November 15, 2003
Recognition
Posted by bopuc at November 15, 2003 11:57 PM
Joi posted something the other day which took two full days to get a mildly negative comment. It's not even all that negative really. The commenter very lightly and respectfully nudged Joi to censor himself.
The post quotes a protestant pastor who ended up in Nazi hands and was probably meant as a gentle reminder to keep our eyes and ears open about "what's going on"... you know... all that nasty stuff surrounding the U.S. and its current policies, both internal and foreign and at tthe border of both.
My comment, in reply, was as follows:
One of the most important aspects of remembering such things as the horrors of Nazi Germany is to pay special attention when one sees similarities to what allowed those horrors to happen.Dismissing comparisons with Nazi Germany is far far worse than forgetting it outright.
Remebering is one thing. Learning and prevention is another. And cynicism in the face of possible recognition of patterns just doesn't help anything.
That said, 1- cynicism makes me ill, 2- censorship makes me ill and 3- databanks are useless without CPUs and software.