When I discussed the mass killing of intellectuals in Cambodia with the Indian blogger Madhu, we came to the point not to speak on the “what” of these catastrophe, but to search according to the “WHY”. I replied: “Food for the ‘Killing Fields‘ of Pol Pot‘s Khmer Rouge had been professionals, intellectuals, urban elite – and here we are near to the WHY: Hatred vs. intellectuals has been often in the history of Germany too – and there still is as a daily mobbing strategy with these goals.”
title: “Silent witnesses” – photo by Jonas Hansel, click on the picture to enter his galleries on Flickr
Frizztext:
The mediocre hate the intelligent people because the non educated are envy. Worse if hate becomes legally and there is a licence to kill: In the Nazi Germany, the Third Reich and the SS, later on in a more stupid and childish version of the Stasi in East Germany behind the Iron Curtain. And because the photo of the skulls was kindly sent by Jonas Hansel from the Netherlands: The famous Jewish victim Anne Frank was revealed by a Dutch (not German) police man. Why? Only because the mediocre are following a ridiculous desire for career advancement? The Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt had the idea, to describe this as “the banality of evil” when she reported about Adolf Eichmann, the minor official who organized the transport of millions of Jews to their extermination into the gas chambers.
Related articles
- DIFF 2013: “Hannah Arendt” Review (1037litefm.cbslocal.com)
- Hannah Arendt (arunwithaview.wordpress.com)
- “Banality of Evil”-Arendt (theartofpolemics.wordpress.com)
- Author Describes Pol Pot’s ‘Angelic Smile’ (cambodiadaily.com)
Hannah Arendt: “The greatest evil in the world is the evil committed by nobodies. It is this phenomenon that I have called the banality of evil!”
the film by Margarethe von Trotta will start in the USA on May 29th 2013!
related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt_(film)
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/10053569/Pictures-of-the-day-13-May-2013.html?frame=2561884 [Stalinist-era mass grave in Warsaw]
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Flickr Comments 
OMG
O MIO DIO!!!!
🙂
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This is a tough one for a Monday morning, Frizz!
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That’s true… It’s not only intellectuals vs mediocrity but also envy, desire of what the other has got and you have not. Some intellectuals were involved in nazism or in red khmers …some to get power, some because of some thoughts about racism, specism, domination of one race on another. For example, Eugenism was very popular in the world from 1900 to 1940. Now eugenism is only for animals with genetical manipulations….. Not sure it won’t come back one day 😦
(sorry, It could be longer but one book is not enough on this subject)
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yes, It could be longer but ten books are not enough on this subject…
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It isn’t that simple however. Pol Pot was educated, even did a stint in Paris learning radio technology! In most cases it is the brilliant manipulation of mass psychology – the latent envy & hate you speak of – to further their political ambitions. That is the key to the ‘success’ of these tyrants. I am almost 100% sure that they personally never believed in what they preached.
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