Yeah, let’s make fun of people trying to do something and instead sit on our ass, not go to vote, and say dumb shit like “we’ll change the system by not participating in it” while buying everything ads tell you to buy. So much better.
In 1936, the people trying to do something about Hitler weren’t the same people signing up for an SS uniform. They were organizing opposition outside of the Nazi party.
I have friends who work in federal government, and I would laugh if any of them told me they were planning to “change things from the inside”. MF your entire department exists at the whim of a fascist president. You can’t change shit in that situation. Best case is you can maybe improve a couple of outcomes that are in your direct line of work. That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t change the system.
For all the WW2 Nazis who developed a conscience and helped people where they could: Good for them. However, it didn’t change anything about the system they took part in. The destruction of German Nazism came from external action.
Thinking all government employees are at the whim of the president shows a distinct lack of understanding about how government works and civil service. Furthermore, do you propose government employees all quit en masse whenever a president is elected they don’t like? I’m sure being unemployed, broke, and hungry will be super helpful for the cause.
They don’t need to quit, but pretending that they’re “changing the system” doesn’t help anyone.
They’re showing up to work, and maybe helping people, but “the system” is defined by rules and goals. Only people with power to make rules and change goals can impact the system. The postmaster who lets a trans person change their passport marker isn’t changing the system. They’re subverting its goals, but the system remains.
Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand people from being murdered by Nazis only because he manipulated the system from within. He and everyone he saved would have been murdered if he had resisted the Nazi Party in a different way.
There was one Schindler and ten thousand monsters.
Sure, but it also proves the comic above is a possibility.
I think all large organizations have several people who wish to do good, or at least dream of it. And those trying make good stories and provide hope.
Perhaps we are evolutionary designed to be drawn towards such people.
But it does squat all for 99.999% of the people caught up in these events
Better than none Schindlers and ten thousand and one monsters
Bad things happen to large groups of people and there are no heroes to rescue most.
You mean like in the comic?
There actually were a few helpful people within. Whether or not they made a difference, I can’t say tho. A prominent example would be Stauffenberg.
“You did nothing” King tells him “nothing for yourself but nothing for them either.”
Blink Twice, 2024. I think this quote shows that people that do nothing around evil people are really no better than the people around them. I suppose this is to say that not all German soldiers in 1936 were monsters, but did not do anything to help the Jews, and therefore were not much better than their commanding officers.
That’s a pretty weak analogy. Hitler was barely elected, only once, with only 37% of the popular vote.
