From CNN (via Peter):

Two high school seniors picked quotations from Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” to appear under their high school yearbook pictures, prompting school officials to apologize.

Apologize for what exactly? Especially when one of the quotes in question is so relevant, right now, right here, in this country:

“The great masses of people … will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”

Ellipsis! That looks like a research project. For some context, here’s the full sentence from der Führer:

In this [the Jews] proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big.

Here’s another version from Project Gutenberg, translated into English by James Murphy (circa 1939):

All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true in itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

This is the point where “WMD’s in Iraq” should be jumping into your head. It seems to me that both quotes contain some important insights regarding propaganda that maybe this country’s high school students could actually LEARN from.

My favorite part of the CNN article is this gem:

Compton’s father said that his son meant no harm in picking the quote … “He’s a child.”

Damn, that’s cold. There ain’t nothing worse than your dad calling you a child in the national news. Especially considering that his son is old enough to be drafted and vote.

I guess the issue comes down to whether you think the quotes are a celebration of Hitler (which deserves condemnation) or whether they serve the purpose of criticizing the current socio-political landscape in this country. Perhaps we should remind Northport High School’s principal Irene McLaughlin of the fallacy Reductio ad Hitlerum: just because Hitler and the Nazi’s did or said X, doesn’t necessarily make X evil.

In any event the two students have successfully proven Godwin’s Law for high school yearbooks.

• The Age of Reunions
• and then there was one week
• the impression of a thought
• Reunion
• Every experience is formative

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