Study Guide 12 Flashcards
Short Essay # 1: The “NATURALNESS” of LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
It is a common belief here in the United States, that if the U.S. helps to eliminate an authoritarian government (such as the enemy monarchies of WWI, or the current authoritarian governments of the Muslim world) and gives the people of that nation the chance to vote and form their own democratic government, then the people will establish a liberal, parliamentary democracy; the resulting society will be stable, tolerant and freedom-loving, and ethnic and social hatreds will be democratically managed. This policy was applied to Central Europe after 1918, but the result was fundamentally different than anticipated.
Please answer this question: What prevented liberal democracy from succeeding in Europe between 1919 and 1939, and what might this indicate about the American belief in the “naturalness” of Liberal Democracy ?
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Short Essay # 2 : JUSTICE and MURDER
It is evident that Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler all garnered great public support by calling for the righting of old wrongs, for the redress of old injustices – injustices due to the exploitation by the wealthy, by the West, by capitalism, by victorious powers, by certain ethnic groups; etc, etc. Political scientists and psychologists have noted that often “hatred and fear wear the mask of justice”. This link between hatred and justice clearly manifested itself in the Interwar Years in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Russia, etc etc. And this link also led to World War II in Europe.
Please answer: In general, how is hatred generated and sustained ? And since hatred and injustice spawn new hatreds and injustices, how can this vicious cycle of hatred be broken ?
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Short Essay # 3: GUILT and RESPONSIBILITY
In 1932 and 1933, 2/3 of German adults voted against Hitler, but nevertheless, Hitler was made Prime Minister through a powerplay at the highest levels of the Weimar government. The first country that was subjugated by Hitler’s National Socialist Party through assassination, terror, and concentration camps was Germany (“the Brown Revolution” from 1933 to 1935). Therefore, are the Germans responsible, collectively, for what their totalitarian government did between 1939 and 1945, especially : war and conquest, the bombing of unarmed cities, and the attempted extermination of the Jews ? Furthermore, since a person who was 10 years old in 1945 would be 81 years old today, do Germans under the age of 82 living today bear any responsibility for World War II and the attempted genocide of the Jews ? If so, why ? And if not, why not ?
To what degree, in other words, are people responsible for the actions of their government, for how long, and does the type of government play any role ?
And, along these lines, are Americans living today (you and I) responsible for the actions of our government in Vietnam and in Iraq and the Middle East today ?
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Short Essay # 4: LEARNING from HISTORY
It is often said, that we should learn from history. George Santayana said most famously: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Many of the delegates at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I sought to do just that — to learn from recent history. And yet they seemed to draw all the wrong conclusions.
It is often completely overlooked that the “lessons of history” are usually complex, rarely self-evident, and frequently quite difficult to discern, let alone apply to contemporary circumstances. And yet it must be done. The appalling casualty rate of the first half of the 20th century certainly demands that it be done.
Based on the events leading up to World War I and leading up to World War II, as well as the collapse of Communist East Germany, what kind of lessons do you draw that you might someday tell your children and grandchildren, when they ask you to explain how such unbelievably large numbers of people could be slaughtered in 20th-century Europe. In other words, explain what we need “to learn from History” in order to prevent these kinds of horrors from happening again. What must we do? What must we not do ?
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