Germanic peoples

B.

Now, look, for some reason, people of the Germanic nation and Germanic background do tend to look at the globe and wonder if it's all theirs, don't they?

You notice that.

They sort of think,

嗯，我想回应一下志奇刚刚说的这个博物馆中的物，还有这个杨潇刚刚说，嗯，那棵就是给你带来崇高的审美体验，但是后面会被这个文化的话语说这其实是一棵，呃，生病的树。对，我要回应一下博物馆中的物和风景中的树。杨潇的书里面提到了布痕瓦尔德的集中营，或者说这个布痕瓦尔德的纪念馆，博物馆中的物，它的 aura 感倒还不是贝雅明这个意义上的这个，呃，此时此地的 here and tears 的，的那种艺术的，呃，原作，那必须不，不能是复制品，艺术原作的这个灵韵感，我觉得它更多的是它的 aura 感，更多的是就是这个物，它会比文字更容易让人去相信历史的真实性，就是用贝雅明的原，原文里面是这个 authenticity。哦，因为当我们在这个比如说布痕瓦尔德纪念馆中看到一个囚犯使用过的一只饭碗，它比我们看它的这个介绍此番经历的这个文字是决然不同的，因为这个文字是一种叙事，是，是可以被讲述的，甚至连照片也可以被复制，但是一种具体真实可感的遗物，它是直接参与到那个历史的。它的这个 aura，它的不可替代的此时此地性，正是它的磨损所构筑的一，一种物质性的一个证明。然后这个风景中的树也在这个，这个布痕瓦尔德集中营里面有一个和我们刚刚讨论的主题非常相关的，就是歌德橡树的树桩，因为它的确是一种历史的遗存，就它很特别，它既是自然的，又是文化的。呃，然后它是在这个1944年的时候，这棵树是在盟军的轰炸下所引发的火灾中被烧毁了，但是它的这个自然遗迹，它作为物的存在，尽管让遥远的历史突然变得可以感知，但它却没有办法阐释给后来的观者说为什么党卫军和囚犯会赋予这个歌德橡树这个树桩截然不同的这个意义。然后这个树桩的个物的意义，它可能要结合回忆录、历史档案，还有非常多的这个文献学上的只言片语去构建起来。这个可能其实我觉得也是杨潇的这个作品带给我的另一种就是关于何为真实，为什么要以旅行的方式，要以实地的方式，要以这个物感的方式，是因为每一个人都认为他们在言说真实，但是需要不同角度的真实去拼凑一个更接近真实的真实。

对，我们可以接着凡哥讲的这个点往下讲，因为杨潇其实在书里也提到了这个歌德的橡树嘛。有一句话我非常喜欢，你就写说，呃，对于党卫军来说，歌德的橡树象征着高贵纯正的日耳曼血统，象征着人民共同体，象征着反犹与反共。而对于那些被送入布痕瓦尔德集中营的囚犯，特别是那些有文化的囚犯来说，歌德的橡树则象征着另外一个德国，一个文化意义的德国，一个非纳粹甚至反纳粹的德国。然后你最后写说两者都相信歌德站在他们这一边[笑]。我觉得这个其实也是你的书，包括很多探讨德国的文化、德国的民族性的作品，其实都会提出这样一个问题，为什么会有两个德国？为什么会有一个歌德的德国，一个纳粹的德国？两位会怎么看这个问题？嗯。

我想想，我想到哪说哪哈。我先说一下那歌德橡树吧。其实刚才凡柯老师说的时候，我，我就在想说，假设这个歌德橡树如果还在的话，那它和我们现在看到的它只是一个树桩，呃，它在激发 aura 或者激发我们的想象力方面会有什么样不一样的地方呢？我描述一下歌德橡树现在的样子哈，它因为它那个其实已经是一个树桩了，所以它已经死掉了，它也不会发芽了。大概是，呃，博物馆方面为了防止它腐烂，所以就拿水泥给它树桩中间做了一个浇筑。 然后我记得我24年之后一次去看的时候，它就是变成一个特别特别无-无机物，然后上面堆满了小石子，小石子上面写着什么？都是 Never again 之类的话，[笑]就正确，政治正确的话。[笑]那然后我就在想说，那它假如它还是一棵活着的树呢？那是不是我们感受的东西不一样？造成我们感受不一样的东西到底是什么东西呢？是有机和无机吗？比如说我一个采访对象，他就说，说他第一次去奥斯维辛的时候，因为你在那空间里面嘛，那空间会激发你的一些东西，你的想象力会胡乱驰骋。然后也确实经常会有朋友跟我说，他去南京，他也觉得这个城市气场不一样之类的。[笑]对，就是我也不会觉得奇怪。那这个背后到底是什么东西呢？因为通常来说，现在的集中营，哪怕是德国保存非常好的集中营，很多营房都不在了，都只剩下空地了，然后他拿那个石头给它画出营房的样子，所以其实能看的东西是不多的，就虽然有物，但是总的来说物没有那么多，尤其是当你不在一个具体的展品时的时候，你在一个空间的时候，你完全可以预期到和之前完全不一样了。但是背后可能有一个什么东西，就是我们总是会不会有一，有一种不自觉的，我们作为人类不自觉地期待有更多东西留下来，更多我们看不见的东西留下来，只是我们看不见而已。那这个背后是不是我们留在身体的某种比如说泛灵论的倾向，又或者是只是某种不甘心，就觉得说这个东西就消失了吗？它们就被抹杀了吗？只是物理上消失了，有没有可能以其他形式存在的？那也许这就是可能想象力开始胡乱驰骋的基础吧。就包括又回到说那一棵橡树，它如果真的是一棵枝繁叶茂橡树，你——它是一个有生命的东西，你会想象它见证了一切，它虽然不会说话，但它看到了一切，它还至今还活着，那你感受可能又不一样。

你说到这，我就想到说之前不是说张爱玲写香港就会说张爱玲的笔下的香港是鬼气森森的。

To say, j'ai parlé le français non demi, is comprehensible but not convincing.

And when you say, as you did in a recent appeal to the Americans, that the Germanic powers have sacrificed a great deal of red fluid in defense of their culture, we point out to you that cultured people do not employ such a literary style.

Or, when you say that the Belgians were so ignorant as to think they were being butchered when they weren't, we only wonder whether you are so ignorant as to think you are being believed when you aren't.

Thus, for instance, when you brag about burning Venice to express your contempt for tourists, we cannot think much of the culture as culture, which supposes St. Mark's to be a thing for tourists instead of historians.

It became a profession for the younger sons of squires.

But these parallel tendencies, in all their strength and weakness, reached as it were symbolic culmination when the medieval monarchy was extinguished and the English squires gave to what was little more than a German squire the damaged and diminished crown.

It must be remembered that the Germanics were at that time used as a sort of breeding ground for princes.

there is a strange process in history by which things that decay turn into the very opposite of themselves thus in england puritanism began as the hardest of creeds but has ended as the softest soft-hearted and not unfrequently soft-headed of old the puritan in war was certainly the puritan at his best it was the puritan in peace whom no christian could be expected to stand Yet those Englishmen today who claim descent from the great militarists of 1649 express the utmost horror of militarism.

Right.

Of Germanic-

Slightly Germanic accent.

Yeah.

You know, they viewed it as just a sort of newfangled iteration of the Russian Empire, a sort of mass of Central Asian and poor Slavic people with a European overcast managing it.

And who are these people being, you know, Varangians or Baltic or Germanic aristocrats? You know, they were Belarusian and Ukrainian party functionaries, you know.

And that's something that's kind of underemphasized, even in serious treatments of the Cold War after 1972 or so.

I hope to do some more writing on that in the future in a more specifically dedicated capacity.

Mm-hmm.

Of Germanic-

Slightly Germanic accent.

Yeah.

But there were others from...

Germanic, the Germanic world rather than Germany itself, like Joseph Haydn and Mozart who came to London.

There was a commercial vitality there.

I think there also seems to be a suspicion of that commercial nature of Britain, that it's rapacious, that it's somewhat vulgar.

They are brown and black.

And I am utterly convinced if the majority of Germanic and Scandinavian and Dutch people were Muslims.

If they were the ones crossing the border illegally, the left would have no interest in those Muslims coming into this country.

They would be labeled as Nazis.

Muslim formations, the religious calendar was taken into account, dietary laws with respect to the mess hall and things.

Both the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS had imams serve as chaplains and they launched ideological education programs to explicate, how a Muslim should live as a national socialist, and what the meaning was of national socialism to non-Germanic yet allied races.

This was very, very detailed, whether anybody agrees with this or not.

And these education programs were almost unfailingly delivered by military imams.

Sleeping Beauty stayed, even though Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods was an obvious comparison.

Here, the Grimms pointed to older parallels in Germanic heroic legend, to the sleeping Brünnhilde, and with that, to a heritage that reached back further than Perrault and could be claimed as their own.

Roughly speaking, what couldn't be explained away as anything but French could be thrown out.

Roughly speaking, what couldn't be explained away as anything but French got thrown out.