People see the cleverness of nature and suppose it's the cleverness of the animal itself but it was obvious to me that each and every segment of the animal isn't aware. How much I'd hate to live totally unaware of myself, I thought. What would be the point of living, of existing, if you weren't ever to know about it? I looked at the Fox Moth and pitied it, poor unconscious creature. But then, I supposed, at least it wouldn't be disappointed. It would never find out.
Simply raising the theme of animals in the Third Reich means that our narrative is no longer only an account of what human beings have done to one another, but also about our relations with the natural world. If,viewed against the magnitude and terror of historical events, our personal lives appear almost trivial, the lives of animals may seem more so, and evento raise the subject can at first seem either insensitive or pedantic. At thesame time, this new dimension places the events in an even vaster perspective still, one in which even the greatest battles and horrendouscrimes can begin to fade into insignificance. This is the standpoint of evolutionary time, in which humankind itself may be no more than arelatively brief episode. Perhaps the focus on animals may help us to finda more harmonious balance between the personal, historic, and cosmiclevels, on which, simultaneously we conduct our lives.
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Simply raising the theme of animals in the Third Reich means that our narrative is no longer only an account of what human beings have done to one another, but also about our relations with the natural world. If,viewed against the magnitude and terror of historical events, our personal lives appear almost trivial, the lives of animals may seem more so, and evento raise the subject can at first seem either insensitive or pedantic. At thesame time, this new dimension places the events in an even vaster perspective still, one in which even the greatest battles and horrendouscrimes can begin to fade into insignificance. This is the standpoint of evolutionary time, in which humankind itself may be no more than arelatively brief episode. Perhaps the focus on animals may help us to finda more harmonious balance between the personal, historic, and cosmiclevels, on which, simultaneously we conduct our lives.
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People never like pollution, it has become very wrong to like pollution at all. But just like there are good and bad things about people, there are good and bad things about pollution. If people were pollution we would get rid of anyone who was different, anyone who was considered an inconvenience_ but we__ be getting rid of a life, a lot of lives_ because we didn__ like them. If pollution was a person would we still be trying to get rid of it? Would we have environmentalists still complaining and protesting and trying to get rid of all pollution?
At Dachau. We had a wonderful pool for the garrison children. It was even heated. But that was before we were transferred. Dachau was ever so much nicer than Auschwitz. But then, it was in the Reich. See my trophies there. The one in the middle, the big one. That was presented to me by the Reich Youth Leader himself, Baldur von Schirach. Let me show you my scrapbook.
Man is the cruelest animal.
When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left?