Above is a colorized picture of the Reichserntedankfest rally that took place in Germany in 1934. As the copious amount of swastika and eagle imagery imply, it was organized by the Nazi Party. Attendance for the rally was monumental: 700,000 people from all over the country were in attendance to show support for the party. It was an ominous sign of the appeal and popularity of the ideas of National Socialism that would sweep over Germany in the coming years and hold its people in rapture until the end of the disastrous Second World War.
The first question that comes to mind upon seeing such a massive crowd assembled for such a morally despicable ideology is “Why were they there?” Why did so many come to attend? One answer is that they simply didn’t know. This is the Nazi Party, but perhaps most in attendance were not aware of the views the party held, especially on Jews and other ethnic minorities. After all, we are benefiting from historical hindsight and knowledge of all the later atrocities the Nazis would commit.
However, ignorance is no excuse. Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which served as the foundation for the party’s beliefs and platform, had already been published for nine years in 1934. It wasn’t an obscure work either, reaching best-seller status by this time. Hitler very clearly and precisely laid out his anti-Semitic views within the book, giving us such passages as:
“If, with the help of his Marxist creed, the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men.”
“Here he [the Jew] stops at nothing, and in his vileness he becomes so gigantic that no one need be surprised if among our people the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”
“The ignorance of the broad masses about the inner nature of the Jew, the lack of instinct
and narrow-mindedness of our upper classes, make the people an easy victim for this
Jewish campaign of lies.”
And so on and so on.
Neither were these just ideals the party held without implementation. In 1933, the Nazi Party had already issued an edict that those of Jewish descent could not hold public office. They had also organized several boycotts of Jewish businesses. Even in the early years of the Third Reich, their anti-Semitism was on full display. It was not a secret, but an open feature of the Nazi Party. Those in attendance were not ignorant of the evils of Nazism.
Is it possible that they were just a band of particularly terrible people? Is it just the case that the Nazi Party was able to attract a large group of unsavory folks? If this was a smaller rally, then perhaps this could serve as some sort of explanation. But there were 700,000 in attendance. Furthermore, the cult of personality around Hitler and Nazism only grew from that point on, until they had almost the entirety of the country in their grip. Those in attendance were not just terrible people or the dregs of German society.
The truth of the people who were there is profoundly unsettling. They were normal people, just like you and me. Unconsciously, we tend to think of people in the past as somehow being different from us today. Those who lived in ancient Athens or Rome are a different kind of people than we are today — at least the thinking goes. However, nothing is ever that simple, and while there are differences between the modern man and his historically older counterpart, people are fundamentally in all ages and eras. This brings with it another disturbing thought: every one of those people pictured are fundamentally just like us.
Within a few short years of this picture being taken, Nazism and its talons would have a firm hold on all of Germany. Hitler was then able to led the German people into a war in which they were unquestionably the aggressors. The rest is history. There was nothing particularly malicious about the German people that made them susceptible to the evils of Nazism. Granted, their country was struggling following the Great War, but being in rough economic straits does not entail any proclivity to ethnic-based hatred. Their embrace of the Nazi ideology was a product of being swept up in the rolling tides of history and the heat of the moment. As Nazism became more popular, more jumped on the bandwagon. Before long, just about everyone was on board.
If everyone at that rally was just a normal person, and they had no special inclinations towards violence, then we are brought to an uncomfortable reality: we would have been one of them. If we were in their shoes and living in 1930s Germany, we likely would have been loyal converts and adherents to the Nazi cult just like the rest of the population. Granted, there were those that stood against the Nazis, but they were few and far between. If you took anyone from modern day back in time to live under the Third Reich, the overwhelming likelihood is that they go along with the crowd and cheer on Hitler, Himmler, Goering and all the rest. If the people that actually lived there didn’t stand up for what was right, why would anyone else from a different time?
None of this is to say that Nazism will rise again, or anything of that sort. The example of 1930s Germany serves as a thought-experiment. It shows the weakness of all human beings and their capacity for great error, even error leading to unthinkable tragedy. It is because of this unavoidable weakness that we all have a unavoidable need for intellectual humility. Everyone is subject to the influence of popular trends, vogue ideas, and commonly-held assumptions. If we are not careful to subject these to careful scrutiny, we are in danger of being uncritically swept up by them. Intellectual humility means having an understanding of one’s own flaws and the ever-present influence of our bias and desires. We all have foundational ideas and values that dictate how they live our lives. We cannot do without these, nor should we attempt to do so. However, we should never stop questioning those ideas. The length of time we have held an idea has irrelevant to whether or not it is true.
What does intellectual humility look like in practice? It means a willingness to hear views contrary to one’s own. After all, the outcome of hearing new arguments is always positive. Either you are convinced that your previous views were wrong and you are now closer to the truth, or you are not convinced, but have a better understanding of why your current views are correct. In either case, you now have a fuller view of the truth.
It also means a willingness to admit when one is wrong. Being wrong doesn’t make anyone a fool; refusal to change one’s beliefs when they are wrong is what makes someone a fool. Intransigence in the face of a superior argument is no virtue, and a willingness to abandon one’s views if shown to be false is no vice.
It also means that a lack of information should motivate a lack of position. Not having an opinion or stance on an issue if one doesn’t have the information necessary to have one is no mental fault. Realistically, it is impossible to be even moderately well-informed about every important issue in today’s world. This inevitably means that at some point, you will come across something that is unknown and unfamiliar. To reserve judgement until you have sufficient information is much more conducive to a correct view of the world as opposed to forming viewpoints based on bits and pieces of incomplete knowledge.
Intellectual humility is a discipline, specifically one of the mind. It isn’t always easy to practice, just like any other discipline. It stands in the face of our pride, which tries to tell us that our views are naturally superior to others. Even so, it is necessary. Socrates famous said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I contend that the unexamined mind is not worth using. A blind adherence to your own ideas or the trends of the day always comes at the expense of the truth. Rigid self-questioning is never pleasant to endure, but the outcome is always progress towards the truth.
Ultimately, all human beings are fallible. We like to think of ourselves as being very rational and logical creatures, but that just isn’t true. More often than not, we are driven by our emotions and passions, and our reason just comes along for the ride. The beliefs of the majority can feel incredibly compelling, regardless of their actual content. The example of Nazi Germany, although perhaps a bit dramatic, very clearly demonstrates this truth. Even so, a firm recognition of this history naturally impels one towards a self-respect of the possibilities of one’s own mind. If put into the right circumstances, is there any limit to what you might believe?
