There Is No Downfall On A Sine Wave

I feel as if I should be angry with that child, that naïve young girl. Or that I must not forgive her for not recognizing the nature of that monster. For not being aware of what she was getting into. And especially that I went along without thinking.

-Traudl Junge

Downfall popped up as free to view on YouTube… and of course I couldn’t resist.

Oddly enough, it coincided with a recent conversation where Dave posed an interesting set of observations and questions:

It’s the summer of 1860 all over again.

But what’s the end game? The anger is similar, but the goals are not. It’s not possible to succeed or “divorce.” So, is it just bludgeoning one side or the other into submission?

My response centered around the idea of “what is different between 1860 and 2023?”

Perhaps it is social and traditional media. Information traveled slowly back then, and even the speed of television and radio cannot compare to the ability to livestream events to an audience beyond the hopes and dreams of even the most powerful media mogul 50 years ago.

However, I also contend that the speed of information – and the sheer convenience of its application by even the barely skilled – may also be a blessing as it is a curse.

Flip it the other way: would the Civil War happen if they had the same tools as we presently do? Possibly – they definitely had more of a will to act than we do today, it seems. But perhaps the blessing is that the convenience it brings also fosters a sense of laziness and apathy. Either “let me bitch about it in a fixed number of characters” or “there’s too much information, so it is better to watch funny cat videos.” I accept that the analogy is incomplete as skipping three or four generations is as unfair as it is unrealistic, but you see my point: we are not the people we used to be 160 years ago (despite what some would insist).

I must not forgive her for not recognizing the nature of that monster.

-Traudl Junge

It’s a challenging movie to watch. Academically, I avoided the topic of that one person as much as I could – at the cost of steering away from any forum discussion on German tactics, strategy, economics, research and development, society, during a 20-year period because the root problem invariably was traced back to that one person. Even now, I roll my eyes whenever I hear the “…and German ___ would have been ___ if it weren’t for…” It is a trite and over-abused heuristic, for there are often so many other variables which factored in beyond the scope of that one person.

However the “nature of the monster” is something which wasn’t embodied by just one person in human history. The fact that so many “went along without thinking” is the true problem with those who have become the despicable examples of negative cults of personality… THAT is where the problem truly rests in the past, in the present, and in the future.

And, at that moment, I really realized that it was no excuse that I had been so young. I could perhaps have tried to find out about things.

-Traudl Junge

Read that again.

Understand that the woman who spoke those words, Traudl Junge, was one of the last tangible and direct witnesses to the evil that everyone seems to be so damn casual about in comparison.

Understand that I write not with any overt political leaning or selective criticisms, but with equal praise and condemnation for both admirable and despicable behavior of politicians, heads of state, or any other “influential” people.

Most importantly, understand that Traudl Junge… and the many other interviews of those who have lived through that time should have been a dire warning to many… years ago. A warning to avoid the same conditions, the same behavior, the same “good intentions” aggregate they are paving the road with… because EVERY DAMN CONFLICT/GENOCIDE in human history was a cause by one group who was doing things to make the world better – according to and for them and them alone. Anyone who sided with their victims were as guilty as their victims… everyone who stood in the way was an opportunity to set yet another brutal example to those who recognized the monster they helped create way too late to stop it. The sine wave of human history and experience: the successes, the failures – the ups and downs… the never-ending rhythms of the past to a tone-deaf present…

Finally, understand that the usage of the past tense in the paragraph above is entirely intentional. The greater a needed course correction is, the more drastic that course correction needs to be, depending on mass and velocity. In our present case, I find it challenging to figure out a path back to national and global “normal” equilibrium – what the conditions would have to be, for what countries, and how the targeted response would need to look like for the next favorable condition set to begin. Not impossible… but challenging.

For me I will keep watching to understand what skills, values, morals, and ethics I need to cultivate in my kids. I could teach them to yell at the clouds… or I can teach them to build strong sails to tame the winds of those approaching clouds. Perhaps there is a storm coming, but storms have done so all throughout human history and we are often forced to remember that that we are resilient and can/will learn from the experience.