The Post-Partisan Emporium

The day I understood the 'good German' Underprivileged children sit on the sidewalk in the Warsaw ghetto United States Holocaust Memorial Museum   Filipe Rafaeli The greatest mystery of World War II has been solved.   The enigma lasted more than eight decades. Underprivileged children sit on the sidewalk in the Warsaw ghetto. Credit:  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The most important event in recent human history, which shaped the world as it is today, was the Second World War. It is a topic covered, to this day, in a huge number of books, documentaries, plays and movies. Each writer, director and screenwriter tells a piece of the story. Each one with their own viewpoint and approach. I personally have already contributed to this culture when I wrote and directed a  short film  based on that time. I told the story of a child in love with airplanes who meets an aviator. In the movie, I explained a little about the mood in Brazil about to enter the w...

Righteousness + Force in America: The Trap of Righteous Activism Coupled with State Power Sam Jacobs There are two ways of getting things done:  persuasion or coercion . You either convince someone of the value of your ideas or you hold a (literal or metaphorical) gun to their head. The latter has been the norm throughout human history. Most of  what we value about the contemporary West  is a shift toward the former occurring over the last 250 years or so. However, there’s an important difference between the despotisms of old and coercive governments in the modern era: modern-day tyrants frame themselves as the righteous side in any conflict. Think about it: Ancient Persian Emperors and the German Kaiser didn’t paint themselves as the moral superiors of their enemies. They simply wanted their stuff and, if they could, they took it. In contrast, during the American Civil War or the Allied cause during World War II, force didn’t justify itself. Instead, force was justified ...