Karl Jasper and the introduction of the Cypher, the philosophical means to creating " pathological" truth telling, through the justification of a unitary system that is devoid of prejudice allowing for the philosophical abstraction that could eliminate the objective realm of metaphysic, subjective and religious perspectives considered to be contaminants. The numerical cypher allowed for commonalities in thought that were shared providing leeway to pacifism and tolerance.
A transposition cypher for example, or a permutation cypher, is a series of letter coded by numbers and geographically shifted in order to keep its shape. The reader would therefore enter the transposition into the matrix in order to variate and decode the message. The transposition is essentially a variation on cryptography. Jasper utilizes the cypher in his work near the end of world war 2 though attempting to reprogram operations at the University of Heidelberg in evicting sympathizers from their respective placements in power. The reflectivity of his oppression by germany through the course of world war two is reflected in his text " The Question of German Guilt" 1947. Jasper contemplates his own understanding of german citizenry amidst the holocaust in concealing and berating his Jewish wife through the imposition of nazi germany. Guilt is not alien to freedom but comes precisely from being free. His guilt resonates in metaphysical and political guilt in contradiction to criminal or moral guilt, and in this the differentiation between humanity and the obscured illusion of antisemitism projected by " mephistopheles " aka the oppressive tyranny of the socialist party of nazi germany more agreeably known as " mephistopheles" or " National Socialism " for the sake of not psychologically detrementalizing my own mind with repetition.
"We want to accept the other, to try to see things
from the other’s point of view;infact, we virtuallywant
to seek out opposing views. To get at the truth, an opponent
is more important than one who agrees with us. Finding the
common in the contradictory is more important than hastily
seizing on mutually exclusive points of view and breaking
off the conversation as hopeless." ( 6 )
The nature of the text copy and pasted in itself ( I remember to be ) in school, upon identification with the nature of intertextuality and cryptography. Jaspers states that we fight for the purity of soul, against the immortalization of our invincible selves. Invariably our own capability in the ease to survive, leads us to act in virtue, the obsolescence of our bodily forms through the effluence of sustainability encourages us to take risks, optimizing the future for less fortunate and dares us to exhibit high moral standards for the betterment of society.
Why extrapolate one's means to serendipity in positive circumstance, if only to be capable of exhibiting a hypothesized unilateral growth ?
Notably, Jasper through the introduction to the text, clarifies the nature of the writing in that some germans, polish or otherwise european subjects are self declaratively guilty. They identify themselves as the guilty party and face the forbearing " consequences " in that of whatever they may have existed as ( if any ). Citizens aimed to cleanse and to repent " to think and to do right". THIS, is contrary to those who believed their cause to be righteous in fleeing to abstract parts of the globe (upon failure of the political party in forcibly dominating its surroundings) perhaps therefore inevitably furthering strains of backwards antisemitism.
Those who walked ambiguously away from the circumstances proceeded with no sense of guilt or responsibility for the atrocities committed, they abandon the wreckage and show zero motivation to "better" the respective countries ( germany and/ or otherwise), most notably german citizens in their support of socialist germany.
Jaspers states "That the victors condemn us is a political fact which
has the greatest consequences for our life, but it does not help
us in the decisive point, in our inner regeneration." ( 22 )
Hence his identification as a german citizen in being hypothetically defeated by the allies and therefore instilling the reinterpretation of guilt as this hypothetical unified political party ( on part of the debased german nationality) and apart from identification with the National Socialists or thus perversities with abstracted union in abiding by the worship of "mephistopheles". Again identifying the 4 differentiations in the types of guilt experienced by the losing party in that:
1) Criminal Guilt
2) Political Guilt
3) Moral Guilt
4) Metaphysical Guilt
In differentiating in the type of guilt that the guilty german subject experiences, the clarification of the charge is identifiable. A judge is present in identifying political and criminal guilt through the victorious party via political liability, moral guilt discussed among humanitarians with a conscience and a commitment to solidarity and metaphysical guilt to be abated spiritually as a subject to relegate amongst scholars. Every form of guilt is a reality and each comes into the context of every consequential form of guilt. "If human beings were able to free themselves from metaphysical guilt, they would be angels, and all the other three concepts of guilt would become immaterial." (27)... (66) The morality of the guilt involved is a reciprocation of the power issues involved in communities, the false deification of the entitled and therefore the misuse of power debased by the guilt of human existence in being subject to the positions of power, are playing into the substructure of the deformed community.
Jasper then goes on to critique the ability of the individual to blatantly play the alienated subject in the face of dictatorship and political misrepresentation, the nature of the citizen in turning a blind eye to the privatization of the governmental legislation. He illuminates political absence, lack of responsibility and the acting in showing blind obedience to the political state.
Having witnessed political dictatorship in the rise of the National Socialists, Jasper then reconfigures Herodotus to Political Liberty via Greek liberty and Persian despotism.
"Thus there can be no collective guilt of a people or a groupwithin a people - except for politicaliability. To pronounce a group criminally, morally or metaphysically guilty is an error akin to the laziness and arrogance of aver- age, uncritical thinking." ( 36)
The German Questions ( 66 /41 )
German citizens were subject to international guilt at disturbing world peace, posters were hung with photographs and text " You Are The Guilty" with no indication of the authority, although the movement is then paralleled to the Roman Empire and the ability of the citizen to claim their own moral right.
The guilt in two examples thereafter is
a) political guilt, wherein the citizen is guilty of sustaining and tolerating the political party at fault.
b) moral guilt, as the citizen is hypothetically guilty of supporting the political party morally.
again, the next two examples in
c) metaphysical guilt, where the citizen witnesses the crimes or 'uncharitable testimony'
d) criminal guilt, wherein the citizen participates in the crimes and is invariably guilty
The Differentiation of German Guilt ( 70 / 45 )
The crimes are evident regardless of if the citizen or german subject pleads guilty. The Allied forces in the construction of the Nuremberg Trials attempted to deal with the hate crimes committed.
Jasper makes it clear that the trials were not completely efficacious for various reasons, firstly, not all guilty german citizens were tried. Only the officials of the nazi party were held accountable ( 'criminally' accused germans) who had participated in the crimes directly. The whole of the german people were not held accountable. Secondly, the subjects tried were held to the accountability of the International Military Tribunal... ( from my perspective, the fact that they were even tried and not executed immediately is beyond humanitarian). Additionally, at the trials ( held in Nuremberg ) the witnesses to the trial are german citizens. " The criminal state is tried against its whole population." Germany planned and prepared the war internally, it was not provoked by any threat, it acted in its own violent means to self destruction.
He also states that the clear benefit of this trail is to condemn the leaders while excusing the greater german civility from penalization. The germans witnessing the trials also subject to their own whims in a vote in favour of the trials in hope that they succeed or to regard the entirety as a sham trial with skeptic 'nihilism'. The fact that Jasper actually even expresses the audacity in stating this is to me beyond discomfort. The righteousness of the allies to not execute and to re-implicate the violence and hatred of the corruptions incurred is almost too humanitarian. In a way the graces shown by the trials reinstates the peace and validity of humanity and silently mocks the barbarianism and lack of etiquette shown by the guilty party. The contrast in the barbarianism of war to the courtly devaluation of contemplating the lives of such guilty party is stark and powerful. All the trials did explicitly was to disenfranchise the german state in its liability, leaving the citizens impoverished to struggle in their own vanity.
Jasper also notes a lack of feeling in the accomplices of hitler are notably well known for showing no signs of moral conviction, no sense of guilt and no understanding of evil. The nature of the german citizen to differentiate from good and evil is still corrupted. They share a collective guilt, knowingly having dodged the circumstances of the crimes committed, the moral, metaphysical, political and criminal guilt with no fault or consequence to be faced. The acknowledgment of the guilt in itself is an assertion to safeguard the guilty with the apprehension of good faith that might have been bestowed by the allied forces in their disbandment of wartime violence and atrocity. The ground under the german people had not been taken as punishment. The germans attempted to reform their own nationalistic identification as germans as they had struggle to differentiate themselves by religious belief.
Possible Excuses
The German people are also subject to trying to excuse themselves from guilt, with said excuses. For example why had people been subject to concentration camps, hypothetically for the reason that they had resisted the party ( verbally ) and were therefore subject to incarceration. Hannah Arendt writes on Organized Guilt, (1945) on terror, where people were being killed through a sense of duty. Arguably Germany has open boarders and rationalizes that the strong militaristic force is only due to the surrounding territories in order to prevent invasion. The geographically bound territories can also hypothetically be blamed for the lack of libertarian and democratic spirit, Jasper remarks that the transient state is only a repercussion of the transient phenomenon of organized governance.
Jasper writes that England had abandon them in favour of peace ( 1935 ) Ribbentrop through the naval non- aggression agreement with hitler, in addition to the Molotov-Ribbentrop wherein Russian and Germany dispute and delegate the national disposition of what would be land distribution in Poland.
Internally to German citizens, the allied forces have appeared to forsake the perpetrations of nazi occupation in Germany agreeing to coordinate with the National Socialist party as patrician of the country-state. " The German Question" was originally written by Wilhelm Röpke, as a manual to the reformation of postwar Germany. He reminisces over the early warning signs shown by the German governance that the world dismissed resulting from the National Socialist Party in Germany and going so far as to endure their company at events and worldly gatherings without a second thought to the internal conflict that had been occurring. Jasper juxtaposes the state with the political party, regarding the 'invasion' of the National Socialist ( identifiably a terrorist organization ) as ruling party to Germany, as such regarding Germany as one of the first victims to suffer the atrocities later seen through Europe, most notably genocidal terror and Mass Hypnosis. I disagree with Jasper when he states that the ruling causes in Germany is the derivative of the holocaust and mass incarceration. He states that " Yet there the guilty were a few
Germans, a small group (plus an indefinite number of others
capable of cooperating under orders) German anti-Semitism
was not at any time a popular movement. The population
failed to cooperate in the German pogroms; there were no spontaneous acts of cruelty against Jews, The mass of the
people, if it did not feebly express its resentment, was silent
and withdrew." (90). If this were the case would then not the crisis of National Socialism as a " terrorist organization" in confronting german ideals be stopped and reprimanded before infiltrating surrounding countries and the rest of Europe !? The nature of dictatorship also though, is identifiably internal. He notes that if a similar example of primitive despotism, thus situation hypothetically incurring in North America that we would be doomed, as the situation needed to be aided by outside influences ... He commends the allies for not relinquishing the same fate bestowed upon the mass incarcerated as to what may have become of the 'german peoples', as to repay evil-with-evil, would therefore make more evil and bear new calamities.
Purification
The self critique of the citizens, both historically and personally are necessary and both examples reflect upon one another. Comparatively the individuals who are able to complete their understanding of self recognized guilt and the unaffected guiltless. The argumentative nature of thus in the unassailed remains intact, they seek to destroy others in generalized judgements in disrupting the solidarity. Hitlers enterprise was notably diabolical in nature, although Jasper notes that he recognized the fact that he may not be able to generate a solidarity in the " passive resistance " to the national socialist party through disassociation.
Dodging Purification
Germans cannot be deduced to a common denominator, the escaped in their own righteousness are still subject to the totality of their birthplace. Jasper cites the nature of a jew emigrated to New York who hosted Hitler's picture on the wall of his room because he was unaided in his longing for the homeland. In a way the sense is prolonged by defiance through the edification of sentimentality.
