Okay, good morning. So today um we will do Germany and thus conclude um our discussion of the four great civilizations that are fighting for global dominance. Uh we previously did Britain, America, Tuesday we did Russia, today we do Germany. So to recap um Russian civilization is very distinct from American uh sorry Anglo-American civilization and German civilization is also distinct as well. We're going to focus on the idea of unity of will in German civilization today.
Um, we don't know much about German civilization because they were defeated in World War II and because the Anglo-Americans control the history um of the world um we tend to think Anglo-American civilization is superior to German and Russian civilization. But what I will show you today is that in many respects uh the most advanced civilization that humans have ever created is actually the German civilization. Okay. So, um, if you look at a map today in Europe, there's a really interesting fact that may surprise you. The green is Russia.
Okay? It's the largest country in the world. Over here are the Baltic nations. And over here is a place called Kalanagrad. It's actually Russian.
Okay? So, the question then is how did this come to pass? How was it that you've got this colony of Russians far away from the motherland? And the answer is this. Because historically this was not Russian.
Historically this was a place called Connburg which was part of a nation that no longer exists called Prussia. And for a couple hundred years, Prussia was the strongest military, the most advanced civilization uh in the world. And now it's disappeared and it's been replaced by Poland. Okay. And parts of Barus um and uh West Prussia has has now become part of Germany.
Okay. But um Prussia is no longer um it's extinct. And the reason why is that in World War II the the allies who won the war, the Soviet Union, the British and Americans decided to destroy Prussia. And the rationale was that um Prussia is a militaristic society that is hellbent on world domination. And by eliminating pressure we can now bring peace to the world.
Um the problem though is that um Connisburg which is now Kalanagrad was really the center of civilization for a few decades. This is Connisburg before in 1800s. As you can see it's a beautiful uh port city uh by the Baltic Sea. Um and it was really the apex of human civilization. And then of course World War II happened and then after World War II um Kalan Kinsburg was destroyed.
Okay. It was turned into rubble and today it's like this Kalanagrad okay a very Soviet uh stale uh city with no character with no culture with no civilization. All right. And that's the intent to turn uh to destroy Connisburg which is which was for the longest time the heart and soul of German civilization. Um it is true that Kisburg and Prussia were extremely powerful was extremely powerful military uh nation and as you can see uh this is from Wikipedia by the way.
Okay. Um as you can see there are many great generals and officers who are from Connorsburg. Okay, we're talking about the city. We're not we're not talking about the the nation pressure. We're just talking about the city of Connisburg.
But you also see that um there are many intellectuals, writers who come from Connisburg. Okay. And the most famous of these intellectuals is Emanuel Kot which which we who we will discuss next class. He basically changed the course of western history with his philosophy. So Kisburg was the birthplace of Emanuel Kant.
So how is it that the man who is most responsible for the enlightenment uh happens to be born in the military signation? Okay, that's that's a question. But not only Emanuel K uh but you have also many other great thinkers including Hannah Ratat who is a Jewish philosopher and who is considered one of the greatest um political philosophers of the 20th century. She's also from Connisburg. um scientists just an amazing uh group of scientists as well as uh mathematicians.
Okay. And then of course you have musicians and artists. So the contribution of Kisburg to world civilization cannot be uh overstated. Um and there are quite a there are quite a few Jews who lived in Connisburg. Connisburg for the longest time was considered one of the most tolerant cities in Germany for Jews.
Um I we let's now look at Nobel Prize winners in the sciences physics, chemistry and medicine. Um as you can see in 1925 the majority were actually from Germany. Okay, Germany had the best scientists in the world. 1933 same thing. You got to 1950, same thing.
And in fact, by 1975, Germany is still dominant. The United States is catching up. It's only by about 2000 when the United States starts to take over overtake Germany. So again, the question then is how is it possible for a militaristic nation hellbent on world domination? How are they able to produce so many great scientists, so many great philosophers?
Um, and this is a very famous quote from Motier that captures the prejudice of the West against Prussia. Where some states have an army, the Prussian army has a state. Okay. Uh, this is pretty insulting to Prussian culture. Um, we've looked at many civilizations that are militaristic.
Okay. Including the Romans, Spartans, Aztecs, Macedonians, andQing Chinese among others. They're extremely successful militar militarily, but guess what? They were not creative. In fact, they were anti-creative.
So, how is it possible for the Persians to be both creative and militaristic? And the answer is because the Western prejudice against Prussia is wrong. They were not a militaristic nation bent on world domination. They were first and foremost a creative humanistic society that was forced into milit military confrontation of its neighbors because of its geographic location. Okay.
Um so let's go back to the history of the Holy Roman Empire. As we discussed in uh a previous class, the Holy Roman Empire was confederation of German citystates and there were like thousands and thousands of them that were in competition with each other. Okay. over time because of competition from uh the more powerful states like France uh Poland, Lutherania, Russia, Sweden, these citystates were now forced to gel together. The most successful of of these city states is Prussia.
Okay? And for the longest time, Prussia was a vassal state of the Polish Lutherania Commonwealth uh or the Swedes. Okay? But by but by by about the year 1700 it started to come into its own for the leadership uh for great military leadership. Okay.
And it start to spread out. Um and as you can see it's spreading out really quickly because of its military victories and because of its high culture. Um, by the 19th century, Prussia has dedicated itself to uniting all of Germany and it starts a series of wars that allow for the unification of all the German people. The first is something called the DOS Prussian war. Then they fight against the Austrian Hungary Empire, which is a successor to the Holy Roman Empire, and they defeat the Austrians really quickly.
Then they move on to France which is the dominant power of this time and they defeat France thus allowing for the complete unification of Germany under Prussian leadership. Okay. So how was Prussia able to be so successful? Well, as we discussed last class, there are certain characteristics about these city states that go on to unify a nation. Okay.
And the three major ones that that Moscow and Prussia share is open cooperative competition. They're surrounded by enemies and they're forced to be innovative, open and tolerant in order to uh succeed. They're forced to be unified uh advantaged by disadvantage. Okay, so Prussia and Moscow had limited resources which forces them to focus on human capital on making sure the citizens citizens were well educated and the citizens were um hardworking and vaselich. Okay.
So again, Moscow was under the vaselage uh of the m of the Mongols and Prussia for the longest time was under the vaselage of the Swedes, the uh uh Poles, the Lithuanians and as a result they're always engaged in a process of reflection and resilience. Okay? And that's really the secret to the success of Prussia. All right? At the same time, the thing to remember about the Prussians that differentiates them from from the Muscovites is because Prussia is situated within Europe.
It has a very different attitude towards humans than the Muscovites. Okay? The Muscovites because of their Mongolian heritage, they tend to oppress their subjects. Whereas the Prussians are much more democratic. They're much more progressive.
They're much more open. Okay. So this is Fedic the Great who is considered uh the great nation builder of Prussia for his military victories. What is often ignored is his social economic political reforms. He really is the first enlightenment uh despot.
Okay. He's heavily influenced by Emanuel Quad. They fought very highly of each other. Um and he was he was very intent on making Prussia the first enlightened state of Europe. Okay.
So look let's look at the few things he did. He radically reformed the Prussian judicial system so that you had rule of law so that everyone had recourse to justice. No matter even if you were poor you could still sue. um he abolished torture in the military and this was revolutionary at this time because it was always assumed that you kept your soldiers in check by scaring them. Okay.
Um you estab he established religious tolerance. Remember at this time in Europe there's a huge uh war going on between the Catholics and the Protestants and he was tolerant towards both the Catholics and the Protestants and even and even to a certain extent to the Jews as well. Okay. And over time, Kisburg, which is the uh heart and center of the Persian uh nation, um becomes really um one it has one of the largest Jewish settlements in Europe. Okay, about 5,000 at at that point.
He grants basic form of freedom of speech. Um and he and the most important thing is that in 1763 he establishes a public school system that becomes a source for Persia's future greatness. And to put this in context, okay, it's only over 100 years later when Britain and France does this. Japan and America will copy just basically steal the Prussian education system. Okay.
Um in 1806, Prussia is defeated by Napoleon. Okay, we discussed this and as a result, Prussia becomes a vassal state to Napoleon. And at this point, what the Persians do is what they've always done, which is engage in a deep process of reflection. And they decide that in order to defeat France, they must be like France. Remember, this is the French Revolution.
And there's a spread of liberalism throughout France because of the revolution. So the Prussians decided to copy the most important reforms of the French Revolution, which include the abolishment of surfom. Now peasants can become landowners. Um they destroy monopolies to encourage free market competition. They open civil service to the middle class before it's only available to the nobility.
Um and the most important thing is the reforms of a man named William von Humbult. He creates the modern research university. Um so so he founded something called the Berlin University. And so he conceptualized the research university where before you sat in class and you listened to lectures and you memorize what the professor told you but now you're encouraged to do your own research to write a thesis. Okay, which is what we do today.
Um the most important reform he did was to conceptualize public education as a meritocracy as an opportunity for the middle class uh to grow. Okay, to grow the middle class and to to give the middle class a greater uh economic role in society. And these reforms in only a few years will allow Prussia to defeat Napoleon and establish itself as a great power again. Um this is Carl von Clauswich and he is considered the greatest military strategist of all time. He's Prussian.
He uh he was an officer in the Prussian military and he thought very deeply about the no sorry the wars of Napoleon. Why is it that the Napoleon and the French were so great? And his conclusion is because they were to because they were able to mobilize the resources of society for total war. Okay. And his conclusion is that in the future as a nation, if you want to win militarily, then you must engage your citizens.
Okay? You must increase the morale of your citizens. you must make them want to want to die for your nation. All right. Um 1848 is one of the most important years in human history.
And the reason why is in 1848, okay, these red spots, these are all re revolutionary hot spots. Okay. So after Napoleon was defeated in 1815, um the European powers led by Murd of the Austrian Hungary Empire, he sits everyone down and decides first of all how to ensure uh no wars like like that of Napoleon arise again in Europe. How to create peace, but also most importantly how to maintain the feudal structure of Europe. Okay.
and he and they were very successful at that until 1848 when the middle class when the workers rebelled in 17 different places. You will notice that in England in Britain there was no revolution. There were no rebellions. And the reason why is because Britain at this point had colonies overseas, right? Canada, New Zealand, Australia.
Um and so these people who were upset about the e economic um status in Britain could migrate elsewhere but these other places didn't have any colonies. There was no pressure valve for social discontent and so these revolutions start to take place. A lot of these revolutions were suppressed violently. And you would think that Prussia because it is a military dictatorship, it would suppress the uh re the middle class um liberals violently. But that's not what happened.
Okay, let's see what happened. So this is from Wikipedia. What happened was that there were public demonstrations uh because um people wanted more political reforms, right? uh and the army killed certain people and now people are really really angry. So they erect barricades.
They're they're getting ready for civil war. Okay, this is another French revolution. And at this point uh the emperor um Frederick William, what he does is he goes and reassures the public that they will negotiate a peace. And what he does to calm the public is the king also approve arming the citizens. He gives guns to the citizens to ensure that the citizens citizens will feel safe negotiating with the army.
Okay. But not only that, but when the crowds of people went to the king, the king basically agreed to all their demands including parliamentary elections, a constitution and freedom of press. Also, he promised everyone that Prussia was to be merged forth with into Germany because not only is there liberal socialist sentiments at this point, there's also nationalist sentiments. People want to feel united as a German people. Okay?
And then what calms people down is the king attends a funeral for those citizens who died uh during the rebellion. Okay? And they wore Okay, he and his ministers wore the revolutionary tri color of black, red, and gold, which is by the way the the flag of Germany right now. Okay, so he's showing tremendous respect to his people. Okay, and that's just the Prussian attitude.
Again, the the historical image of Prussians is very stern, very austere, very dictatorial. Okay. But if you look at their behavior, they're very respectful of their people because they understand that in this world where they're surrounded by enemies, they're a central power with France, Russia, um um all around them, they need to stay united as a people. Okay. Um this is Otto von Bismar, the most famous uh Prussian in world history.
He is the founder of something called the second reich. The holy roman empire was the first reich and the unified Germany is the uh second reich. So he's really the founder of uh modern day Germany. He's known as the iron chancellor because uh he gave a speech in which he said that the position of pressure in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power. Okay.
Okay. So he's rejecting the idea of liberalism, of free speech, of openness, of negotiation, of institutions, and he's focusing on the military. Persia must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favorable moment which has already come and gone several times. Since the treaties of Vienna, our frontiers have been illdesigned for a healthy body politic. Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided.
That was a great mistake of 1848 and 1849 but by iron and blood okay for violence and sacrifice. So if you so when you read the speech you understand that he's repudiating the liberalism of King Frederick Wilham. Okay. He's saying that nope the armies have gone in and killed all the demonstrators. Okay.
So that's what he's saying and that's why he has a reputation for being the iron chancellor, a man of violence, a man of sternness. Okay. But he was extremely pragmatic man and his ambition was to have a unified Germany in which people were content. Okay. Um and so this is another speech he made same man but completely different tone.
And so he says the real grievance of the worker is the insecurity of his existence. He is not sure that he will always have work. He's not sure that if he that he will always be healthy and he perceives that he will one day be old and unfit to work. Okay. So he's sympathizing with the plight of the factory worker.
He understands that um it's wrong for workers to lose their hand at work and not be compensated. It's wrong for workers to get sick and their entire family to go into poverty. It's w it's wrong for kids who are six years old to go to factories to work. It's wrong for managers to beat the crap out of other factory workers. So what they will do is institute the first welfare state, the first socialist state in the world.
Okay, look at this. They have health insurance. They have accident insurance. So if you get if you get injured in at work then the state will come in and uh give you money. They have a pension.
They protect workers uh from abuse. They have children protection act which means work children are not allowed to go work in factories. Okay. So in other words in the year 1800 to 1900 if you could be a citizen of anywhere in the world you would definitely want to be a citizen of Germany. Okay.
At this point in Britain, in France, in America, workers are being exploited everywhere. But in Germany, workers are g are being given rights. And because they're they're being because they're giving being given rights, they want to fight for their country. They want to die for the country. And this makes Germany the most powerful nation in the world at this time.
Okay? And when that happens in Europe, when you become a hedgeimon, guess who gets scared at you? Guess who's now going to plot to get rid of you? Britain, right? All right.
So, um, at the same time, I don't want to say that Germany is a liberal democracy at this point. It's not. Why? Because as these industrial reforms are happening, there are more groups that are discontent. Okay?
And they pose a problem to German unity. Okay? And these groups are obviously the Catholics. A third of Germany now is Catholic because Prussia has united all of Germany, right? For the longest time, the Holy Roman Empire was Catholic.
So a third of all the people um is Catholic. Bismar, his biggest failure, his biggest mistake was his his attempt to suppress the Catholics. Okay? He basically said, "Listen, we're not going to fund you anymore. And if you insist on swearing loyalty to the Pope, then we will put you in prison.
You now have destroy loyalty to Germany." And so the priests all went to prison. Okay? And this is a disaster for Bismar. And ultimately he had to compromise and relent. Okay?
So the Catholics were a huge problem. Then you had the liberals. Okay? So you may have heard the term liberalism, socialism, communism. There's a huge difference between these three terms, guys.
Okay? So, so let me explain what the differences are. Liberalism means more political rights for the middle class, right? Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, voting power. Why?
Because the middle class have economic power and they want to transform that into political power. Okay? The socialists want democracy for all. They understand uh that um for democracy to really happen, you need to provide worker protection. You need to create class consciousness.
You need to let workers have unions. Okay? So that's socialism. Then you have communism which is more radical. Basically communists believe wealth should be redistributed.
Okay? We should get rid of private property and redistribute wealth for more equality in society. Also, communism is an international movement. Okay. Um, you also have Polish nationalists.
A lot of people in Germany at this time are Poles. They're Slavic people who have their own language, have their own ethnic identity and ultimately they they will form Poland. Okay? And at this time they're a huge problem for the German state and they are suppressed as well. Then you have people called the anarchists.
Um, the anarchists are people who believe that we don't need government. We don't need authority. People just should just be allowed to do whatever they want to do. People are self-organizing and as a result uh government is bad. Okay.
So, you have all these different political groups and they're all very powerful and they all pose a problem to German unity and as a result they are persecuted one by one. Um this is important because um at the end of World War I when Germany has surrendered they will reflect on why they lost and one conclusion that they had was because of all these political divisions. Okay, there are too many divisions within society. Therefore we we we need to suppress this division and create one political entity. And this is what allows for the rise of course of Hitler and the Nazis.
Okay. So this is important to understand. All right. World War I again when if Germany is too powerful, Britain is forced into action. Britain cannot allow for hegeimon to be dominant in Europe.
Britain went into action against Napoleon when Napoleon was a hedgeimon. Now they're going into action against Germany because Germany is too powerful. Okay? And World War I, no one expected this, but World War I was a catastrophe. Okay?
millions of people died and it was an alliance of Britain, France and Russia basically against Germany. I mean Germany did have the Ottoman Empire and the Austria Hungary Empire as allies but they were not effective. It was really Germany versus the world. And what's amazing is Germany was able to um create a stalemate or even at there was actually sometimes when Germany was about to win. Okay.
And of course when that happens, if Germany is going to win this war, it forces the Americans into action. Okay, why? Well, first of all, the Americans think like the British. The Americans and British do not want a European power to merge to unite the heartland. Okay, to unite Asia and Europe because then it negates naval trade.
Okay, does that make sense? Second reason is the Americans actually lend a lot of money to the British. Okay, something called a land lease policy. So if Britain lost the war, then all that money is gone. Okay.
So, Brit America comes in to save Britain. Okay. But even at this point, this is really important. Even at this point, Germany, it was not clear Germany was going to lose the war. Okay.
Russia was knocked out of the war. France was divided. Britain was not affect was not that um effectual. So, it's not clear at this point. Um Germany was going to lose.
Okay. Chances are Germany was going to lose, but Germany had not lost yet. And if Germany could mobilize all its resources, then Germany could withstand this this onslaught. But then something happened that was very important that changed the mind the calculus of these German generals. The 1917 Russian Revolution.
Why did the re revolution happen? Because Char Nicholas was too focused on the war and he neglected the the um political divisions at home. Okay? And this allowed for a revolution to happen. So the German generals who are in control of Germany at this point they're scared to death of what's happening in Germany because remember at this point in history the nation with the strongest working class the politarian is actually Germany not Russia okay so as a result um the ger this man name is Paul von Hindenberg he's very important he's now head of the German military as well as head of the German nation and he forced the German government to surrender to the allies.
Okay. And this led to the 1919 Treaty of Versaille. The Treaty of Versaille had many stipulations that were unfair to the Germans. Okay? So the Germans had to pay a lot of debt.
Uh they had they could no longer rearm. They had to reduce the military. They lost a a lot of land to France. Okay. But the worst thing that the allies did um in this negotiation was it forced Germany to emit complete guilt for starting the war.
That was completely unfair. Okay, this war happened for many reasons. Everyone was involved. Everyone had a certain blame. But Germany had to take all the blame.
Okay. And as a result, the government did not want to sign this um uh treaty because obviously this is going to piss off all your people. But the army forced the government to sign the treaty. Okay? And the thinking of the army at this point is listen, we've been in in the situation before.
Okay? We lost Napoleon, right? And so we just paid off a lot of debt to Napoleon and then rebuilt. Okay? And then when we rebuilt, we made we made the nation stronger.
We're resilient. So we'll do we'll do we'll do the same thing here. Okay? We'll just surrender, accept all the terms, then we'll start to rebuild and unify the nation and take take revenge against everyone. Okay?
And that that was like the thinking of the military. Okay? Very simple strategy, right? Um the Wymer Republic is what follows after the war. And the warmer republic is um 10 years of hyperinflation, social discontent, complete chaos.
Okay? And when a nation suffers economically, politically, culturally, what it often does is it engages in a deep process of reflection. It goes back into the past and thinks about how to rebuild itself. Okay. So some philosophers that are very important uh for thinkers of how to unify Germany um are are like Arthur Sharpenheimer.
Okay. Arthur Sharenheim is very very important philosopher. All right. His conception of the world is that the underlying force of the world is the will. Okay.
Desire and the will manif manifests itself itself physically in us in bodies. Okay. Do you understand the idea? Okay. So the under underlying force of the universe is the will desire and then the will will physically manifest in our bodies and then our bodies will seek to do what the will wants which is to procreate right to have sex to have children to eat food.
Okay. Now the great um the great the paradox of this situation is before our the manifestation in our bodies the will was just one right there's no differentiation but once the will manifest it itself in our bodies there's now differentiation okay there's multip multip multiplicity and as such we see the world through our own perspective for our own selfish perspective which leads to conflict you understand it is because We've forgotten that we are just one. That leads to conflict and suffering. Okay. So his great solution to this is compassion.
As humans, we must first and foremost be compassionate towards each other and remind ourselves that we are just one people. Okay? And we can do that through the apprec appreciation of art because art is a great unifier, right? Art is is a thing that allows us to contemplate the wholeness and the harmony of the world. And then he says that there are some of us who should engage in self-denial who who should become like monks who should deny who should deny the world because the world is inherently evil.
Right? So when you refuse to have children, when you refuse to struggle to suffer, then you achieve enlightenment. Okay? And I and and this is easy for us to understand because this is a very Buddhist ideology. Okay?
So he's basically taking Buddhism and Hinduism from India and he's making it more secular. He's trying to remove the religious aspects of it and make it into a logical system. Okay, does that make sense? All right. So he says life has no intrinsic worth but is kept in motion merely by desire and illusion.
And as such if you can remove the desire from your life, you achieve nirvana. You achieve enlightenment. Okay. Um this is really important passage. Okay.
Music is thus by no means like the other arts. The copy of the ideas but the copy of the will itself whose objectivity the ideas are. This is why the effect of music is so much more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts. For they speak only of shadows but it speaks of the thing itself. Okay, this is really important.
So how do we know the will? How can we access the will? It's through music. Okay, because the music is a perfect encapsulation of desire. Right?
It is the perfect expression of emotions. And so through music we can rediscover the unity of the world, the unity of the will. And why why is this important? Because it inspires Richard Wagner. Okay.
Richard Wagner is the most famous musician in Germany. He's really the national poet of Germany. He's a genius. And his great insight is that all art can can be combined into one. Okay?
And this is before movies, right? This is this before cinema. So you can put in music, paintings, theater, uh poetry, philosophy, everything together to create one total art that will inspire and unite the people. And this is why he spends 30 years to create something called the ring trilogy. Okay?
And this is held every year at the Bay Roof Festival. He he creates his own opera house in order to stage a play and it's 15 hours. Okay, it's it's four parts, 15 hours and it's the inspiration for the Lord of the Rings movies. I'm sure you you've seen Lord of the Rings, right? It's a very similar plot.
Okay? And the plot um very simple. It's 15 hours. Sorry, it's not a simple plot, but I I'll I'll put it in very simple terms. It's 15 hours, four parts.
Okay? So um there are people called the Ryan maidens. Okay, these are these are river goddesses who control the river rine and they have a lot of gold. Uh there's a dwarf, an evil dwarf who steals all this gold and with all this gold he crafts a ring to control the world, okay, to rule the world. And this is this is important because it's actually taking Sharpenheimer's philosophy, right?
Desire is a source of evil in the world and turn it into a metaphor. The ring is desire. The ring is what represents evil and suffering in the world. And because we all seek the ring, we cause misery. All right.
Okay. So, um this is what this how it starts. Now, up in the sky, there's a god named Waton. Okay. Uh this is so Wagner is using a lot of Norse mythology that that we learned before from the Vikings, right?
Warton is another name for Odin. And Walton and the gods want to create a palace for themselves called Vajala. Okay? And they hire a giant to build this Vahala. Okay?
And they sign a contract with him. But the giants want payment first. Okay? So Wen and the gods steal this ring from the dwarf. Okay?
And they give it to the giant. But then the dwarf places a curse on this ring. And the curse is um that the gods will see the the end the end of days Ragnarok every day. Okay. So the gods are haunted.
And so um the gods are like we need to destroy this ring otherwise we're always going to be haunted. We we won't we won't be able to sleep. Okay. And so they need to kill the giant and get the ring back. But they they have a contract with this giant.
So Odin a warton conspires to uh give birth to a great hero who's half human, half god, but he's not fully god who will now go kill the giant and get the ring back. Okay, that's a that that that's his great um idea. Um so so he gives birth to twins, Sigi and Sigman. They're separated at birth. Uh they're twins and then they run into each other and they fall in love with each other.
Remember they're they're twins. Okay. Uh, Celindi is already married and so Sigman is determined to kill her husband Hundig and marry Celinde. Okay. And this is all part of Wharton's plan.
He's really happy. But then his wife Fria says to him, "Um, no, no, no, no, no. They broken the incest law. Okay, they're not allowed to have sess with each other." And so you have to kill Sigman. And Wharton um doesn't really have a choice in the matter.
He has to he has to agree to the death of uh Sigman. Okay. So he sends his daughter a Valkyrie named Bhindi to go make sure that Sigman uh is killed against Hundin. But Brunhindi when she arrives she sees the love between Sande and um sorry Syundai and Sig Sigman and she wants to save Sigman and defy Wharton's orders. Wharton hears about this and punishes Bhandi and kills Sig uh Sigman.
Okay. And what he does by punishing Bhindi is he sentences her to eternal sleep surrounded by a wall of flames. Only the greatest hero in the world, the hero who is capable of killing a giant and uh retrieving the ring can save her. And this hero is named Sigfrey who's the son of Sigman. Okay, this is act three.
Now Sigman saves her um kills the giant and uh now has retrieved the ring but because he has a ring now everyone around him is now conspiring to kill him and um get the ring for themselves. Okay, the problem of desire which causes misery. So in the end what happens is that um Sigf freed is killed. Bhindi learns of this um treachery and then she kills those who killed him and then what she does is she sacrificed herself in the flames and throws the ring back to the river maidens. Okay.
And then what happens and this this is the ending is the river maidens destroy the ring. But when they destroy the ring they destroy everything. Okay. Destroy Valhalla as well. The gods are destroyed.
Vahala is destroyed. the entire world is destroyed. Okay? And this goes back to the shop and hire idea that the source of the world is desire. Okay?
When you destroy desire, you destroy the world. But when you do that, you allow for a new beginning. Okay? So that's the uh national epic of Germany, the ring cycle. And again, this is put on every year at Beirut.
It's four nights um and it's 15 hours in total. There are some um theaters that put on 15 hours straight. Okay. And the Germans love this. All right.
So, I'm going to play for you some music from this opera. And this is the most famous part called The Ride of the Vakaras. [Music] Okay. As you can see, it's very powerful, right? It represents the unity of the will.
So as people are watching this, they become united as one. Time, space, collapse, past, present, [Music] collapse. This is meant to depict the will, the unity of the will. [Music] Okay, that's it. Great.
Now, let's move on. Okay, so um building on top of Wagner and uh Shopenheimer is Frederick Niti. Okay, who's considered one of the greatest German philosophers of all time. Okay, and he and he um makes certain corrections to the philosophy of Sharpenheimimer and the music of Wagner. All right.
Um here are the three major differences between Sharpenheimer and Nichi. You can see that Shermanheimer, he's a pessimistic Plato. Okay? Whereas Nichi, he's an optimistic Aristotle. So Nichi's main complaint is this.
Okay? Shopenhire's conception is the source of everything is desire and from desire desire manifests itself in physical bodies in order to obtain what it wants. Okay, and that's true. That makes sense. And then Sharpen's solution is then we must deny this desire.
Okay, we must negate this desire and then we will bring peace to the world. So for Nichi this is confusing because um wait a minute here the desire the will manifest itself in physical bodies why would it do that what's the logic of that okay and sharp number say well because god is evil because god wants us to suffer and then nichi is like okay um first of all if go if if go if god is evil what's the point of resisting him right if it brings us enjoyment ment to seek desire, then what's wrong with it? Is it possible that God is good and that God lets desire manifest itself in our in us in order for us to pursue our desire. Okay, so this is one of the major differences for Shenheimer. We are just biological uh beings that have a will to life.
We want to procreate. But for Nichi, it's the will to power. Okay, this is a very really famous phrase from Nichi. The will to power, the will to expand ourselves. Okay?
The will to achieve our fullest desires. Okay? Not just to procreate, but to impose our will on reality itself. That's the true purpose of life. That's why God created us to become gods ourselves.
Otherwise, this makes no sense. How do we go from desire to bodies? It only makes sense if the bodies can amplify our desire and help us achieve our desire. Okay, the will to power. This is a really important concept.
Sharpenheimer believes that multiplicity is conflict. The fact that we this will manifest self in our bodies can only lead to conflict because we're all fighting for um scarce resources. For example, uh the ability to procreate. Okay. But for Nichi, multiplicity is creativity.
It's because there's conflict that you have action. And action leads to innovation. And innovation by itself is progress. Okay? And so for Shenheimimer, the ideal person, the superman is the compassionate monk, the person who feels sympathy for the world and as such engages in a process of self-denial, self-negation.
He refuses to procreate. He refuses to struggle. He refuses to eat. Okay, the monk. But for Ni, the ideal is the uber mush, the ubermans.
The ubberman is hard to translate. We usually translate it as superman. But you can also translate as overman. Okay, the person above humanity, the person above history. So the ideal the paragon uh the example that Nichi uses is Napoleon, right?
Who is Napoleon? Napoleon is an indiv individual who can step outside of history to control history to manipulate history. That's what the uber branch is. Okay? We we ourselves are always controlled by social forces, right?
We don't want to piss off our classmates. We want to please our teachers and our parents. So therefore, we are slaves to public opinion. But Nichi says to be an uber munch, you have to ignore public opinion. You have to ignore community consensus and just focus on what is right to you to look deep into yourself and figure out what is right for you and only you.
Okay, that's the uber munch and for him the ideal example of course is Napoleon. Okay, and why is this important? Because these ideas in the context of warmer republic will lead to the rise of the Nazis and Hitler. Okay, because Hitler is promising himself to be the next Napoleon, right? That's Hitler's promise to the German people.
I will be your Napoleon. I will unite you. I will lead you to victory against all enemies. Right? Okay.
Does that make sense, guys? Are are you guys following this? All right. So, let's look at a couple passages from Nichi. Okay.
Nichi is a very brilliant philosopher. So, he's very complicated. He's very complex. Um and he he can at times be very contradictory. Okay.
All right. So let's read a passage from the ge gology of morals which is is which is his most famous book. We can no longer conceal from ourselves precisely what this will under direction of the aesthetic ideal expresses which is hatred of anything human, animal or material. Abhorance of the senses of reason itself. Fear of happiness and beauty.
The desire to escape from all illusion. Change growth death. wishing even from desire itself. All this means let us have the courage to confront it. A wish for oblivion, an aversion to life, a reputation reput reputation of everything vital to existence.
But it is and remains a will and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning, men will desire oblivion rather than not desire at all. We are desire. Okay. It's it's really a question of how we manifest our desire. In today's society, in the Christian Buddhist world worldview, it's important to negate our desire.
But when we negate our desire, we negate what our desire could lead us to, which is truth and beauty and creativity and progress and innovation. Okay? And when we negate ourselves, we're not returning back to unity. We are only embracing oblivion. Okay, that's a problem with Christianity.
It's all it's turning us into slaves. That's a problem with modernity. That's a problem with society. We are all being forced to become slaves. Okay, does that make sense?
All right, let's go on. To call the tamement animal improving it sounds to ears almost like a joke. He who knows what goes on in menageries doubts very much whether an animal is improved in such places. It is certainly weakened. It is made less dangerous and by means of the depressing influence of fear, pain, wounds and hunger, it is converted into a sick animal.
And the same holds good of the tame man whom the priest has improved. Okay, this is a great metaphor. How can we understand the impact of society on people? Well, society is a zoo. Okay, we're all cage animals.
You think about it. Okay, what is school then? School is a zoo. Okay, before you were allowed to run around and explore the world and learn things for yourself, right? And as such, you mastered the world around you.
You could hunt, you could farm, you could kill people, you could build alliances, you could write plays. But in school, what do we ask you to do? We ask you to come to school. We we ask you to come to class on time, take notes, take tests, and then we give you a piece of paper, right? We turn you into cage animals.
So, you lose the capacity to think for yourself. Right? That's what school is. So there's nothing wrong with what Nichi is saying. Okay?
This is a brilliant metaphor to capture the essence of modernity. Okay? Society, education, it's all meant to degrade your capacity to think for yourself in order to make you more obedient to power. Okay. All right.
So um if you take Shenheimer, Wagner and Nichi together, you combine them, what you get is a rejection of Christianity and a return to paganism. Okay? So let's look at the differences. In the Christian worldview, there is a God. If there's a God, there's a there is a framework of good and evil.
So you must do good and you must avoid evil. Okay? But in the pagan worldview, there is no god. There's mo there's many gods but the gods themselves have no power over fate and as a result it is up to you to define good and evil. It's up to you to act and to find meaning in the world.
Okay. So going back to school the metaphor right today we have grades and therefore you're focused on getting grades. But if we have no grades we have no teachers then you have to go learn for yourself. You have to you would have to go figure out your own education. What's amazing about this idea is you would want to because Nichi says we are first and foremost desire.
We desire to grow. So if if we left you alone and said no grades, no school, no test. It does not mean that you will stop learning. It just means that you will learn what you want to learn. Okay.
All right. Second difference. Christianity demands faith, obedience to God. Paganism demands action. Okay.
You seek meaning for yourself through action. The last difference is Christianity focus on individual free will. Okay? Which just means you are free to obey the powerful. But in the pagan um mindset, it's about unity of will.
Okay? If we if we want to act, we can only do so by working together. All right? We will find a leader to lead us. But the leader only represents the unity of will.
Okay? Okay, does that make sense? So during the warmer republic with the rise of Nazism, you now have a rejection of Christianity and return to paganism as a solution to the national humiliation of Germany. All right. And this is what leads to the rise of Adolf Hitler.
Okay. This man is Paul von Hinderberg. The very the same man who ordered the surrender of Germany in 1933. He is president of Germany, the leader. and he appoints Adolf Hitler the chancellor of uh Germany.
Okay. Then the question then is why would he do that, right? Yeah. I mean like why would the head of the army the head of the nation make Adolf Hitler uh chancellor? And the reason is this.
Adolf Hitler was a German spy. He was a German sorry sorry he was a spy for the German army. Okay. So this is really important. Let me explain this.
This is from Wikipedia guys. Okay? So I'm not I'm not making this up. It says very clearly as an intelligence agent of the army, Hitler's job was to influence other soldiers into infiltrate the German workers party. Okay.
The Nazi party, National Socialist. Okay. So why why is this happening? So remember the German army surrendered because they were afraid of revolution back at home. Who was leading the revolution?
the extreme left and extreme right. Okay. What's the difference between extreme left and extreme right? Both are populist. They all they all believe in workers rights.
The left believe in international solidarity. Okay. Specifically with Russia, the Soviet Union and other workers in the world. The right are nationalists. They believe in German unity.
Okay. So the army is like okay right now the most powerful group in Germany are the socialists, right? the left, we need to support the right. So Hitler goes into the Nazi party, the German workers party and he helps to finance it. Okay, Hitler is giving money to these guys and because he's such a charismatic speaker, he eventually becomes their leader.
But at this point in history, okay, this is really important. This is a really small group of people. They're extreme, they're violent, but they are a minority. The majority are the socialists. Okay, this is something that you're not taught in school, but this is very important to remember.
It is the army that finances the building of the Nazi party in order to dampen the influence of the socialists. Okay? Because remember the army now is still dedicated to uh avenging the national humiliation of World War I. Okay? All right.
So, uh this is Carol Quickley and he wrote a long book called Tragedy and Hope. Okay. And he explains in oh so sorry Kerrywigley he is a professor. He was a professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC. He was Bill Clinton's teacher.
Okay. He was Bill Clinton's uh teacher. Um and he's a a widely respected scholar. And in his book he explains how Hitler was able to rise and take over the leadership of Germany. Um he explains at this point in history that Germany is threatened by two opposing forces.
The first force of course is communism. right? The Soviet Union that's a huge menace to Germany. But another menace that's even actually even more menacing is capitalism. Okay?
Because at this point in history, what's happening is the international capitalists are trying to create a central banking system in order to control the entire global economy. Okay? He writes about this. This is 1920s. The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim.
nothing less than create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. Okay, this is really important to understand. 1920s all these bankers in the world, America, Britain, France, Germany, they're getting together and they're conspiring on how to create a global financial system that can control the world and create a feudal system. Right? And guess what guys, you don't know this, but they succeeded.
The system we have today is the one they created. Okay? But but but I will explain this later on in the course. Okay? But this is something that the Germans nationalists like Hitler didn't want.
Okay? So um Hitler, he's allowed to rise and the Nazi party is becoming more and more popular. But again, even though they are popular, they're not as popular as a socialist. Okay? So what what happens now is the army and the Nazi party get together and uh assume power.
Okay. So uh the first step for Hitler in order to assume power is something called the knight of the long knives. Okay. This is really important because the Nazi party is is an extreme right-wing workers party. Right?
So the army orders Hitler to kill all their leaders. And that's what and that's what happened. This this is called the night of the long knife. So the brown shirts the extreme rightwing was eliminated by the army and the Nazi party and now the ar so so now the Nazi party and the army are now symbiotic. Okay, they're relying on each other.
From now on the Nazi party will ensure total unity of will at home through suppression of people. Okay? And the army will now go march and conquer the world. Does that make sense guys? That's the plan.
All right. So, Adolf Hitler is the perfect man for the job assigned to him by the army because he is a fantastic speaker. Okay? He's very charismatic. Um, we're going to listen to his voice to so you you can appreciate how powerful his speech is.
His voice is [Music] What his speeches do is see they create unit of will in Germany. Okay. Again the goal is to rejuvenize the nation and re reunite the German people. Right. And so the unit of will creates the idea of synchronosity.
Remember synchronosity is a secret to modern warfare. Synchronosity means the the organization and mobilization of your people into one task. And this is represented by the picture. If you can get people to stand in line for a long time, you're going to fight a war. Okay?
And the people and the nations that are really strong at synchronosity of course are Germany and Japan, right? Go to Germany, go on the subway. Go to Japan, go on the subway. No one is struggling against each other. Okay?
No one's pushing. Everyone, even though it's crowded, people are standing exactly where they should be standing perfectly. That is the idea of synchronosity. If you if your people can do that, they can fight a war and win the war. Okay?
So this idea of unit of will. All right? They can set in line for a long long time. All right. All right.
So we're going to look at some speeches from Hitler from Hitler. Okay. And we can see from his his speeches he's trying to create unit of will. He's trying to be the um the superman who will unite his people like Napoleon and carry them to victory through faith in in themselves. Okay.
The unit of will. If men wish to live then they are forced to kill others. The entire struggle for survival is a conquest of the means of existence which in turn results in elimination of others from these same sources of substance. As long as there are peoples on this earth, there will be nations against nations and they will be forced to protect their vital rights in the same way as the individual is forced to protect his rights. One is either the hammer or the anvil.
We confess that it is our purpose to prepare the German people again for the role of the hammer. Okay? So he's saying we must unite as a people. We must have unity of will if we are if we are to triumph against our enemies. All right.
Nothing is possible unless one will commands. A will which has to be obeyed by others. beginning at the top and ending only at the very bottom. This is the expression of an authoritarian state, not of a weak babbling democracy, of an authoritarian state where everyone is proud to obey because he knows I will like likewise be obeyed when I must take command. All right.
Hitler is not being a dictator. He is trying to create union of will. He is the leader. He's the uberman's. But that's only because God demanded him to be so.
Okay. He will unite the u German people into a hurricane into an ocean to crash itself upon the world. In the course of my life, I have very often been a prophet and I have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power, it was in the first instance the Jewish race which only received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the state and with it that of the whole nation and that I would then among many other things settled the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uporious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face.
Today I will once more be a prophet. the national Jewish financers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war then the result will not be the bulization of the earth and thus the victory of jewelry the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. Okay, so we don't actually have any concrete evidence for the holocaust. Okay, so one piece of evidence for the Holocaust is this speech by Hitler. But I want I want to explain what what he is saying here.
Okay. What he's saying is we the German nation want to be left alone. We want to be united. We want to be unified. But the capitalists and the communists all seek to undermine us.
And who are the communists? And who are the capitalists? The Jews. Okay? It's the Jews who are a metaphor for a national elite group of individuals who are conspiring to undermine the vitality and the strength of the German nation.
All right. So that's what he's saying here. All right. U 1939 September 1st is the beginning of World War II. Okay.
And so he's going to explain why this is happening. As a national socialist and as a German soldier, I enter the struggle of restored heart. My whole life has been nothing but one struggle for my people for its restoration and for Germany. There is only one watch word for that struggle. Favor this people.
One word I've never learned that is surrender. Okay. So he's telling the people we're going to fight this war again. Why did we lose World War I? Because we didn't have faith.
We surrendered. If we all came together and we fought to the very better end, we would we would have prevailed against our enemies. Okay. It is quite unimportant whether we ourselves live. But it's essential that our people shall live that Germany shall live.
The sacrifice that is demanded of us is not greater than the sacrifice that many generations have made. If we form a community closely bound together by vows, ready for anything, resolve never to surrender, and our will will master every hardship and difficulty. Okay? It is the unity of will that matters. All right.
1942, November 8th. It's basically um at a time in history when the Germans understand they've lost the war. The Americans are now in are now in the war. The Americans are getting ready to invade Europe. The German invasion of the Soviet Union has failed.
Okay? They're bogged down in the Soviet Union. Germany is uh overstretched. The entire world has allied it itself against Germany. Okay, so the war is about to be lost.
But but let's look let's look at what Hitler has to say. It is with the same conviction that I now stand before you and has never left me either since the day on which as an unknown man in the city, I began to struggle first for the soul of the German people and then on beyond the city for more and more followers. In the beginning, I did not have much more to give than faith. The faith that if anyone pursues a just aim, I will with unchanging and undisturbed loyalty and never lets himself be diverted from it but puts everything into it, then others will be found who are determined to be his followers and that from this host and ever stronger faith must gradually radiate to the whole people. Okay?
So this is unit of will. We reject reality. Reality does not matter because we impose our will on reality. As long as we have faith, as long as as long as we have unit of will, we will triumph. Okay.
All right. So, let's go back to the beginning. We were talking about Kalanagrad, right? Um, it is one of the greatest injustices in human history that Connesburg, which was for the longest time uh the cradle of human civilization, the epicenter of the enlightenment, it is now completely destroyed. Okay.
Um but um and this is a really this is idea from Wagner. Okay. Uh by destroying this the world has cursed itself. Okay. Let me explain why.
First of all, the German question now is more relevant than ever before. You've destroyed Connisburg, but you have not destroyed the desire for unity among the German people. Okay. So this is a um memory that will not fade. Okay.
So will the Germans seek vengeance? Will another Hitler arise to unite the German people? Now what you guys don't know is that the Prussians were one of the main forces opposing Hitler as well as inhibiting Hitler. Okay? Because Prussia had a very proud culture and it's very strongest part of uh Germany.
But now that they destroyed Prussia, if another Hitler rises, there's really nothing to stop him. Okay, that's the first problem. Second question is, um, okay, let's go back to this map. Europe and Russia are about to go to war with each other, right? Okay.
Well, if you are Europe and you go into Ukraine, you're going to be slaughtered. Okay. But this is Kenrad, Russian territory. 500,000 Russians, right? You can blockade Kenrad.
You understand? So this could be the start of World War II right here. Does that make sense you guys? If the Europeans blockade clan and they start try to starve the people, Putin would have no choice but to intervene. Okay.
But the main problem is this. Kinsburg was one of the main intellectual, scientific and cultural centers of Europe. That loss reduced the innovative potential of humanity. All right. So what I will show you in next class when we discuss Kant is science comes from philosophy.
Okay. Culture leads to philosophy which leads to science which leads to technology. You cannot have science independent of philosophy. When you destroy a center of philosoph philosophical innovation you destroy a center for something progress. Okay.
So that this is something that we will discuss in depth next class as well. Um so when we look at Kant so that is uh Germany. Okay. Any questions about what we've learned so far? Was this clear to you guys?
Okay. Any any questions? How can Hitler be grown like that? Excuse me. How can Hitler be grown like that?
Yeah. Okay. So, um, where did Hitler come from, right? How did Hitler become so charismatic? Okay.
Um, so there's a lot of randomness to life. Okay. There there's there's a lot of like randomness going on in life. So, the army wanted to inhibit the growth of the socialist leftwing movement and it did so by financing these right-wing parties. The Nazi party was just one of many parties that the army financed and supported.
Okay. Um Hitler became a spy and he became part of this movement and as such he became um he he became exposed to a lot of the ideas of the Nazi party. The Nazi party a lot of the ideas come from Nichi and Wagner and and others as well. Okay. Um and over time Hitler came to believe that he was the messiah.
Okay, he was the messiah dedicated to restoring German unity. Okay. And um I mean like this hard to understand but um human population is very diverse. So you always have a subset of people who have these uh delusions of grander and if in a certain cir circumstances they will be proven right. Okay that doesn't make sense.
Okay. So, another another way of saying this is the army needed someone to play the part of the Uber, the superman who could unite the pe German people and create national unity so that the army could seek its vengeance against uh the rest of Europe and unite the German people. Okay? So, they're looking for this role. Um and then Hitler auditioned for this role and he got the role.
Okay. Does that make sense? Um and this is important because um towards the end of the class we'll discuss Donald Trump and what what I will show you is um this is exactly what what happened with Donald Trump. Okay. So the German mil sorry the American military needs an uber months to lead America to war against Putin and there were and there are different people who audition Biden audition who was terrible Harris audition who was terrible they picked Donald Trump.
Okay so it's a very similar pattern. It's a very familiar pattern in human history. You can also argue that Napoleon was the same way. Okay. And what makes these people um these people different from us Napoleon, Hitler, uh Julius Caesar, Trump is they are the total expression of the Zion will.
You understand? They have actually no compassion, no sympathy for anyone. They believe they are here on a divine mission. They are complete. They are the will itself and they are then they must impose their will on others to save the world.
Does that make sense? You look at Donald Trump. Okay, if you want to understand Hitler, look at Donald Trump. The guy's like almost 80. He doesn't sleep.
Okay, he's off trying around the world all the time. The guy the guy in his um when he was campaigning, he was giving like three speeches a day, right? He would get up in the morning at four o'clock, fly somewhere, give a two-hour speech, people loved him, then he would get on get on the plane, fly somewhere else, and he would he could not stop talking to reporters. Okay? He has tremendous energy that comes from the perfect expression of the will.
You understand? Donald Trump is all will, all desire, all ego, and no sympathy, no empathy, no compassion. That's Hitler and Napoleon. But won't they won't their citizen or their people you're like too reckless, relentless or violent. Yeah, that that that that's a great question.
So, won't people rebel against us? Won't people think this is reckless? And so, what Shopenheimimer and Nichi and others will say is what we what we want first and foremost is a return to unity of will. Right? In the very beginning, the will was God.
That's a big bang. And then the will expanded itself, right? And so we find ourselves alone in an ocean of alienation. And what our hearts really aspire to is return to a union of will. And so when someone says you can be part of a movement to transform the world, that's much more appealing to us psychologically than to say, oh, you know what?
um come to school, do your homework, get good grades, do the SAT, get into a top 50 American school, become an accountant, and for 50 years do something meaningless. Uh but make a lot of money and then you you will die h happy person like like seriously what like like there's no competition, right? There's no competition. Donald Trump is saying to Americans, we will make America great again. We will be a civilization, a great civilization again.
It will require sacrifice. It will require my sacrifice, but it will be worth it because we will make the world whole again. Right? Okay. So again, when you go back to the Hitler speeches, from our perspective, it's not that persuasive.
Okay. But when you're in a crowd of people and this man is speaking to you with his voice, it's like Wagner, okay? It's like going to a concert. The music fills you and it and it inspires your heart. Okay, it makes you want to be the Uberman.
Okay, Hitler is just the example, but he's saying you can you can you can also aspire to be the Uberman if you are willing to sacrifice your life for the unity of will. Okay, so this is really important. This is far more appealing to people than the idea of materialism, right? This is religion, right? Hitler's creating a new religion and it's intoxicating, right?
I mean like World War II, I mean I mean the fact that German the Germans were able to fight for so long against entire world. I mean it's incredible. I mean like it was America, Britain, France, Soviet Union against the Germans and that the fact that the Germans fought so bravely and fought to the very bitter end. I mean it just shows you the power of unit of will. Okay.
And what this also tells us is these things don't die. Okay. You can kill a civilization, you can destroy a city, you can massacre a people, but you cannot destroy the desire for unity of will because that's what fundamentally makes us human. Okay? Does that make sense?
Okay. Great. Any more questions, guys? But but but that's a great question. Thank you.
Does this does that make make sense to you? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great.
Okay. Any more questions, guys? Okay. So, um next week we will do Kant. Okay.
And Kant will lead us to Marx and Freud and uh modernity. Okay. Okay.