See the concepts by Colonel Du Picq “Elan” & “Esprite de Corps”.
It more or less functions identically to nationalism, as it is a identification of “thisness” and “otherness” through expression of a historical construct, one that may or may not be correct, rarely is correct actually.
Everyone feels they can pursue and accept this spirit, till told/experienced otherwise. I tried out for the US Army Rangers, with plans of going Delta Force (absurdly loftly goals in hindsight), learned the histories… When I was sent to my unit in Alaska, learned about that history, the very company of some 120 men was the unit that back in WW2 made the first US Parachuting jumps (US made the first earlier in WW1)…
Typically these unit histories sculpt a Esprite de Corps that looks very favorably, inspirationally, on a unit. It is a history without a counterculture, one of great bonds and great endeavors.
You never do really come across negative stories of shitheads getting busted for rape, burgulary, drugs, deserting, going AWOL.
Worst prior to Bergdahl for my unit was Hamburger Hill, they made a movie about it.
Now… is that metaphysics? No. Is that history? Yes, it is historical writing, and it more often than not is factual within a military, but it is completely full of holes… The unit history doesn’t really try to expose the fullness of the experience of the past, if it did, it would be horrific and disgusting. Those people we’re less educated generally, more brutal and far less considerate about the little realizations about our inheritance from them.
Nazis are a extreme case, it is a philosophy, nation, and ideology completely vanquished, only Nazis Corps tolerated with general respect is Rommels’ Afrika Corps, and that is because Rommel didn’t follow the dictates of Social Nationalism at all. He could of ideally of been a Charles DuGaulle rewriting history for a new Germany focused on him had he lived and the assassination of hitler of been a success.
It wasn’t. Instead, every aspect of that God forsaken Nietzschean Empire was ripped from the earth brutally and thrown into the fire. Our emphasis on the worst aspects of the Nazis is likewise a inversion of Du Picq’s principles. It is likewise not a accurate retelling, because while we are quick to lionize armies, the threat they posed, there is no unit history of heroes in it. Why? Those units were killed off in the war. Those unit histories aren’t told.
Soviets didn’t die off, they merely had a revolution, do we got a bunch of elder Russians around to call bullshit on propaganda. Nazis nearly were wiped out.
Reason why this even matters in the first place, is because the Romans instituted the idea of keeping legions, from Scipio Africanus till the 6/7th Centuries AD in the East, with unit histories and standardized names and some unique customs. Units that performed well lasted, those that didn’t were disbanded. After a few centuries, some legions became infamous. No matter where you moved them, how sharp the retirement and influx of new recruits, they retained this, as if all the new guts deserved it.
I’m proud of bring part of a elite unit that trained all the paratroopers during WW2. I did not fight during WW2. Only one man in my town from my unit has that claim, and that is a sad looking manniquin in my towns museum, he died the night before D Day, likely a spear through the chest after parachuting in… I remember stories of guys saying that happened, and one smuck happened to be from the same town as me, and his family made a life size dummy of him in uniform, with medals, some of which he couldn’t possibly of earned, as they were from later battles… Unless he was a zombie.
Nazis have really no modern unit to look to, nor a need to specifically affiliate… cause it is all gone. It isn’t a Esprite de Corps, as there is no corps, merely a concept. That concept is as divorced from historic reality as anyone needs it to be.
Remember how I said it doesn’t record bad events or countercultures? Why? It serves the training needs, or that if Elan, of modern units. Nazis today are the opposite, they are a counter culture, usually with no specific place. Some have compounds, for Zoots it was hilarious, he placed his in space.
Why? It was Utopic, a Salve, but he needed the telelogy, a purpose to give meaning to his terrible life choices… but it also had to exist in a specific space and time to be reasonable to him on a pragmatic level. He created his own myth, one that would justify himself while acknowledging in a unconscious way how fucked he was. He hoped space nazis would fix it all, other times it was socialist liberals fixing everything for him.
For the esoteric nazis, like Sauwelios, who quotes them, they have a concrete place, they restarted their cycle at their new compounds, are trying to create new ideologues, new personalities. It is the beginnings of creating a viable history others in the future can look back on and point to and continue. That was the entire concept behind Jack London’s “The Iron Heel”, the story told of a futuristic Marxist uprising, that ultimately was crushed… but as your reading the story, you see notes on the side, and realize these are notes from 700 years after that rebellion, and the Marxist lost, they are identifying with the story, it is a recovered historic text, documenting the struggles of a unsuccessful proletariat rebellion that while being a miserable failure, was utterly crushed, did eventually lay the seeds for a much later success.
This neither proves nor disproves the Marxists were right or wrong, or the Nazis or anyone else following these patterns. It is the side effect of the Philosophy of History, how we have learned to write unit and national histories. This started very early, looking back in particular:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_ … Piso_Frugi
He wrote it on the national level. Prior to this, Romans wrote of great deeds of Roman heros, but not national defended of propaganda. This can be compartmentalized large and small.
When you completely smash and take away a history to a extinguished people, and that is what the Nazis very much are, defeated bona fide Nietzscheans, people who wish to associate with them can do so be paraphenalia, dressing like them, or adopting mere aspects of ideas or customs.
How well would some Indian do in the Reich? Very poorly. The Nazis we’re killing off German Jews who were 99.99999% German, white Slavs, Gypsies who’s largely turned Caucasian from countless generations living west… No brown person would of made it long under Hitler’s silly Nordic Ideals… because you know, they’ve done so very much for civilizations progress! They hardly did shit, other than topple the western Roman Empire after allying with the Huns (anything would of knocked Rome out after that), and being one of many warrior groups expanding during the middle ages, neither the best nor fiercest, or even the most successful. They are a lame duck people, neither impressive nor embarrassing, but in Hitler’s crazy ass head, they became the master race. Hitler also believed they invaded Greece, and therefore Greek Art was Nordic Art, and they invaded India, so therefore India was also Nordic, which is a absurdity instantly dismissed by noting the very vast dissimularities between Sami people living in Finland and Tamil culturally and racially… but in many modern nazus eyes, Aryan is Aryan. Never mind England subjugated India, and Hitler loved the English as a fellow Master Race people for doing this.
Why?
Take you pick.
Literally, it is a take your pick situation, every silly fucking neonazis group will take their pick. Their intellectuals will read Hitler, then Nietzsche, then random Nazis writers, then post war Neo Nazis… and they will peace it together, so they will take Sauwelios hairbrained understanding of the Varna System (you could change your caste in the real system, and inheritance wasn’t assured, a son of a brahmin wasn’t necessarily a brahmin, had to prove himself worthy) and this will lead to Zoots imagining Governor Zinnati, leader of the Aryans People of the Confederacy of the great colonies of Jupiter, under the Nazi Flag, Veiling the long dead ghost of hitler, cause only white people have the spiritual nature of… doing whatever the crazy fucking shit he is idealizing.
It is all fucking bullshit in the end.
I can say a few things about the real Nazis
- They wouldnt of liked most of the misfits calling themselves Neo-Nazis today.
- The Nazis were far worst than we give them credit for, and I don’t think we understand yet the full extent if what they did. We simply forgotten much of it, in many cases even the outlines are list, something for future archaeologists to uncover.
- They werealso far better and more human than we give them credit for, and likely more diversified in their views. We don’t get to think about Nazis Plumbers or Nazis Bakers or Nazis Florists, Hairstylists, waiting in the deli line, helping a old woman across the street, sitting in the bath enjoying the moonlight, looking out the window at the rain, saving a comrade in battle, or a civilian, or doing good deeds. They too were human, our historycraft largely ignores these issues, not merely because the Allies are prejudiced, or that the victors write the history books, but because of far older trends we’ve inherited in writing history. We only desire to read certain kinds of histories, and those histories have to make emotive sense to us in modern contexts… as much as we preserve these traditions, we constantly enforce our psychological limitations on the craft of history. They outcome is systematic and contrived, but says a lot about human psychology. It would be a mistake to think this lawyer us completely nuts… admittedly, a brown person in a Nazis Uniform shooting people down, while holding the same degree Carleas has is wacky, but in a sense, we all rationalize the world along similar cognitive give and takes. Pandora the Feminist is hardly immune to this, I’ve seen you trek out into some questionable territory yourself, many have here, we do it without grasping how looney we are.
One of my reasons for disliking liberals- that psychological drive to react to bad circumstance by adopting new radical positions and ideology.
The ability to build myths generally isn’t associated with such phenomena, that is oftentimes slower, incremental, borrowing themes. What thus Indian was doing wasn’t a metaphysics, but a excuse to behave abhorently, serial killers kill every day somewhere without having to borrow themes, they are quite content to be their own disturbed selves. This lawyer was a intellectual, he was clearly attracted to the culture the Nro-Nazis had. Hiw well was he accepted into it? Likely not at all, but he made himself fit in the narrative. I’m sure at New Bern, they are putting a image of a brown man up on the wall now and clapping, that’s how ahistoric our world generally is. I’m usually in too much shock from too much study of the past, seeing some of the statements around here, that I increasingly don’t bother. I started building the foundations of a new school of Philosophy of History dedicated to thus task on my new website, been working on it a lot, will release the link in late winter, early spring. It really us becoming a really bad problem on the bet, Prismatic is only the latest of many to pull bad history stunts on this site and others, it is becoming like a plague of locust.