Re: to thine own self

Face Inthecrowd (facethecrowd@hotmail.com)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 20:38:00 -0400 (EDT) 

Thank you for responding and I do appreciate the comments you make.  My 
anger towards Hitler does stem from a kind of fascination, as Mr. Bowman 
said, but its expression does not need to be emphasized here.

Incidentally, my fascination with Hitler is partly due to a fascination with 
my own self and I suppose that my moral outrage is likely a reaction to my 
denial of Hitler's likeness to me.  I find that many of the similarities 
originate from being the runt of a litter and being picked on.  Just about 
every one has some experience in their childhood in which some bastard picks 
on them.  And when the runt returns home and tucks himself into bed, he 
might dream of beating them up someday.  Every time the runt sees the bully, 
he remembers that torment and the solution.  Hitler saw the solution and he 
reacted to the torment he felt.

It's disturbing to think of Hitler in this way because I have reacted to 
inner torment and I have gone to beat up the bully, but I walked up to his 
face and challenged him to a bout of fist and cuffs, not to imprisonment and 
torture.  So my precious sense of morality is the difference between my 
reaction and his, and the difference is large, which is reassuring, but I 
still want to kill him, which isn't reassuring.  I suppose he scares me, 
ultimately.  Logically, because I'm morally bound, I should not kill him, 
but passionately, I wish I could.  And that's assuming I have a time 
machine.  Without a time machine, I could twist open a beer and forget about 
him.  I like that logic the best.  He's a part of the past, and we can only 
hope not to see the likes of him again.  When we do, though, the moral 
theologies are going to overlap anyway, so I shout non sequitor and kill 
him.  Just kidding!

Japhe

>From: AntiUtopia@aol.com
>Reply-To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>Subject: Re: to thine own self
>Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 07:41:56 -0400 (EDT)
>
>In a message dated 10/25/99 2:09:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>facethecrowd@hotmail.com writes:
>
><<  Personally, I find it hard to eliminate the number of I's in my
>  sentences, so I might be naturally drawn to narcissistic people, like
>  Salinger himself, and many other writers.
>
>  Japhe
>   >>
>
>Ah, I'd say there's a difference even between writing about yourself and
>narcissism.  I don't see much narcissism in your writing, even though you 
>do
>use the word "I" a lot.  I would say that in the post I'm responding to,
>you're actually thinking about something other than yourself -- namely, the
>context of my discussion with Scottie.  You're speaking directly to both 
>his
>points and mine.  So while you're writing about yourself, you're not 
>thinking
>only of yourself.
>
>A really narcissistic writer -- like Hitler -- is tedious.  I don't know 
>what
>point you seek to make through your overflow of moral outrage at the man 
>(you
>think you need to convince anyone? on this list?), but I think that even if
>Hitler had been less successful politically (and thus never guilty of
>genocide) you'd still find the same tedious qualities about his writing.
>
>I would point out that where your posts really do focus on yourself (your
>continual overflow of moral outrage at Hitler) they really do become 
>tedious.
>  Of course you feel that way.  Probably everyone on the list feels that 
>way.
>So what's the point?  It's like having a discussion about, oh, cauliflower
>with people that hate it as much as I do.  The conversation runs out pretty
>quickly.
>
>Jim
>

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