Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog [5],
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.
- Adolf Hitler
The headline of this post is one that I am not sure how to interpret, but undoubtably marks something of significance. Personally, there have been many occasions throughout my youth, as well as my adult life, where I had a desire to read Mein Kampf. [6] I was always curious to get into the mind of one of humanity’s greatest sociopaths. To get a glimpse of the thought process of a man capable of such cruelty and evil. To understand the types of words he used and the various psychological tactics he employed to manipulate an economically destitute and politically demoralized German population.
These feelings welled up inside of me once again back in 2008, when I feared that a financial and economic meltdown could cause the U.S. population to be thrust into the arms of a demagogue. I wanted to be able to more accurately identify the rhetoric of one of history’s more “successful” demagogue dictators in order to be able to spot similar trends should they arise in my time.
While I never got around to reading it, I did read part of one of Hitler’s speeches from before the war. It was interesting to not how he did not openly speak as a raging psychopath on his way to destroying much of Europe. Rather, he attempted to appeal to his audience as rational, passionate leader there to protect and exalt the German people back to greatness. That was the scariest thing of all.
This is what the top sales chart on iTunes’ category Politics and Current Events looks like.
[7]
At this point I’d like to remain hopeful that these sales trends spring from a similar curiosity on behalf of the population, rather than from a darker more hateful place.
From Time:
The infamous manifesto Adolf Hitler wrote while in prison after a failed coup in 1923, Mein Kampf or My Struggle, in which the dictator outlined his idea of a global Jewish conspiracy, is a surprise hit on the ebook market. While the book’s print copy sales remain stagnant, the ebook is in the top 20 on iTunes’s Politics & Events [8] chart, next to books by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, the number one Propaganda & Political Psychology [9] book on Amazon, and the 17th bestseller in the company’s Nationalism [10] list. How could that be?
Chris Faraone explains why in a fascinating essay [11]that argues ebooks provide the perfect format for reading controversial material. “Mein Kampf could be following a similar trend to that of smut and romance novels,” Faraone writes. Customers may have not wanted to be seen reading the book or having it on their shelf at home, but the cheap digital copies “can be quietly perused then dropped into a folder or deleted.”
Ebook reviewers’ comments support the 50 Shades of Grey theory. “I think I waited 45 years to read Hitler’s words… I wish I had read it sooner,” wrote Steven Wagg. “Curiosity killed me to get this book,” said another reviewer. The document also functions as a warning: “People need to understand that if we do not learn from people like this, then we will fall into their traps again,” Ray D’Aguanno wrote on Amazon [12].
Full article here [13].