Hitler as contingentist
example · history ·
retold in 4 talks
Žižek claims Hitler was an anti-essentialist who viewed history as a 'meaningless battlefield' of contingency and will, not predetermined fate.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 4
“Hitler's view is... history is a meaningless battlefield. Everything depends on contingency.”~2:12 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 7pub. 2018-11-28 · 1:33:07
“Hitler was one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century... it's all the Jewish plot. And all of a sudden ordinary Germans lived in a meaningful universe.”
“he was fully aware that he is manipulating but at the same time he believed in it.”
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)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Günther Anders2Jakob Ammann1Colonel Francis Younghusband1Roger Ebert1Lady Chatterley's Lover1Michel de Beistegui1Mark Wrathall1Howard Roark1
alongside works
Every retelling 4
~2:12 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 7pub. 2018-11-28 · 1:33:07
Žižek claims Hitler was an anti-essentialist who viewed history as a 'meaningless battlefield' of contingency and will, not predetermined fate., illustrating totalitarianism to cut a long story short
Hitler resolved the ideological confusion of 1920s Germany with a simple coherent story: it's all a Jewish plot. The example shows that storytelling alone is ideology, contra Peterson's celebration of myth., illustrating stories as ideology,critique of Peterson,populism and narrative
Reading Mein Kampf, one finds Hitler at one moment coolly describing how to manipulate crowds with a simple enemy-image, and a few pages later exploding in obviously sincere rage, illustrating how one can start with a conscious lie and end up believing it., illustrating ideology,cynicism and belief,postmodern religion
Hitler offered 1920s Germany a coherent story attributing all social chaos to the Jews; Žižek exploits the English ambiguity of 'plot' (novel plot / Jewish plot) to show that Hitler's story was itself a conspiratorial plot that gave everything meaning., illustrating ideology and narrative,ideological storytelling as dangerous,no ethnic cleansing without good poets