causing don’t stand up to it. To this he offers no answers but shows plenty of insight. While there’s no comparison between the intensity of harm caused by the holocaust and that caused by corporate culture, I like it that the reviewer doesn’t see the rise of Nazism as an aberration of history but looks to how we all, in less blatant ways, support activities that are harmful. 

 

I've seen the film - it has whatshername from Titanic in it (who turns out to be a very good actress)(I saw her in a TV series called Mare of Easttown also) - I wish I could remember her name.

 

The point has been made by some authors - including Tom Holland in 'Dominion' that the Nazis have become the codeword for evil generally - whilst in previous times it would have been the devil or Satan - now it is the Austrian failed painter who is evoked.  So people who say bad things are compared to him and the accusation of 'fascist' and so on is easily made.  It does seem to have a masking effect on the complexity of human morality - and particularly what it actually means to be a good person ... good is not compliant or even inoffensive - and may mean making a stand against the consensus view in society.

 

There is something particularly soulless about corporate society - and often think of William Blakes poem London (where he uses the term chartered for what we would call corporately owned) 

 

"I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe."

 

Thank you for sharing your experiences as a street junkie.  I had a teacher once who was very strong on 'prodigality' and said that we in our various ways will go through living with pigs and eating husks before any return to the spirit, as per the parable of the prodigal son.

 

 

[Apech]

12 hours ago, ralis said:

The Milgram Experiment as well as the Stanford Prison Experiment are worth reviewing. Obedience to authoritarians whether religious or political can and will lead to the worst of atrocities. 
 

https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

 

https://www.prisonexp.org

 

 

 

 

Indeed this is a chilling example.

[Apech]

11 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

'Real' happiness  includes contentment but is more than that .   And if it is a real 'spiritual' happiness it is stable ; amidst the natural turmoil and 'suffering' of life .

 

Unless it is real turmoil and suffering  .... not the type of 'suffering' I often hear westerners complain of .

 

I think we all know about 'those people' that have  'nothing '   and yet ;

 

....

 

This kind of happiness is not comfort or pleasure but more like inner peace - that the Egyptians called 'hotep'.

[Nungali]

20 hours ago, Apech said:

 

This kind of happiness is not comfort or pleasure but more like inner peace - that the Egyptians called 'hotep'.

 

Wiki also gives 'contentment'   and 

 

" Davies (2018) interprets the concept of ḥtp as "the result of action in accord with maat [the proper order of the universe]"

 

also , what we might call gratitude / showing appreciation for  (  even for just being alive )  / offerings   is known to be 'mentally healthy '   ( or generate 'yohu mainyu ' - good mind )  . 

 

And  Wiki also adds : " The word also refers to an "offering" ritually presented to a deity or a dead person, hence "be pleased, be gracious, be at peace". It is rendered in hieroglyphs as an altar/offering table " .

 

Anyway , they are some dynamics about 'happiness' generated by 'good mind'  ....

 

But what about false happiness generated by participation in , aiding and abetting  'evil'  ... and not even knowing you are doing that  ....    

 

 

'The People's'  minds are plastic .

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

'Psyops' .

[Apech]

5 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Wiki also gives 'contentment'   and 

 

" Davies (2018) interprets the concept of ḥtp as "the result of action in accord with maat [the proper order of the universe]"

 

also , what we might call gratitude / showing appreciation for  (  even for just being alive )  / offerings   is known to be 'mentally healthy '   ( or generate 'yohu mainyu ' - good mind )  . 

 

And  Wiki also adds : " The word also refers to an "offering" ritually presented to a deity or a dead person, hence "be pleased, be gracious, be at peace". It is rendered in hieroglyphs as an altar/offering table " .

 

Anyway , they are some dynamics about 'happiness' generated by 'good mind'  ....

 

But what about false happiness generated by participation in , aiding and abetting  'evil'  ... and not even knowing you are doing that  ....    

 

 

'The People's'  minds are plastic .

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

Those type of  psyops have best 'success'   when interfering with young minds ... which are even  more 'plastic'. 

 

 

  

 

 

[Apech]

[centertime]

for many companies, obedience and trustworthness are virtue... and in politics as well, police and army.

It depends on the environment.

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, centertime said:

for many companies, obedience and trustworthness are virtue... and in politics as well, police and army.

It depends on the environment.

 

 

'companies' - the corporations (as distinct to normal businesses) are evil and obedience to them is not a virtue.

 

I accept that in the police and army you have to have obedience as a necessary way to operate ... not necessarily a virue in itself tho'.

 

Politics .... hmmm ...