Animals and mind games

Reading through Mein Kampf, I noticed that Hitler enjoys reducing people to the most basic social level of all. Animals. He also refers to his ideologies as a correlation to Nature or the "way things should or were meant to be." A lot of his thoughts regarding racial supremacy and national struggle are reflective of Social Darwinism, which preaches, "survival of the fittest, applied to humans." Hitler believed that the fittest and most powerful race was the German one, because according to him, all culture and history stems from Germany (and extends to as far as Japan) (291). (Note: I don't understand why he thinks the Japanese development owes its life to the Aryans. Help?) In Hitler's world, in order to avoid contamination, one must think and act with self-preservation in mind. "An animal lives only for himself, seeks food only for his present hunger, and fights only for his own life" (297). Because Germany was in such a state of great social unrest, with extreme economic hardships and political instability, it was no wonder the citizens of Germany were all searching for a way to survive and persevere through their suffering post World War I. More than anything, Germans were looking for a common identity. People who were different, namely Jews, threatened the Germans' sense of unity. "The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger… but you will never find a fox who is in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice" (285). While it is well known that Hitler was opposed to racial interbreeding, he fails to notice that there are different kinds of foxes, a variety of geese, and does not distinguish between a Bengal or South Chinese tiger. Rather, he separates Aryans as a species above all else, which consisted of people from a super-human race, and everyone else just fell below them. This gives me sufficient evidence to believe that Hitler was incredibly egotistical and ferociously close-minded, or he understood the dire situation Germany was facing and approached the masses with what they were desperately looking for. To be the best. Hitler probably understood how Germany's circumstances really deflated the self-esteem of all its inhabitants.

Another thing I want to mention is that Hitler understood how to manipulate the press to appeal to the masses. He knew he had to exercise strict control over the press; "for its influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating, since it is applied over and over again. In the uniformity and constant repetition of this instruction lies its tremendous power" (242). He refers to the masses as simple-minded folk who are unable of thinking independently. This reminded me a lot of the restriction of the freedom of speech and press in China today. If you search for images of "Tienanmen Square Massacre" on Google, you'll find photos of tanks and protest. If you perform the same search in China, all you'll see are photographs of blooming flowers planted in the city square. The constraint of access to certain information is one thing, but if the government feeds its population biased or wrong news, people will undoubtedly grow to have a distorted perception of the world they live in.  China is in a race to be the absolute best, very much like how Germany wanted to be the best too. In order to do that, China cuts corners when it comes to health codes (tainted milk or selling already used cooking oil) and violates ethical norms (pirating DVDS, Louis Vuitton handbags, even passing a scene from Top Gun as China's prospering aviation program). Just last week, I read that a Chinese journalist who uncovered the cooking oil scandal was murdered a little while after reporting the corruption. The Chinese government said the reporter's story and murder are unrelated. They hide the truth and try to contain bad press. They get rid of those who threaten the government. Those who were considered a threat in the Third Reich were disposed of as well. In order to be the best, it is clear that people forget what it is to be human.

By reading Mein Kampf, it is clear that Hitler was more than just a drummer. His charisma and vibrant energy made him the ideal candidate for arousing the nation. At the end of the day, he knew how to take advantage of the poor shape Germany was in and control people in order to harness a unified identity, which is what the people were led to believe anyway.