Deja Vu

[FliegendeWolf 0]

I was doing some reading today and came upon the following quotation. It must say it left me with a sense of deja vu. Two bits to the first person to come up with the author/book.

Quote

This notion, to avoid calling it an idea, dominating minds in harmonious company with the notion that we had been forced into the war, that sacred necessity that called us to arms (well-stockpiled and well-drilled arms to be sure, whose superiority may have fed the constant, secret temptation to put them to use), in company, that is, with the fear of being overrun on all sides, for which our sole defense was our own great might--or better, our ability to carry war immediately onto other people's soil. Attack and defense were the same in our case; together they formed the high emotion of our ordeal, of our calling, of the great moment, of sacred necessity. The nations out there might consider us disturbers of peace and justice, intolerable enemies of life--we had the means to bang the world over the head until it formed another opinion of us, and not only admired us, but loved us as well.

A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All

[kallend 1,623]

Just a guess since it seems his style:
"De Bello Gallico", Julius Caesar??

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[sundevil777 93]

Many would be pleased if The USA did not have such a powerful and effective military.

I think your sense of Deja Vu is because you agree with this.

Would you rather we be as vulnerable as the free world was before WWII?

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[kallend 1,623]

Well, are you going to tell us?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[FliegendeWolf 0]

Well, I was hoping to get a few more guesses first. Any other takers?

So, no, it's not Caesar. Good guess, though.

A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All

[likearock 1]

Machiavelli's The Prince?

[FliegendeWolf 0]

Okay, no other takers then. The book is Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, trans. John E. Woods (New York: Vintage International, 1997), 318.

Mann was a German novelist. He wrote this book in 1947 regarding Germany's state in the world in the first half of the Twentieth century. By adopting the legend of Faust, he creates an allegory in which Germany sells its soul to the devil.

The citation struck me because I have heard so much rhetoric about the Iraq war that sounds exactly like that. That "we had been forced into war," that "our sole defense was our own great might--or better, our ability to carry war immediately onto other people's soil" and that "the nations out there might condiser us disturbers of peace and justice, intolerable enemies of life--we had the means to bang the world over the head until it formed another opinion of us, and not only admired us, but loved us as well."

I guess my immediate feeling about this is that the human tendency to demonize one's enemies by believing them to be "inhuman," "monsters," or "animals," to name a few, is an attempt to hide from the fact that, as human beings, we have the same propensity for good and evil as any other human being, whether we like to pretend so or not. Insert Abu Ghraib here.

Bottom line, I find it striking that a German novelist, who himself is writing critically about Germany's history last century, should speak in the same terms about their history as we do our own.

And that our own knowledge of history allows us to see how misguided Germany's perspective on its history was should remind us that we are just as human and just as fallible.

A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All