Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #54 - The German Will to Power

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #54 - The German Will to Power

Okay, good morning. So today we will do Germany and thus conclude our discussion of the four great civilizations that are fighting for global dominance. We previously did Britain, America, Tuesday we did Russia. Today we do Germany. So to recap, Russian civilization is very distinct from American, sorry, Anglo-American. civilization and German civilization is also distinct as well. We're going to focus on the idea of unity of will in German civilization today. We don't know much about German civilization because they were defeated in World War II. And because the Anglo-Americans control the history of the world, we tend to think Anglo-American civilization is superior to German and German. to German and Russian civilization.

But what I will show you today is that in many respects, the most advanced civilization that humans have ever created is actually the German civilization. Okay, so if you look at a map today in Europe, there's a really interesting fact that may surprise you. The green is Russia. It's a larger trend in the world. Over here are the Baltic nations.

And over here is a place called Kalanagrad. It's actually Russian. Okay, so the question then is, how did this come to pass? How was it that you've got this colony of Russians far away from the Motherland? And the answer is this, because historically, this was not Russian. Historically, this was a place called Kahnensburg, which was part of a nation that no longer exists called Prussia. And for a couple hundred years, Prussia was the strongest military, the most advanced civilization in the world.

And now it's disappeared. And it's been replaced by Poland, okay, and parts of Belarus. And West Prussia has now become part of Germany, okay? But pressure is no longer... It's extinct. And the reason why is that in World War II, the Allies who won the war, the Soviet Union, the British and Americans decided to destroy Prussia. And the rationale was that Prussia is a military society that is hell-bent on world domination. And by eliminating pressure, we can now bring peace to the world.

The problem, though, is that that Connorsburg, which is now Kalanagrad, was really the center of civilization for a few decades. This is Connestburg before in 1800s. As you can see, it's a beautiful port city by the Baltic Sea. And it was really the apex of human civilization. And then of course, World War II happened.

And then after War II, Karnasburg was destroyed, okay? It was turning into rubble. And today, it's like this, Kalanagrad, okay? A very Soviet, stale city with no character, with no culture, with no civilization. And that's the intent to turn, to destroy Kahnusberg, which was for the longest time the heart and soul of German civilization.

It is true that Connysburg and pressure were extremely powerful, what was an extremely powerful military nation. And as you can see, this is from Wikipedia, by the way, okay? As you can see, there are many great generals and officers who are from Connestburg, okay? We're talking about the city. We're not talking about the nation pressure, we're talking about the city of Connestburg.

But you also see that there are many intellectuals, writers, who come from Connorsburg, okay? And the most famous of these intellectuals is Immanuel Kot, who will discuss next class. He basically changed the course of Western history with his philosophy. So Connestburg was the birthplace of Emmanuel Kot.

So how is it that the man who is most responsible of the Enlightenment happens to be born in the military designation? That's a question. but not only Immanuel Kant, but you have also many other great thinkers, including Hannah-O-Rat, who is a Jewish philosopher and who is considered one of the greatest political philosophers

of the 20th century. She's also from Connorsburg. Scientists, just an amazing group of scientists, as well as mathematicians, okay? And then, of course, you have musicians and artists. So the contribution of Connestburg to world civilization cannot be overstated. And there are quite a, there are quite a few Jews who lived in Connestburg. Connestburg, for the longest time, was considered one of the most tolerant cities in Germany for Jews.

Let's not look at Nobel Prize winners in the sciences, physics, chemistry, and medicine. As you can see, in 1925, the majority were actually from Germany. Germany had the best scientists in the world. 1933, same thing. You got on 1950, same thing. In fact, by 1975, Germany is still dominant. The United States is catching up. It's only by about 2,000 when the United States starts to overtake Germany.

So again, the question in is, how is it possible for a military state nation? hell bent on world domination, how are they able to produce so many great scientists, so many great philosophers? And this is a very famous quote for Motter that captures the prejudice of the West against Prussia. Where some states have an army, the Prussian army has a state.

Okay? This is pretty insulting to Prussian culture. We've looked at many civilizations that are militaristic, including the Romans, Spartans, Aztecs, Macedonians, and Qing Chinese, among others. They're extremely successful militarily, but guess what? They were not creative. In fact, they were anti-creative.

So how is it possible for the Persians to be both creative and militaristic? And the answer is, because the Western prejudice against pressure is wrong. They were not a militaristic nation bent on world domination. They were first and foremost a creative, humanistic. society that was forced into military confrontation with its neighbors because of its geographic location okay so let's go back to the history of the Holy Woman Empire as we discussed in a previous class the Holy Woman Empire was confederation of German city-states and there were like thousands and thousands of them that

were in competition with each other okay Over time, because of competition from the more powerful states like France, Poland, Luthorian, Russia, Sweden, these city states were now forced to gel together. The most successful of these city-states is Precia. And for the longest time, Preciate was a vassal state of the Polish-Luthuania Commonwealth or the Swedes. But by about the year 1700, it started to come into its own for the leadership, for a great military leadership. Okay, and it started to spread out.

And as you can see, it's spreading out really quickly because of its military victories and because of its high culture. By the 19th century, Prussia has dedicated itself to uniting all of Germany. And it starts a series of wars that allow for the university of all the German people. The first is something called the Danos-Prussian War. Then they fight against the Austrian-Hungry Empire, which is a successor to the Holy Roman Empire, and they defeat the Austrians really quickly.

Then they move on to France, which is the dominant power of this time, and they defeat France, thus allowing for the complete unification of Germany under Prussian leadership. Okay, so how was Prussia able to be so successful? Well, as we discussed last class, there are certain characteristics about these city-states that go on to unify a nation. Okay, and the three major ones that Moscow and pressure share is open cooperative competition. They're surrounded by enemies and their force to be innovative, open, and tolerant in order to succeed.

They're forced to be unified, advantaged by disadvantage, okay? So Prussia and Moscow have limited resources, which forces them to focus on human capital, on making sure the citizens were well educated and the citizens were hardworking and vassalage okay so again Moscow was under the vassalage of the mungos and Prussia for the longest time was under the vassalage of the Swedes the Poles the Lutheranians and as a result they're always engaged in a process of reflection and resilience okay and that's really the secret to the success of Prussia all right at the same time the thing to remember about the Prussians that

differentiates them from the Muscovites is because pressure is situated within Europe it has a very different attitude towards humans than the Moscovites okay the Muscovites because of their Mongolian heritage they can oppress oppressor their subjects whereas the Prussians are much more democratic they're much more progressive they're much more open okay So this is Frederick the Great, who is considered the great nation builder of Prussia for his military victories. What is often ignored is his social economic political reforms. He really is the first enlightenment despot.

He's heavily influenced by Emmanuel Kod. They fought very highly of each other. And he was very intent on making pressure the first enlightened state of Europe. Okay, so let's look at the few things he did. He radically reformed the Persian judicial system so that you had rule of law, so that everyone had recourse to justice. Even if you were poor, you could still sue. He abolished torture in the military,

and this was revolutionary at this time, because he always assumed that you kept your soldiers in check by scaring them, okay? You established, he established religious tolerance. Remember, at this time in Europe, There's a huge war going on between Catholics and the Protestants, and he was tolerant towards both the Catholics and the Protestants, and even to a certain extent, to the Jews as well. Okay? And over time, Connorsburg, which is the heart and center of the Persian nation, becomes really one, it has one of the largest Jewish settlements in Europe, okay? About 5,000 at that point. He grants basic form of freedom of speech. And the most important thing is that in 1763, he establishes a public school system that becomes a source for Prussia's future greatness.

And to put this in context, okay, it's only over 100 years later when Britain and France does this. Japan and America will copy to especially steal the Prussian education system, okay? In 1806, Prussia is defeated by Napoleon. We discussed this. And as a result, Prussia becomes a vassal state to Napoleon. And at this point, what the Prussians do is what they've always done, which is engaged in the deep process of reflection. And they decide that in order to defeat France, they must be like France.

Remember, this is the French Revolution, and there's a spread of liberalism throughout France, because of the revolution. So the prisoners decide to copy the most important reforms of the French Revolution, which include the abhorstment of serfdom. Now, peasants can become landowners. They destroy monopolies to encourage free market competition. They open the civil service to middle class before it's only available to the nobility. And the most important thing is the reforms of a man named William von Humboldt.

He creates the modern research university. So he founded something called the Berlin University, and so he conceptualized the research university where before you sat in class and you listened to lectures and you memorize what the professor told you, but now you're encouraged to your own research to write a thesis, which is what we do today. The most important reform he did was to conceptualize public education

as a meritocracy, as an opportunity for the middle class to grow, okay, to grow the mainstream. middle class and to give the middle class a greater economic role in society and these reforms in only a few years will allow Prussia to defeat Napoleon and establish itself as a great power again this is Karl von Kloswitch and he's considered the greatest military strategist of all time he's Prussian he was an officer in the Prussian military and he thought very deeply about the The wars of Napoleon.

Why is it that Napoleon and the French were so great? And his conclusion is because they were able to mobilize the resources of society for total war. And his conclusion is that in the future, as a nation, if you want to win militarily, then you must engage your citizens. You must increase the morale. morale of your citizens, you must make them want to die for your nation. All right?

1848 is one of the most important years in human history. And the reason why is, in 1848, these red spots, these are all revolutionary hot spots. Okay? So after Napoleon was defeated in 1815, the European powers led by Mernick of the Austrian-Hungary Empire, empire, he sits everyone down and decides, first of all, how to ensure no wars like that of Napoleon arise again in Europe, how to create peace, but also, most important, how to maintain the feudal structure of Europe. And they were very successful at that until 1848, when the middle class, when the workers

rebelled in 17 different places. You will notice that in England, in Britain, there was no revolution. There were no rebellions. And the reason why is because Britain at this point had colonies overseas, right? Canada, New Zealand, Australia. And so these people who are upset about the economic status in Britain could migrate elsewhere. But these other places didn't have any colonies. There was no pressure valve for social discontent.

And so these revolutions start to take place. A lot of these revolutions were suppressed violently. And you would think that Prussia, because it is a military dictatorship, it would suppress the middle class liberals violently. But that's not what happened. Let's see what happened. So this is from Wikipedia. What happened was that there were public demonstrations

because people wanted more political reforms. right and the army killed certain people and now people are really really angry so they erect their crates they're getting ready for civil war okay this is another French Revolution and at this point the emperor Frederick William what he does is he goes and reassures the public that they will negotiate a peace and what he does to calm the public is the king of also approve arming the citizens. He gives guns to the citizens to ensure

that the citizens will feel safe, negotiating with the army. But not only that, but when the crowds of people went to the king, the king basically agreed to all their demands, including parliamentary elections, a constitution, and freedom of press. Also, he promised everyone that Prussia was to be merged forthwith into Germany.

Because not only is there liberal socialist sentiments at this point, there's also nationalist sentiments. People want to feel united as a German people. Okay? And then what calms people down is the king attends a funeral for those citizens who died during the rebellion. Okay. And they wore, okay, he and his ministers wore the revolutionary tricolol of black, red, and gold, which is, by the way, the flag of Germany right now. So he's showing tremendous respect to his people.

And that's his Prussian attitude. Again, the historical image of Prussians is very stern, very austere, very dictatorial. But if you look at their behavior, they're very respectful of their people, because they understand that in this world, when they're surrounded by enemies, their central power with France, Russia, all around them, they need to stay. unite as a people okay this is Otto von Bismarck the most famous Prussian in world history he is the founder of something called the Second Reich the Holy Roman Empire was the First Reich and the unified Germany is the second

Reich so he's really the founder of modern-day Germany he's known as the Iron Chancellor because he gave a speech in which he said that the position of pressure in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism by its power okay so he's rejecting the idea of liberalism of free speech of openness of negotiation of institutions and he's focusing on the military pressure must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favorable moment which has already come and gone several times since the treaties of Vienna our frontiers have been ill-designed for a healthy body politic not through speeches and majority decisions will the

great questions of the day be the that was a great mistake of 1848 and 1849 but by iron and blood okay for violence and sacrifice so if you so when you read the speech you understand that he's repudiating the liberalism of King Frederick Wilhelm okay he's saying that nope the armies have gone in and killed all the demonstrators okay so that's what he's saying and that's why he has a reputation for being the iron chancellor a man of violence a man of sternness okay but But he was extremely pragmatic man.

And his ambition was to have a unified Germany in which people were content. Okay? And so this is another speech he made. Same man, but a completely different tone. And so he says, the real grievance of the worker is the insecurity of his existence. He is not sure that he will always have work.

He is not sure that he will always be healthy. He perceives that he will one day be old and an unfit to work. Okay? So he's sympathizing with the plight of the factory worker. He understands that it's wrong for workers to lose their hand at work and not be compensated. It's wrong for workers to get sick and their entire family to go into poverty. It's wrong for kids who are six years old to go to factories to work. It's wrong for managers to beat the crap out of other factory workers.

So what they will do is institute the first welfare state, the first socialist state in the world. Look at this. They have health insurance. They have accident insurance. So if you get injured at work, then the state will come in and give you money. They have a pension. They protect workers from abuse. They have Children Protection Act, which means children are not allowed to go work in factories, okay?

So in other words, in the year 1800 to 1900, if you could be a citizen of anywhere in the world, you would definitely want to be a citizen of Germany. Okay? At this point, in Britain, in France, in America, workers are being exploited everywhere. But in Germany, workers are being given rights. And because they're being given rights, they want to fight for their country. They want to die for the country. And this makes Germany the most powerful nation in the world at this time. And when that happens, in Europe, when you become a hegemon, guess who gets scared at you?

Guess who is now going to plot to get rid of you? Britain, right? All right. So at the same time, I don't want to say that Germany is a liberal democracy at this point. It's not. Why? Because as these industrial, industrial. reforms are happening there are more groups that are discontent okay and they

pose a problem to German unity okay these groups are obviously the Catholics a third of Germany now is Catholic because pressure has united all of Germany right the longest time the Holy Roman Empire was Catholic so a third of all the people is Catholic Bismarck his biggest failure his biggest mistake was his attempt to suppress the Catholics okay he basically said listen we're not gonna fund you anymore and if you insist on swearing loyal to the Pope then we will put you in prison you're not to swear loyalty to Germany and so the priests I went to prison okay and this is a disaster for Bismarck and ultimately had to compromise and

relent okay so the Catholics are a huge problem then you have the liberals okay so you may have heard the term liberalism socialism socialism communism there's a huge difference between these three terms guys okay so So let me explain what the differences are. Liberalism means more political rights for the middle class, right? Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, voting power. Why? Because the middle class have economic power,

and they want to transform that into political power, okay? The socialists want democracy for all. They understand that for democracy to really happen, you need to provide worker protection. You need to create class consciousness. You need to let workers. let workers have unions, okay? So that's socialism.

Then you have communism, which is more radical. Basically, communists believe wealth should be redistributed, okay? We should get rid of private property and redistribute wealth for more equality in society. Also, communism is an international movement, okay? You also have Polish nationalists. A lot of people in Germany at this time are Poles. They're Slavic people.

who have their own language, have their own ethnic identity. And ultimately, they will form Poland, okay? And at this time, they're a huge problem for the German state, and they are suppressed as well. They have people called the anarchists. The anarchists are people who believe that we don't need government. We don't need authority. People should just be allowed to do what they want to do.

People are self-organizing, and as a result, government is bad, okay? So, have all these different political groups, and they're all very powerful, and they all pose a problem to German unity and as a result they are persecuted one by one. This is important because at the end of World War I, when Germany has surrendered, they will reflect on why they lost. And one conclusion that they had was because of all these political divisions, okay?

There are too many divisions within society, therefore we need to suppress this division and create one political entity. And this is what allows for the rise, of course. of Hitler and the Nazis. So this is important to understand. All right. World War I, again, if Germany is too powerful,

Britain is forced into action. Britain cannot allow for a hegemon to be dominant in Europe. Britain went into action against Napoleon, when Napoleon was a hegemon. Now they're going into action against Germany because Germany is too powerful. And World War I, no one expected this, but World War I was a catastrophe.

millions of people died and it was an alliance of Britain, France, and Russia basically against Germany. Germany did have the Ottoman Empire and the Austria-Hungary Empire as allies, but they were not effective. It was really Germany versus the world. And what's amazing is Germany was able to create a stalemate or even at, actually sometimes when Germany was about to win, okay? And of course, when that happens, if Germany is going to win this war, it forces the Americans

into action. Okay? Why? Well, first of all, the Americans think like the British. The Americans and British do not want a European power to merge to unite the heartland, okay, to unite Asia and Europe, because then it negates naval trade. Does that make sense? Second reason is the Americans actually lend a lot of money to the British.

Okay, something called a land lease policy. So if Britain lost the war, then all that money is gone, okay? So America comes in to save Britain, okay? But even at this point, this is really important, even at this point, Germany, it was not clear Germany was going to lose the war. Russia was not out of the war, France was divided, Britain was not that effectual. So it was not clear at this point, Germany was going to lose.

Chances in order, Germany was going to lose, but Germany had not lost yet. And if Germany could mobilize all its resources, then Germany could withstand this onslaught. But then something happened that was very important. That changed the mind, the calculus of these German generals. The 1917 Russian Revolution. Why the revolution happened? Because Char Nicholas was too focused on the war.

He neglected the political divisions at home. And this allowed for a revolution to happen. So the German generals, or control of Germany at this point, they're scared to death of this happening in Germany. Because remember, at this point in his history, the nation with the strongest working class, the politariat, is actually Germany, not Russia, okay? So as a result, this man's name is Paul von Hindenburg. He's very important. He's now head of the German military as well as head of the German nation.

And he forced the German government to surrender to the allies. And this led to the 1919 Treaty of Herzl. The Treaty of Versailles had many stipulations that were unfair to the Germans. Okay? So the Germans had to pay a lot of debt. They had, they could not longer rearm, they had to reduce the military. They lost a lot of land to France, okay? But the worst thing that the Allies did in this negotiation was it forced Germany to

omit complete guilt for starting the war. That was completely unfair. Okay. This war happened for many reasons. Everyone was involved. Everyone had a certain blame. But Germany had to take all the blame. And as a result, the government did not want to sign this treaty

because obviously this is going to piss off all your people. But the army forced the government to sign the treaty. And the thinking of the army at this point is, listen, we've been in the situation before. We lost Napoleon, right? And so we just paid off a lot of debt to Napoleon and then we built. Okay? And then when we rebuilt, we made that nation stronger.

We're resilient. So we'll do the same thing here, okay? We'll just surrender, accept all the terms, then we'll start to rebuild and unify the nation and take revenge against everyone, okay? Now it's like the thinking of the military, okay? Very simple strategy, right? The War I'm a Republic is what follows after the war. And the War Republic is 10 years of hyperinflation,

social discontent, complete chaos, okay? And when a nation suffers economically, politically, culturally, what it often does is it engage in a deep process of reflection. It goes back into the past and thinks about how to rebuild itself. So some philosophers that are very important for thinkers of how to unify Germany are like Arthur Schopenheimer. Arthur Schopenhauer is very, very important philosopher. His conception of the world is that the underlying force of the world is the will, desire. And the will manifests itself physically in us in bodies.

do you understand the idea okay so the underlying force of the universe is the will desire and then the will will physically benefit itself in our bodies and then our bodies will seek to do what the will want which is to procreate right to have sex to have children to eat food okay now the great um the great the paradox of this situation is before our the manifestation in our bodies, the will was just one, right? There was no differentiation. But once the will manifests itself in our bodies,

there's now differentiation, okay? There's multiplicity, and as such, we see the world for our own perspective, for our own self-spective, which needs to conflict. You understand? It is because we've forgotten that we are just one that leads to conflict and suffering. Okay, so his great solution to this is compassion.

As humans, we must first and foremost be compassionate towards each other and remind ourselves that we are just one people Okay, and we can do that through the appreciation of art because art is a great unifier right art is a thing that allows us To contemplate the wholeness and the harmony of the world and then he says that there's some of us who should engage in self-denial who become like mucks Who should deny to who should deny the world because the world is inherently evil So when you refuse to have children, when you refuse to struggle, to suffer, then you achieve enlightenment. Okay? And this is easy for us to understand because this is a very Buddhist ideology, okay? So he's basically taking Buddhism and Hinduism from India, and he's making it more secular.

He's trying to remove the religious aspects of it and make it into a logical system. Does that make sense? All right, so he says, life has no intrinsic worth, but is kept in motion, merely by desire and illusion. And as such, if you can remove the desire from your life, you achieve Nirvana, you achieve enlightenment, okay? This is really important passage, okay? Music is thus by no means like the other arts.

The copy of the ideas, but the copy of the will itself, whose objectivity the ideas are. This is why the effect of music is so much more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts. For they speak only of shadows, but it speaks of the thing itself okay this is really important so how do we know the will how can we access the will it's for music okay because the music is a perfect encapsulation of desire right it is the perfect expression of emotions and so

for music we can we discover the unity of the world the unity of the will and why is this important because it inspires Richard Wagner okay Richard Wagner is the most famous musician in Germany. He's really the national poet of Germany. He's a genius. And his great insight is that all art can be combined into one. And this is before movies, right? This is before cinema.

So you can put in music, paintings, theater, poetry, philosophy, everything together to create one total art that will inspire and unite the people. people and this is why he spends 30 years to create something called the ring trilogy okay and this is held every year at the Bay Roof Festival he creates his own upper house in order to stage to play and it's 15 hours okay it's fit it's four parts 15 hours and it's the inspiration for the Lord of the Rings movies I'm sure you've seen Lord of the Rings right it's a very similar

plot okay and the plot um very simple it's 15 hours sorry it's not a simple plot I'll put it in very simple terms. It's 15 hours, four parts. So there are people called the Rhine Maidens. These are river goddesses who control the river Rhine, and they have a lot of gold. There's a dwarf, an evil dwarf, who steals all this gold, and with all this gold,

he crafts a ring to control the world, to rule the world. And this is important because it's actually ticking Schopenheimer's philosophy, right? Desire is the source of evil in the world, and turn it into a metaphor. The ring is desire. The ring is what represents evil and suffering in the world. And because we all seek the ring, we cause misery.

All right. Okay, so this is how it starts. Now, up in the sky, there's a god named Wotan. Okay? So Wagnos is using a lot of Norse mythology that we learned before from the Vikings, right? Warton is another name for Odin. And Walton and the gods want to create a palace for themselves called Vahala.

And they hire a giant to build this Vahala. And they sign a contract with him. But the giants want payment first. So Walden and the gods steal this ring from the dwarf, okay? And they give it to the giant. But then the dwarf places a curse on this ring. And the curse is that the god. will see the end the end of days Wagner Rock every day okay so the gods are haunted

and so the gods are like we need to destroy this ring otherwise we're always going to be haunted we won't be able to sleep okay and so they need to kill the giant and get the ring back but they have a contract with this giant so Odin a Warton conspires to give birth to a great hero who's half human who have God, but he's not fully God, who will now go kill the giant and get the ring back, okay? That's his great idea. So he gives birth to twins, Siklingi and Sigmundi and Sigmundi. They're separated at birth, they're twins, and then they run in each other, and they fall in love with each other. Remember, they're twins, okay? Sillinda is already married, and so Sigmundi is

determined to kill her husband, Hundig, and marry Scylinde. Okay? And, and, and, you know, This is all part of Wharton's plan. He's really happy. But then his wife, Fricka, says to him, no, no, no, no, no. They've broken the incest law. They're not allowed to have sincasses with each other. And so you have to kill Sigmund.

And Wharton doesn't really have a choice in the matter. He has to agree to the death of Sigmund. So he sends his daughter, a vacuary, named Bohindi, to go make sure that Sigmund is killed against Houdin. But Brunheny, when she arrives, she sees the love between Sermundi and, sorry, Sigmundi and Sigmundi and she wants to save Sigmund and defy Wurton's orders.

Wurton hears about this and punishes Brinandi and kills Sigmund, okay? And what he does by punishing Byniorendi, is he sentences her to eternal sleep surrounded by a wall of flames only the greatest hero in the world the hero who is capable of killing a giant and retrieving the ring can save her and this hero is named Sigfrey who's a son of Sigman okay this is Act three now Sigman saves her kills the giant and now has retrieved the ring but because he has a ring now everyone around him is now conspiring to

kill him and get the ring for themselves okay the problem of desire which causes misery so in the end what happens is that Siegfried is killed Brahinde learns of this treachery and then she kills those who killed him and then what she does is she sacrificed herself in the flames and flows the ring back to the the river maidens, okay? And then what happens, and this is the ending, is the river maidens destroy the ring. But when they destroy the ring, they destroy everything,

okay, they destroy Bahala as well, the gods are destroyed. Bahá'u'll destroy, the entire world is destroyed. And this goes back to the sharp and higher idea that the source of the world is the desire, okay? When you destroy desire, you destroy the world. But when you do that, you allow for a new beginning. So that's the national epicenter,

of Germany, the ring cycle. And again, this is put on every year at Beirut. It's four nights, and it's 15 hours in total. There are some theaters that put on 15 hours straight. And the Germans love this. All right. So I'm going to play for you some music from this opera. And this is the most famous part called the Ride of the Vakraries.

As you can see, it's very powerful, right? It represents the unity of the will. So as people are watching this, they become united as one. Time, space, collapse, past, present collapse. This is meant to depict the will, the unity of the will. Okay, that's it. Great. Let's move on, okay.

So building on top of Wagner and Schopenheimer is Frederick Nietzsche, who is considered one of the greatest German philosophers of all times. Okay, and he makes certain corrections to the philosophy of Schopenheimer and the music of Wagner, all right? Here are the three major differences between Schopenheimer and Nietzsche. You can see that Schopenheimer, he's a pessimistic Plato, whereas Nietzsche, he's an optimistic Aristotle. So, Nietzsche's main complaint is this.

Okay, Shopenhires' conception is the source of everything is desire, and from desire, will manifest itself in physical bodies in order to obtain what it wants okay and that's true that makes sense and then Sharpenheimer's solution is then we must deny this desire okay we must negate this desire and then we will bring peace to the world so for Nietzsche this is confusing because um wait a minute here the desire the will manifests itself in physical bodies why would it do that what's the logic of that okay and And Sharpen number would say, well, because God is evil, because God wants us to suffer.

And then Nietzsche is like, okay, first of all, if God is evil, what's the point of resisting him? Right? If it brings us enjoyment to seek desire, then what's wrong with it? Is it possible that God is good and that God lets desire benefits itself in us in order for, for us to pursue our desire. Okay, so this is one of the major differences. For Schopenheimer, we are just biological beings that have a will to life.

We want to procreate. But for Nietzsche, it's the will to power. This is a really famous phrase from Nietzsche, the will to power, the will to expand ourselves, the will to achieve our fullest desires. Not just to procrate, but to impose our will on reality itself that's the true purpose of life that's why God created us to become God ourselves because otherwise this makes no sense how do we

go from desire to bodies it only makes sense if the bodies can amplify our desire and help us achieve our desire okay the will to power is a really important concept Shepernhauer believes that multiplicity is conflict the fact that we this will benefit itself and our bodies can lead to conflict because we're all fighting for scarce resources for example the ability to procreate okay but for Nietzsche multiplicity is creativity it's because there's conflict that you have action and action leads to innovation and innovation by itself is progress okay and so for Schopenheimer the ideal

person the Superman is the compassionate monk the person who feels simply for the world and as such engages in a process of self-denial, self-negation. He refuses to procreate, he refuses to struggle, he refuses to eat, the monk. But for Nietzsche, the ideal is the Ubermunch, the Obermans. The Obermans is hard to translate, which usually translated as Superman, but you can also translate it as Overman, okay? The person above humanity, the person above history. So the idea, the paragon, the example that Nietzsche uses is Napoleon, right?

Who's Napoleon? Napoleon is an individual who can step outside of history to control history, to manipulate history. That's what the Ubermans is. We ourselves are always controlled by social forces, right? We don't want to piss off our classmates, we want to please our teachers and our parents. So therefore, we are slaves to public opinion. Nietzsche says to be an Ubermensch, you have to ignore public opinion. You have to ignore community consensus and just focus on what is right to you, to look deep

into yourself and figure out what is right for you and only you. That's the Uber Munch. And for him, the ideal example, of course, is Napoleon. Why is this important? Because these ideas, in the context of Warmer Republic, will lead to the rise of the Nazis and Hitler, okay? Because Hitler is promising himself to be the next Napoleon, right? That's Hitler's promise to the German people.

I will be your Napoleon, I will unite you, and I will lead you to victory against all our enemies. Right? Okay, doesn't make sense, guys? Are you guys following this? All right, so let's look a couple of passages from Nietzsche, okay? Nietzsche is a very brilliant philosopher, so he's very complicated, he's very complex.

And he can have time to be very contradictory, okay? All right, so let's read a passage from the genealogy of morals, which is his most famous book. We can no longer conceal from ourselves precisely what this will under the direction of the aesthetic ideal expresses, which is hatred of anything human, animal, or material, abhorrence of the senses of reason itself, fear of happiness and beauty, that the desire to escape

from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing even from desire itself, all this means, let us have the courage to confront it, a wish for oblivion, and aversion to life, a reputation of everything vital to existence, but it is and remains a will. You say at the end that which I said, at the beginning, men will desire oblivion

rather than not desire at all. We are desire, okay? It's really a question of how we manifest our desire. In today's society, in the Christian Buddhist worldview, it's important to negate our desire. But when we negate our desire, we negate what our desire could lead us to, which is truth and beauty, and creativity and progress and innovation. Okay?

And when we negate ourselves, we're not returning back to unity. We are only embracing oblivion. Okay, that's a problem with Christianity. It's all, it's turning us into slaves. That's a problem with modernity. That's a problem with society. We are all being forced to become slaves okay does that make sense all right let's go on to call the taming animal

improving it sounds to ears almost like a joke he who knows what goes on in menageries doubts very much whether an animal's improved in such places it's certainly weakened it has made less dangerous and by means of the depressing influence of fear pain wounds and hunger it is converted into a sick animal the same holds good of the tame man whom the priest has improved Okay, this is a great metaphor. How can we understand the impact of society on people? Well, society is a zoo, okay?

We're all cage animals. Think about it, okay, what is school then? School is a zoo, okay? Before you were allowed to run around and explore the world and learn things for yourself, right? And as such, you mastered the world around you. You could hunt, you could farm, you could kill people, you could build alliances, you could write plays.

But in school, what do we ask you to do? We ask you to come to school, we ask you to come to classroom time, take notes, take tests, and then we give you a piece of paper, right? We turn you into cage animals, so you lose a capacity to think for yourself. Right? That's what school is. So there's nothing wrong with what Nietzsche is saying, okay? This is a good metaphor to capture the essence of modernity. Okay?

Society, education, it's all meant to degrade your capacity. to think for yourself in order to make you more obedient to power okay all right so if you take Schopenheimer Wagner and Nietzsche together and combine them what you get is a rejection of Christianity and return to paganism okay so let's look the differences in the Christian worldview there is a God if there's a God there is a framework of good and evil so you must do good and you must avoid evil okay but in the pagan worldview there is no God there's many gods but the gods themselves have no power over fate and as a result it's up

to you to define good and evil it's up to you to act and to find meaning in the world okay so but going back to school the metaphor right today we have grades and therefore you're focused on getting grades but if we had no grades we have no teachers then you have to learn for yourself you have to you would have to go through your own education what's amazing about this idea is you would want you because Nietzsche says we are first and foremost desire we desire to grow so if we left you alone and said no grades no school no test it does not mean that you will stop learning it just means that you will learn what you want

to learn okay all right second difference Christianity demands faith obedience to God paganism demands action okay you seek meaning for yourself through action. The last difference is Christianity focused on individual free will, which just means you are free to obey the powerful. But in the pagan mindset, it's about unity of will.

If we want to act, we can only do so by working together. We will find a leader to lead us, but the leader only represents the unity of will. Does that make sense? So during the War I'm Republic, with the rise of Nazism, you now have a rejection of Christianity and return to paganism as a solution to the national humiliation of Germany. All right, and this is what leads to the rise of Hitler. This man is Paul von Hindenberg, the same man who ordered the surrender of Germany.

In 1933, he is president of Germany, the leader, and he appoints Out of Hitler, the Chancellor of, Germany okay the question then is why would he do that right yeah I mean like why would the head of the army the head of the nation make out of Hitler a chancellor and the reason is this out of Hitler was a German spy he was a German sorry sorry it was a spy for the German army okay this is really important let me explain this this is from Wikipedia guys okay so I'm not like I'm making this up it says very clearly as an intelligence agent of the army Hitler's job was to influence other

soldiers into infiltrate the German Workers Party the Nazi Party National Socialists okay so what is this happening so remember the German army surrendered because they were afraid of revolution back at home who is leading the revolution the extreme left and extreme right okay what's the difference between extreme left and extreme right both are populists they all they all believe in workers rights The left believe in international solidarity, specifically with Russia, the Soviet Union, and other workers in the world. The right are nationalists.

They believe in German unity. So the army is like, okay, right now the most powerful group in Germany are the socialists, right? The left. We need to support the right. So Hitler goes into the Nazi Party, the German Workers Party, and he helps to finance it, okay? Hitler is giving money to these guys. And because he's such a charismatic speaker,

he eventually becomes their leader. By this point in history, okay, this is really important. This is a really small group of people. They're extreme, they're violent, but they are a minority. The majority of the socialists, okay? This is something that you're not taught in school, but this is very important to remember. It is the army that finances the building of the Nazi party

in order to dampen the influence of the Socialists. Because remember, the Army now is still dedicated to avenging the national humiliation of World War I. Okay? All right. So this is Carol Quigley, and he wrote a long book called Tragedy and Hope, okay?

And he explains in, oh, sorry, Kerry Quigley, he is a professor, he was a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He was Bill Clinton's teacher. Okay, he was Bill Clinton's teacher, and he's a wide of respected, scholar and in his book he explains how Hitler was able to rise and take over the leadership of Germany. He explains at this point in history that Germany is

threatened by two opposing forces. The first force of course is communism right the Soviet Union that's a huge menace to Germany but another menace that's even actually even more menacing is capitalism okay because at this point in history what's happening is the international capitalists are trying to create a central banking system in order to control the entire global economy. He writes about this. This is 1920s. The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim.

Nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. Okay? This is really important to understand. 1920s, all these bankers in the world, America, Britain, France, Germany, they're getting together, They're conspiring on how to create a global financial system that can control the world and create a feudal system. Right?

And guess what, guys? You don't know this, but they succeeded. The system we have today is the one they created. Okay, but I will explain this later on in the course, okay? But this is something that the Germans nationalists, like Hitler, didn't want. Okay, so Hitler, he's allowed to rise. and the Nazi party is becoming more and more popular. But again, even though they are popular,

they're not as popular as a socialist, okay? So what happens now is the army and the Nazi party get together and assume power, okay? So the first step for Hitler, in order to assume power, is something called the Dight of the Long Knives. This is really important because the Nazi party is an extreme right-wing workers party, right?

So the army orders Hitler to kill all of them. their leaders and that's what and that's what happened this is called a night of the long knife of the brown shirts the extreme right wing was eliminated by the army in the Nazi party and now the art so now the Nazi party and the army are now symbiotic okay they rely on each other from now on the Nazi party would ensure total unity of will at home through suppression of people okay the army will now go march and conquer the world doesn't make sense guys that's a plan all right so out of Hitler is the perfect man for the job assigned him by

the army because he is a fantastic speaker okay he's very charismatic we're gonna listen to his voice just so you can appreciate how powerful his speech is his voices my work for right If you think that I'm blessed I've been, that I've worked for you, that I'm not in these years for you I've been used to

have in the state of my people. Give you a voice. If you then, then three for me as I'm for you like I'm going to

what his speeches do is they create UNIV will in Germany. Again, the goal is to re-germanize the nation and and reunite the German people, right? And so the unit will create the idea of sequence.

Remember, synchonosity is a secret to modern warfare. Sequenosity means the organization and mobilization of your people into one task. And this is represented by the picture. If you can get people to stand in line for a long time, you can fight a war, okay? And the people, and the nations that are really strong at synchronosity, of course, are Germany and Japan, right?

Go to Germany, go on the subway, go to Japan, go on the subway. No one is struggling against each other. No one's pushing. Even though it's crowded, people are standing exactly where they should be standing perfectly. That is the idea of synchonosity. If your people can do that, they can fight a war and win the war. So this idea of unity of will. They can stand in line for a long, long time.

All right. speeches from Hitler okay and we can see from his speeches he's trying to create unit of will he's trying to be the oomermats the superman who will unite his people like Napoleon and carry them to victory through faith in themselves okay the unit of will if man wish to live then they are forced to kill others the entire struggle for survival is a conquest of the means of existence which in turn results in elimination of others from the same sources of substance as long as there are on this earth there will be nations against nations and they will be forced to protect their vital rights in the same way as the individual is forced to protect his rights one is either the hammer or the anvil we confess that it is our purpose to prepare the German people again for the role of the hammer okay so he's saying we must unite as a people we must have unity of will if we are to triumph against our enemies all right nothing is possible unless one will commands a will which has to be obeyed by others beginning at the top and ending only a

at the very bottom. This is the expression of an authoritarian state. Not of a weak, battling democracy, of an authoritarian state where everyone is proud to obey, because he knows I will likewise be obeyed when I must take command. Hitler is not being a dictator. He is trying to create unity of will.

He is the leader, he's the Ubermats, but that's only because God demanded him to be so. He will unite the German people into a hurricane, into an ocean, crash itself upon the world. In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet and I have usually been ridiculed for it. During a time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish race which only received my prophecies with laughter and I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the state

and with it that of the whole nation and that I would then among many other things settled a Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a profit. The national Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war than the result will not be the bolsheization of the earth and thus the victory of jury the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. So we don't actually have any concrete evidence for the Holocaust.

So one piece of evidence for the Holocaust is this speech by Hitler. But I want to explain what he is saying here okay what he's saying is we the German nation want to be left alone we want to be united we want to be unified but the capitalist and the common is all stick to undermine us and who are the communists and who are the capitalists the Jews okay it's a Jews who are a metaphor for a national illegal individuals who are conspiring to undermine the fatality and the strength of the germination right so that's what he's saying here all right 1939 September 1st is the beginning of World War II okay and so he's going

to explain why this is happening as a national socialist and as a German soldier I end upon the struggle with a stalled heart my whole life has been nothing but one struggle for my people for its restoration and for Germany there was only one watchword for that struggle favor of this people one one I've never learned that is surrender okay so he's telling the people we're gonna fight this war again why did we lose World War I because we didn't have faith we surrendered if we all came together and we fought to the very better end we would we would prevail against our enemies okay it is quite unimportant whether we ourselves

live but it's essential there are people shall live that Germany shall live the sacrifice that is the amended of us is not greater than the sacrifice that many generations have made if we form a community closely bound together by vows ready for anything, resolve never to surrender, and our will master every hardship and difficulty. It is the unity of will that matters. All right. 1942, November 8th, it's basically at a time in history

when the Germans understand they've lost the war. The Americans are now in the war. The Americans are getting ready to invade Europe. The German invasion of the Soviet Union has failed. They're bogged down in the Soviet Union. Germany is overstretched. the entire world has allied itself against Germany, okay? So the war is about to be lost.

But let's look at what Hitler has to say. It is with the same conviction that I now stand before you and has never left me either since the day on which, as an unknown man in the city, I began to struggle first for the soul of the German people, and then on beyond the city, for more and more followers. In the beginning, I did not have much more to give than faith the faith that if anyone pursues a just aim,

I will have unchanging and understrip loyalty and never let himself be diverted from me. but puts everything into it, then others will be found who are determined to be as followers and that from this host and ever stronger faith must gradually radiate to the whole people. Okay, so this is unity of will. We reject reality. Reality does not matter because we impose our will on reality. As long as we have faith, as long as we have unity of will, we will triumph, okay? All right.

So let's go back to the beginning. We were talking about Klanagraph. right it is one of the greatest injustices in human history that Connorsburg which was for the longest time the cradle of human civilization the epicenter of the enlightenment it is now completely destroyed okay but and this is a really this is an idea from Wagner okay By destroying this, the world has cursed itself. Okay?

Let me explain why. First of all, the German question now is more relevant than ever before. You've destroyed Connorsburg, but you have not destroyed the desire for unity among the German people. Okay? So this is the memory that will not fade. Okay? So will the Germans seek vengeance? Will another Hitler arise to unite the German people?

people now what you guys don't know is that the pressions what one of main forces opposing Hitler as well as inhibiting Hitler okay because pressure had a very proud culture and it's very strongest part of Germany but now that they destroyed Prussia if another Hitler arises there's really nothing to stop him okay that's the first problem second question is um okay let's go back to this map Europe and Russia are about to go to war with each other, right? Okay, well, if you are Europe and you go into Ukraine, you're going to be slaughtered, okay? But this is Klanagrad, Russian territory, 500,000 Russians, right?

You can blockade Klanagrad. You understand? So this could be the start of World War III right here. Does that make sense, you guys? The Europeans blockade Klanatatatat and they start to starve the people put it with no choice but to intervene. Okay? But the main problem is this.

Karnesburg was one of the main intellectual, scientific, and cultural centers of Europe. That it's lost to reduce the innovative potential of humanity. All right. So what I will show you in next class and we discuss Kant is science comes from philosophy. Culture leads to philosophy, which leads to science,

which leads to technology. You cannot have science independent of philosophy. of philosophy we destroy a center of philosophical innovation you destroy a center for something progress okay so that this is something that we will discuss in-depth next class as well so when we look at Kant so that is Germany okay any questions about what we've learned so far was this clear to you guys okay Any questions? Excuse me?

Yeah, okay, so where did Hitler come from, right? How did Hitler become so charismatic? Okay, so there's not a randomness to life, okay? There's a lot of randomness going on in life. So the army wanted to inhibit the growth of the socialist left-wing movement, and it did so by financing these white-wing parties. The Nazi party was just one of the world. many parties that the army finance and supportive okay um Hitler became a spy and he

became part of this movement and as such he became um he became exposed to a lot of the ideas of the Nazi party the Nazi party a lot of ideas come from Nietzsche and Wagner and and others as well okay um and over time Hitler came to believe that he was the Messiah. He was the Messiah dedicated to restoring German unity. And I mean like this is hard to understand but human population is very diverse. So you always have a subset of people who have these delusion of grandeur. And in a certain circumstances, they will be proven right. Okay, that doesn't make sense, okay?

So, I know what we're saying this is the army needed someone to play the part of the Ubermans, the Superman, who could unite the German people and create national unity so the army could seek its vengeance against the rest of Europe and unite the German people. So they're looking for this role, and then Hitler auditioned for this role, and he got the role, okay? Does that make sense? And this is important because towards the end of the class, we'll discuss Donald Trump. And what I will show you is, this is exactly what happened with Donald Trump. So the American military needs an Ubermonds to lead America to war against Putin.

And there were different people who auditioned, Biden audition, who was terrible, Harris audition, who was terrible, and they picked Donald Trump. So it's a very similar pattern. very familiar pattern in human issue you can also argue that the Napoleon was the same way okay and what makes these people these people different from us Napoleon Hitler Julius Caesar Trump is they are the total expression of the Zion will you understand they have to see no compassion no sympathy for anyone they believe they are here on a divine mission they are complete they are the

will itself and they are then they must impose their will on others to save the world. Does that make sense? Should look at Donald Trump. If you want to understand Hitler, look at Donald Trump. The guy's like almost 80. He doesn't sleep.

He's off-trimed around the world all the time. The guy in his, when he was campaigning, he was giving like three speeches a day, right? He would get in the morning at 4 o'clock, fly somewhere, give us two hour speech, people loved him, then he would get on the plane, fly somewhere else. And he could not stop talking to reporters, okay? He has tremendous energy that comes from the perfect expression of the will.

You understand? Donald Trump is all will, all desire, all ego, and no sympathy, no empathy, no compassion. That's Hitler and Napoleon. Yeah, that's a great question. So won't people rebel against us? Won't people think this is reckless? And so what Schopenheimer and Nietzsche and others will say is, what we want first and foremost is to return.

to unity of will right in the very beginning the will was God that's a big bang and then the will expanded itself right and so we find ourselves alone in an ocean of alienation and what our hearts really aspire to is return to a unit of will and so when someone says you can be part of a movement to transform the world that's much more appealing to us psychologically than say oh you know what come to school do your homework get good grades do the SAT get into a top 50 American school become an accountant and for 50 years do something meaningless but make a lot of money and then you you will die happy

person like like seriously what like like there's no competition right there's no competition so I'm saying to Americans we will make America great again we will be a civilization a great civilization a great civilization again it will require sacrifice it will require my sacrifice but it'll be worth it because we will make the world whole again all right okay so again when you're like to the Hitler speeches from our perspective it's not that persuasive okay but when you're in a crowd of people and this man is speaking to you with his voice it's like Wagner okay it's like going to a concert the

music fills you and it and it and it inspired your heart, okay? It makes you want to be the Ubermans. Hitler is just the example, but he's saying, you can also aspire to be the Ubermans if you are willing to sacrifice your life for the unity of will. Okay?

So this is really important. This is more appealing to people than the idea of materialism. This is religion, right? Hitler's creating a new religion. and it's intoxicating right I mean like World War II I mean I mean the fact that German the Germans were able to fight for so long against entire world I mean it's incredible I mean like it was America Britain France Soviet Union against the Germans and it's the fact that the Germans fought so bravely and

fought to the very bitter end I mean it just shows you the power of unity of will okay and what this is also tells us is these things don't die okay you can kill a civilization you can destroy a city you can massacre people but you cannot destroy the desire for unity of will because that's what fundamentally makes us human okay it doesn't make sense okay great any more questions guys but but but but that's a great question thank you does it does that make make sense to you okay okay okay any more questions guys okay okay okay

So next week, we will do Kant, okay? And Kant will lead us to Marx and Freud and modernity. Okay? Okay.