Harrison Koehli, Elan Martin, Adam Daniels
Sott.netSat, 10 Apr 2021 00:00 UTC
Soon after World War II, Germany was cleaved in two by the allies who won the war. 'West Germany' came under the influence of Western Europe and the US, and East Germany under the Soviet Union. The eastern section of Germany, under the political and ideological influence of Communism, came to develop one of the most notoriously oppressive secret police organizations in modern history: the Stasi.
On this week's show, we discuss Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck's moving and expertly directed 2006 German film 'The Lives of Others' (spoiler warning!). The movie's depiction of life under Stasi control, the power dynamics at play in the Communist nation, and the lives it destroyed, among other things, all contribute to make the 'The Lives of Others' an instructive work from which to understand the destructive power of totalitarianism on a very personal level. However, the film also offers a light of hope in the face of immense bleakness.
Join us as we discuss the film, its overall plot and themes, expert characterization, historical accuracy (or lack thereof), and why it deserves a watch - or two! Just make sure the Stasi don't find out. They don't arrest people on a whim, after all.
We're also
on LBRY!
Running Time: 01:07:39
Download: MP3 — 64.3 MB
Adam joined the editorial team in 2014 and is a co-host of
MindMatters. His particular interests include philosophy, history, exercise science, and technology. He particularly dislikes Critical Race Theory and people who're so afraid of death that they prevent others from living. He also knows kung fu.
Harrison Koehli co-hosts SOTT Radio Network's
MindMatters, and is an editor for
Red Pill Press. He has been interviewed on several North American radio shows about his writings on the study of ponerology. In addition to music and books, Harrison enjoys tobacco and bacon (often at the same time) and dislikes cell phones, vegetables, and fascists (commies too).
Born and raised in New York City, Elan has been an editor for SOTT.net since 2014 and is a co-host for
MindMatters. He enjoys seeing and sharing what's true about our profoundly and rapidly changing world.
Reader Comments
That shit has never changed, either, though it ebbs and flows.
RC
first of all i think is really good in describing sides of how it was to live in eastern germany at that time - (as i have understood it). also unusually well played by the actors.
but, it is dark.
I listened to your presentations today. Because Lute had the movie linked so conveniently, I watched.
I don't watch TV, movies, or anything these days. My initial reaction was that I don't believe in this stuff anymore.
I didn't expect the quietness of the ending, I guess. The ending was real for me. Will changes such as the one which occurred within Wiesler occur today and in the future? Very likely. But...so what? Will such sacrifice count for anything? I think not. Does such quiet courage change the course of events? Nope. Not really.
I'm not so sure that this movie equates with our times. Will these kinds of conditions exist for us as totalitarianism continues to unroll worldwide? Of course. In such understated fashion? I doubt it. I see far more Jerzkas and Sieland type deaths with utterly no redemption or value created.
When you can summarily kill over 2,000 people with the whole world watching, I don't believe anything anymore. Does nobility exist in our world? Nope. We endure as Faulkner said...we simply endure.
Sorry. Wish I could be more positive. So does my Buddhist organization who thinks I lack hope. I think I'm simply realistic and don't expect any white knights arriving soon. I see humanity as incapable of standing up the forces of darkness triumphing throughout the world. I see no spark of hope anywhere. Except if you believe the evil is to propel people to evolve and assume life elsewhere in other dimensions.
Same applies today: all we can do is what is right with all our best intentions in any situation. We may never know what impact that might have.
If we wait for the grand solution we are setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment - like waiting for the Messiah. I know many of us (me too) hoped that Trump would clean up this sewer, but it is too much for one person and more importantly we have to clean up our own section. That is why this is called ‘The Great Awakening’; it is a personal awakening.
Where's the benefit from Wiesler's great change of heart today...if he were, indeed, real? Germany leads the world in lockdown stringency. I'm impressed how much freedom the falling wall brought to Germany.
I suppose in my softer moments I believe somewhat. I don't much anymore. I look at St. Vincent yesterday and today where they are not allowing the unvaccinated to be evacuated from the island; yet, the St. Vincent official quietly takes off his glasses and wipes tears from his eyes thanking all the Caribbean nations who won't take unvaccinated people.
I'm believing more and more like Bezel Bub. We're born, piss, sh*t, fu*k, and then die.
I'm not waiting for any grand solution. I'm simply pointing out that totalitarianism, which will make the Stasi look like Boy Scouts, is unrolling unimpeded throughout the world like a Formula 1 racer. I never thought Trump would accomplish much of anything. I was right. Look to the Davos Crowd for the agenda. They're calling the shots while the sheep cower in their pens hoping governments will instititute UBI.
BTW, beyond Joyly , there's also a commenter here named 'Joy'.
All cool of course and no reply necessary!
RC
Codis? anyone?
RC
@Heosphorus:
I guess we all, in our own way, each of us, wind up dedicating ourselves to the truth we feel within, even as we approach without. Results vary considerably.
This is a very strange world, filled with contradiction. That the contradiction can sometimes be staved off by repetition, for varying lengths of time, simply adds to the contradiction!
We are caught in a mortal coil of both knowing and not knowing.
As you indicated though, there is ALWAYS hope, be it another world, another dimension, another place altogether...
And that is just how things are.
And that is all I can say. To you or to anybody, including myself.
ned,
out
Erratum:
One other thing I think I can 'safely' say:
To be an ego, and to use that ego and make it swell and grow and try with that now grandiose, super-charged ego, to control all other egos and life in general, whatever 'life' may be, is stupid. STUPID.
Be humble and freely admit that you don't know and cannot own and control everything.
Trust God. Trust somehow, the passage of time and all the contradiction you may feel.
Thank you.
ned
A little over twenty years ago, (I was around 40) events in my life, for me, seriously adjusted my best guess conclusion from that there wasn't God (or at least an afterlife) from very low to above 90% that there is.
Just FYI.
RC
The scene near the end when Lazlo has to leave the theater and meets the old party boss, who was responsible for so much human suffering, and tells him; "To think, people like you ran my country."
Hits pretty close to home these days.
In the 20th century you were more or less defined by what you were and what you did. In the 21st century you are more or less defined by what you aren't and what you don't do. Non-this, anti-that. 21st century 'non' culture is like a huge cloud of anti-matter sweeping across the world which threatens to destroy you and all of your kind.
How well did the same Germans live 20 years earlier, under the Great Führer ? Most lived a "normal and decent" live as well.
Being a good, obedient slave and follow all orders without question is a good recipe to be left alone by the state. Until it isn't anymore.
In fact, many of those staying in the Soviet-occupied zone didn't have much difficulties adapting. Because the Inter-National Socialists (a.k.a. communists) are not really different at all from National Socialists (a.k.a. "Nazis").
You can see similar in Germany's lebensraum efforts, viz 'Germanisation'.
"Ach vell. You are German now".
Of course, Germany hadn't been around all that long at that point, from when all the Swabians, Bavarians etc were told...
"Ach vell. You are German now".
At the current time, it's very easy to see all this stuff in terms of biomes, bacteria, viruses and stuff.
Certainly very interesting when applied to the likes of someone like Klaus Schwab.
Definitely something very biome-al, bacterial, viral, about it all.
Oswald Spengler: Germans & Englishmen....[Link]
RC
First, I choose a "job" path that was not sustainable in my area of origin (because of a lack of engineering jobs - and non-abymal payment). In normal times, I spent not more than 3 weeks ther, mostly with my parents. Most of my childhood mates fanned out over the whole county, I rarely see any.
We had a class reunion some years ago, which was kind of shocking. I had heard of "nostalgia" creeping in, i.e. people long to return to times when there was provided for them as long as they kept their mouth shut, and obeyed. And then I saw it from people I used to know ... or so I thought.
Well, I had always been the odd one out. And the only one of this school year to make it to an university degree ("business administration" with a follow-up job as reception assistant doesn't count ...), and the only one going abroad for something else than holidays.
Some kind of foreign culture to me now.
As re being the odd ones out/'strange' or 'exotic birds'*, it seems to me that we SOTTites were mostly some version of that and of course, that's all the better.
RC
*One of my father's expressions.
rc
What's really bothering me is how so few people in the formerly free west are even aware of where it's going. It's like our ship is getting sucked over the waterfall and we're screaming, 'Look! See the mist? The horizon end? TURN BACK!' RC
Ps, see also what I just wrote at this:
'We need a black woman justice': Democrat pressure group urges liberal judge, critical of SCOTUS-packing idea, to resign
An advocacy group linked to Democratic Party leadership is pressuring Justice Stephen Breyer to resign after he opposed the push to expand the US Supreme Court - so that his position can be...RC
The story resonated because Wiesler's story parallels mine. Maybe we use depression (which I seldomly entertain), anger, and cynicism (which I do more frequently) so that we avoid looking at ourselves.
Many, many times through my life, I've had to make decisions--perhaps not as dramatic as Wiesler's toward stripping evidence and protecting Dreyman from arrest and imprisonment--to do no harm to others and/or myself. I walked away from people (influential predators). I walked away from job opportunities. I usually suffered financial hardship because of these actions. I walked away from people who held power over me when I knew they were wrong. Again, no one suffered but me.
I haven't been perfect because none of us are. I've hurt people at times and carry the hurt look in their eyes with me today. Overall, I tried to fulfill the physician's pledge to do no harm or the least harm. This ethic just seemed natural born after many years.
The trouble begins when you live with those consequences. They aren't pleasant. They aren't nice. They are painful for yourself at times. They are often detrimental to your life style and ability to move in society. No one or nothing celebrates you--much like Wiesler in this movie. You're not given an award for Exemplary Conduct in Life. Only you know what you have done--right or wrong--and whether or not that conduct accords with your own sense of justice, morality, and ethics.
Wiesler accepts the move to the mail department and continues life as a mail carrier after the Wall falls and Germany reunites. A nobody doing nothing. Wiesler suffers for his actions.
Joyly and my Buddhist organization both say that one individual can make a difference...a notion I pooh-poohed the other day citing Germany's current stringent lockdown mania and, like most Western countries, their abrogation of German citizens' human and civil rights. Of course, when emotions settle, we can only admit our error. Of course my Buddhist organization and Joyly are correct.
The danger for us all--I would say largely STO-type of people--is that we don't stand proudly by our decisions and give ourselves a nice pat on the back. We suffer the consequences and simply "endure" as I intoned from Faulkner the other day. However, Faulkner, in his Nobel Prize for Literature, was referring to the human enduring so that we can surpass our limited understanding of life and ourselves.
Joyly was right. One individual creates ripples...which resonate through society. I would further refine the notion by saying we must validate our correct decisions and place value in them.
At the end of the movie, what do we see? We see Wiesler go into the bookstore and buy Dreyman's book where Dreyman thanks him in the book's dedication. However, what is most noticeable? Wiesler's face. He has barely aged although Dreyman shows normal aging for the ensuing years. Wiesler's face is pure, innocent, and reflective of a man at peace with himself. He lost power, position, and prestige and accepted his consequences. His face could have reflected bitterness, revenge, and hatred. It didn't.
So the truth I take from the movie? We should elevate ourselves to this condition when we make sound, good decisions for ourselves, and perhaps families, because then we do become these beacons of light or ripples through society.
I get this image of those chakra charts that show each chakra with a different color and rays emanating from each center. We can only activiate the "ripple effect" when we validate ourselves and decisions. Then, with words unspoken, our faces and actions show the peace and beauty which we have attained through our hard lessons in life. An acting teacher I had once said that good acting is like beating on a drum and the vibration is passed to the audience. So, too, I get this image. Taking pride in our good decisions, despite the approbation of society and others, is passed like that drumming vibration from one person to another.
I studied Buddhism for a year (after twenty years of New Age stuff) then discovered a teacher who taught me how to have a relationship with God and learn from the Creator.
As I noted above, I've had the 'pleasure' (and sadly, still) of going through such to the point that I've never gotten far into the film. I guess my problem is I've never been able to achieve this: FWIW, I'm still trying.
So well said! Kudos!
RC
Jordan Peterson explains with artists how the ripple effect changes the world. (Thanks to P)
RC
*As I recall, Poe made sundry comments about it, particularly in his storied involving Dupin.
rc
.
Trump was the conservatives "Obama". He told his base what they wanted to hear, while doing exactly what the globalists wanted.......
At least for a century.
And continue reading Les Romance Novels. If you don't want to be shocked, stay away from Eloisa James' Wilde Saga. I'm currently reading Book #2 Too Wilde to Wed. Well...indeed!! Of course they're too wild to wed when they're having sex before marriage and sex in the bathtub. I was shocked...I tell you I was shocked!!!!
; > )
Not quite what the "slave loving hero" propaganda is trying to sell us ...
RC
PS: as mentioned occasionally, the Rockefeller then bought into both parties more than a century ago, as described by Caroll Quigley.
I forget if Qugley was Bill Clinton's mentor but if he was, I have unusually high levels of dislike for the man, especially considering I've not read a word by him and am not even certain if we're speaking of the same person.
Finally, I have a tough time buying into any theory that strings together my personal hero/Founding Father Jefferson (using an extreme example, granted) to Bribem.
RC
The mentioned site described Jefferson as an adversary of the King and central banking, so I am with you. But the deep state began to work it's way in immediately. Yes, that Caroll Quigley. And I see the contrast between his book (Tragedy and Hope), describing the rise of fascism in the US (a.k.a. merger between state and corporations), and his job of mentoring one of the figureheads of said system. Thus I mentioned Quigley. At latest with the Rockefeller takeover, their is no point in prefering one party over the other. Two sides of the same coin. The illusion of choice, political discourse, democracy, and participation for the common sheeple.
Fond of George Mason, myself. Both Gunston Hall and Monticello are well worth a visit. 18th C was a special time. Where are such polymaths today? I mean, where are our versions of such men? Were I to ask this on Quora, I know the kind of answers I'd get. Don't feel like :barf:so I'll hang with this crowd.
RC
*" I got better." (Holy Grail.)
rc
I do agree that there is a lot there worthwhile, but as re all places that are down with censorship (reddit included) I detest that in them, the market, et al.
That expression brings to mind this: RC
Enjoy this sub example if so inclined: [Link]
I frankly am curious to see what's there for it seems (for me, of course, and I expect for no others*) that some cosmic dimension is intermingling with ours, perhaps acquiescently, (or not, I don't care - hell, I'd be down with the whole purposeful approach by the benevolent aliens, if it might help fix all this stuff we've been bitching about, frankly. )
*Except folks saying, "Poor RC, having another episode of schizophrenia" etc.
RC
The subreddit is r/homestead. Just people posting stuff they're doing, sometimes asking advice related to small scale farming, self-sufficiency, etc. Lots of friendly critters.
I find it a good antidote to the more usual 'everything is awful' stuff designed to impart feelings of hopelessness.
LOVE the tails!
Oops, failed to see your /homestead. I'll go there and bookmark it now. (Edit time running out.*)
*What song's lyric is that reminding me of?
Something like "(something) time is running out.*
Oh well, gotta go.
RC
Denis Rancourt Interview - Experts Banned From Research Publication For Challenging COVID Narrative -TLAV: [Link]
most americans/(also sotties?) will understandably not have had any relation to those matters. (few have ever been outside of their own country?).
so, i think it is/was a bald move to adress this "movie"
[Link]
I appreciate that these MM shows cover different topics I may not normally embrace, and thus broaden my horizons.
Don’t get the link ... some computer software?
Beyond that, I really can't see any SOTTites doing the standard tourist trap bus tour.
RC
*I know that as an American, I should be saying 'we' but I have always felt thoroughly different from proletariat America and separate from most - there are better ways to say this - so I, depending upon the subject, retain the right to refer to them in the third person when convenient. ( ** And no, I'm not smertz in disguise. For some reason, I like the guy. Kinda like the way I appreciate HFL's humor.)
rc
(i am here bcz i hope to meet ppl like you both, that might hopefully have different oppinions/ideas than me - but who are still willing to enter discussions about opposing ideas without prejudices).
Don't you sometimes wonder when/where music first started? Were humans just roaming around, happy, and began singing? I know that I do if I'm in the house. Then, they had a party, and someone made a special music stomp. Probably dancing. Right? Probably dancing.
I can't understand of course (which only increases my respect for your English) but I love it. I'm about to replay it with me on lead acoustic guitar.
THANKS!
RC
BTW, Her voice, et al., I'm in love with the entire package. If I ever get to Europe would I have a chance?
rc
But to further explicate, although he was a dark brunette whose hair turned silver, and I'm as you know I'm a curs'ed "auburn" (quasi-obligatory Twain citation not obliged) and yet mine has gone from as a child, a dark cherrywood red, to its bleached-out multi colored strawberry blonde, through added silver hairs (Pops was pure silver. RIP) to the multi colored washed out auburn sandy blonde with evermore silver which of course has never bothered me, to where I now am. I thank all things thankable that I have always been content in this body - I've surely learned that there are folks who are not and think, 'There but for the grace of God, go I.'
R.C.
*I am trying to NOT let the song now playing in my background affect me, my thoughts, or anything I write here, this late Saturday night (actually Sunday morning): 'Whatever Happened To Saturday Night'. [Link] I LOVE that waltz and can STILL play the whole God damned album. I cannot deny, however, that it's not a happy song.
rc