Nietzsche and the Nazis by Dr. Stephen Hicks

[Duke Nukum]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-WaeXHMeho[/youtube]

This movie is available on Netflix streaming. As you can tell by the clip above, it is less a documentary and more a university lecture. I watched about half the last night and plan one finishing it later.

I think it is really informative and somewhat frightening.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Nietzsche wrote well before the advent of the Nazis but his philosophical progeny Heidegger not only was a member of the National-Socialists he continued to support them well after the war revealed their genocide.

Heidegger also inspired Sartre who, in turn, influenced many of the Marxist terrorist organizations of the 60s and 70s.

I myself have wondered why existentialism leads to statism, anti-religion and its inevitable despotism. I have always embraced it as an individualist's creed that would be undisturbed by the pieties of others. My personal belief is that most "existentialists" are simply in the throes of some temper tantrum against God who they profess to deny belief in but secretly admit enough to bare some hatred. Since they dislike God they imagine themselves smarter than him and better capable of running the world.

[Duke Nukum]

I think you are onto something SGT, I recall reading a poem by Marx ages and ages ago where he actually states his hatred of God at the same time professing to not believe in God.

This movie is interesting because it done by a philosopher and explains the core philosophy of the Nazis and then goes onto explore whether or not the Nazis were the philosophical heirs of Nietzsche. He also argues that Nietzsche, while being embraced by both individualists and collectivists, was not an individualist when taken in context.

The parts that I found frightening is much of the 7 Nazi core beliefs Dr Hicks identifies  are very popular today among the left. While it wasn't surprising to me, I was really lacking in my understanding of what the Nazis actually were and therefore what today's leftists actually are.

It is a thick movie and I will need to listen to it several more times and take notes but just watching it once was eye opening.

[Ptarmigan]

Nietzsche wrote well before the advent of the Nazis but his philosophical progeny Heidegger not only was a member of the National-Socialists he continued to support them well after the war revealed their genocide.

Heidegger also inspired Sartre who, in turn, influenced many of the Marxist terrorist organizations of the 60s and 70s.

I myself have wondered why existentialism leads to statism, anti-religion and its inevitable despotism. I have always embraced it as an individualist's creed that would be undisturbed by the pieties of others. My personal belief is that most "existentialists" are simply in the throes of some temper tantrum against God who they profess to deny belief in but secretly admit enough to bare some hatred. Since they dislike God they imagine themselves smarter than him and better capable of running the world.

Anti-religion arises in Nazism, Communism, etc. is a religion.