1/ “Weimar Syndrome” is a political disease that compels people to compare every political situation to the Weimar Republic. This is partly because, in Britain at least, it is taught in all schools as a prophylactic against totalitarianism.
4/ Further, Marxists also know that the extreme conditions of Weimar, particularly the Great Depression seemed to bear out their ideas. So they’re hoping for a chance to be vindicated again.
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5/ The appeal for neo-fascists is pretty obvious: they win again. But, contra the Marxists, they’re more interested in innumerating sexual and moral decline rather than economic chaos. Having watched Cabaret, they know Weimar was rife with his.
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6/ They’re all wrong, of course. Well, not wrong exactly—but they’re seeing what they want to see. The Great Recession=the Great Depression, Trump=Hitler, Same-Sex marriage+Tinder=Sally Bowles, and so on. But they miss quite how different Weimar was...
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7/ What they ignore is that Germany had been humiliated, broken, occupied, & lost a generation of men to the world’s first technological war. She then had a civil war. The Geat Reccession, the “war on terror”, & a few fisticuffs betwee and anti-fa & the alt-right do not compare.
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8/ A true equivalent would be a war between US-China involving novel weapons (drones, for example) that resulted in the US losing and California (Ruhr equivalent) being occupied. This would be followed by a coup attempt by Bernie Sanders supporters. PRC demands US pays war costs.
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9/ So “Weimar Syndrome” is more about wish-fulfilment on all sides and is a product of the liberal education system’s defence mechanisms. I don’t deny there are parallels. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes etc. But how about another parallel for a change?
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10/ The Thermidor Reaction? Nixon? The Peleponnesian War? Chile in ‘73. There are patterns in all these things that repeat. In a way, if you love 1920-1930, Mussolini’s March on Rome is more interesting given that Italy was a victor of WWI. It’s a bit of variation, anyway.
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