Himmler and the Bhagavad Gita

As told 16

“bhagavad gita was the book which heinrich himmler had all the time in his pocket because this was his reply to how to kill the jews.”
17:24 Our World Is Coming To An End | Aaron Bastani Meets Slavoj Žižek | Downstreampub. 2023-11-05 · 1:40:47

“The Nazi SS officer have to do horrible things... And he looks the answer in Bhagavad Gita which is act as a distance.”
1:38:21 Slavoj Zizek - Figures of the end of the world - part 012024-03 · 2:03:09

“he always carried in his pocket a Bhagavad Gita in special leather edition…to remind him of true ethics and so on.”
21:11 What happened in the first decade of the XXI Century2009-05 · 1:31:02

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

acting with a distance ×2 pseudo-oriental meditation ×1 inner authenticity is a lie ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by

Heinrich Himmler16 D. T. Suzuki8 Steven Weinberg6 Akira Kurosawa5 Aldous Huxley4 Brian Victoria4 Itamar Ben-Gvir4 Bezalel Smotrich3

alongside works

Bhagavad Gita16 Oppenheimer5 Barbie4 The Bad Sleep Well4 Mein Kampf4 Zen at War4 Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones)2 The Brothers Karamazov2

Told together with

17% Daisetz Suzuki's Knife 5 shared talks 17% Kurosawa's Hamlet 4 shared talks 13% Father Joseph / Père Joseph, Gray Eminence 3 shared talks 13% Uganda anti-gay law and the unholy alliance 3 shared talks 12% Video Game Trees 2 shared talks 12% Heydrich 1936 letter on Jewish emigration to Palestine 3 shared talks 11% Haiti and the Gangs 2 shared talks 10% Friend's hamster as fetish for dead wife 2 shared talks 10% The ANC veteran's nostalgia for apartheid 2 shared talks 10% Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution 2 shared talks 9% Bolivia and Álvaro García Linera 2 shared talks 9% Stephen Weinberg on religion making good people do evil 2 shared talks

Every retelling 16

17:24 Our World Is Coming To An End | Aaron Bastani Meets Slavoj Žižek | Downstreampub. 2023-11-05 · 1:40:47

Himmler kept the Bhagavad Gita on him as the answer to how to murder Jews without becoming beasts, 'acting through a distance', doing one's duty detached from the deed., illustrating spirituality enabling atrocity,pseudo-oriental bullshit

1:38:21 Slavoj Zizek - Figures of the end of the world - part 012024-03 · 2:03:09

Heinrich Himmler favored the Bhagavad Gita because it taught SS officers to act at a distance, not identifying with their horrible acts (killing women/children), thus retaining their 'entity' while committing atrocities., illustrating pseudo-oriental meditation

21:11 What happened in the first decade of the XXI Century2009-05 · 1:31:02

Himmler carried a leather-bound Bhagavad Gita in his pocket as ethical inspiration: Krishna's teaching that killing in Maya doesn't count (only appearances die, not true reality) served as his moral framework for genocide., illustrating Eastern spirituality as moral anesthetic,inner authenticity is a lie,ideology enabling atrocity

1:00:30 Slavoj Žižek on Israel Palestine2023-11 · 1:04:59

Heinrich Himmler carried a leather-bound Bhagavad Gita and used its doctrine of detached action ('act without being identified with your acts') as an ethical technology for killing helpless Jews without losing his sense of dignity, making it a manual for atrocity., illustrating Bhagavad Gita critique,detached action ethics,ideology

16:05 On the Desert of Post-Ideology2012-10-02 · 1:59:31

Himmler carried a leather-bound Bhagavad Gita in his pocket and used its lesson of 'acting without full identification' to enable SS officers to commit atrocities without 'becoming beasts' through enjoyment., illustrating authentic inner experience and atrocity,act without being fully involved,Buddhism/spirituality and violence

38:41 The Monthly Digestif Presents: Slavoj Žižek on Christian Atheismpub. 2024-03-26 · 1:39:40

Himmler carried a specially bound copy of Bhagavad Gita because its doctrine of acting without identifying with one's acts solved his 'ethical problem': how could SS men do horrible things without losing their inner decency. Žižek uses this to condemn the ethics of inner spiritual distance., illustrating ethics of non-identification,productive stupidity vs. inner distance,Bhagavad Gita