Reposted from Lemmy.worlds c/politics because of violation of its rule 1.
Now that the fascists have taken over, what books, academic studies, and pieces of knowledge should take priority in personal/private archival? I’m thinking about what happened in Nazi Germany, especially with the burning of the Institute for Sexual Science(Institut für Sexualwissenschaft) and what was lost completely in the burnings.
Some of us should consider saving stuff digitally or physically. Redundancies will help preserve stuff.
It seems that the material destroyed at the Institute for Sexual Science is precisely the sort of stuff that the Trump regime wishes to supress. So any LGBT research and information.
Basically anything that the Nazis banned. The list here still seems relevant. Transpose ‘German’ for ‘American’:
spoiler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings#The_burnings_start
All of these types of literature, as described by the Nazis, were to be banned:
- The works of traitors, emigrants and authors from foreign countries who believe they can attack and denigrate the new Germany (H. G. Wells, Romain Rolland);
- The literature of Marxism, Communism and Bolshevism;
- Pacifist literature;
- Literature with liberal, democratic tendencies and attitudes, and writings supporting the Weimar Republic (Walther Rathenau, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann);
- All historical writings whose purpose is to denigrate the origin, the spirit and the culture of the German Volk, or to dissolve the racial and structural order of the Volk, or that denies the force and importance of leading historical figures in favor of egalitarianism and the masses, and which seeks to drag them through the mud (Emil Ludwig); Books that advocate “art” which is decadent, bloodless, or purely constructivist (George Grosz, Otto Dix, Bauhaus, Felix Mendelssohn);
- Writings on sexuality and sexual education which serve the egocentric pleasure of the individual and thus, completely destroy the principles of race and Volk (Magnus Hirschfeld);
- The decadent, destructive and Volk-damaging writings of “Asphalt and Civilization” literati: (Oskar Maria Graf, Heinrich Mann, Stefan Zweig, Jakob Wassermann, Franz Blei);
- Literature by Jewish authors, regardless of the field;
- Popular entertainment literature that depicts life and life’s goals in a superficial, unrealistic and sickly sweet manner, based on a bourgeois or upper class view of life;
- Patriotic kitsch in literature.
- Pornography and explicit literature
- All books degrading German purity.
I guess books that have been banned in US school libraries over the last few years too.
And finally, any political material that is antithetical to the far right.
Most information is not under new threat of disappearing like in a book burning, at least not by a concerted right wing effort. The censorship that removes information at the level of basic availability will continue to be corporate enclosure and censorship of academic work, like results that run contrary to business interests not getting published at all or by academic paper publishers that want $30/article. Both have already been here for decades. The latter is adddressable through systems like SciHub. The former is not addtessable except through overcoming a substantial ruling class profit seeking interest, which the people of the US are currently incapable of doing because they are too disorganized and politically miseducated. The answer to that, which is of course not easy, is to engage in political educwtion and to join and build an organization that challenges capitalism.
The forms of censorship that will increase, at least in a more overtly reactionary form, are purely in the political and social realm. It will be narratives used to justify policies and misinformation about the marginalized. The solution to this is the same, however: to join and build anticapitalist organizations and work on political education. Once you are in that space there is still plenty to deliberate about, but it is the essential first step. You cannot displace or oppose a false narrative without being able to draw attention to your own and to teach others correct narratives. And if you rely on ruling class formations to do it (like the Democratic Party) you will be faced with a different form of false narrative over which you do not have control and that will be wishy-washy. For example, Dem messaging narratives in support of abortion have a false premise that Dems actually fight for it at the federal level and often includes implicit transphobia. The net result of following their agenda there will be to sheepdog those who care about abortion access back into an ineffectual and relatively passive political engagement rather than building power to demand abortion access. To spread accurare information against false narratives is our task, and to tie this to robust leverage-building activity.
In other words, the primary form of censorship is in which narratives enter “discourse” and which do not. Who makes the decisions on that. What is the realm of mainstream speech and political work? What is the actual activity that can be engaged in that will challenge the sociopathic power status quo? Will anyone hear the answer(s) or will they be ignored for cynical PR firm-tested talking points, diverting focus and time and thought away from what is needed?
The best thing to do, as an individual, is to join an org and emphasize political education.
As a syncretic Luciferian currently, I’d say esoteric and occult books/grimoires as well. Everything that’s deemed “demonic” by christianity should be safely archived.
Which ones do you think are of most importance? This fascist regime is likely to be christofascist, so that’s a valid concern. Nag Hammadi library with its heretical gnostic texts for example is likely to be preserved given it has copies in other countries.
There are many, many authors and books that hold importance for esoteric and occult studies and practices.
An example that comes to mind are the books written by Anton LaVey, especially the The Satanic Bible. As he was american, so are his books’ first copies from, so a greater risk of those copies being seized or something.
While this risk wouldn’t be the same for all corpora written by Aleister Crowley, as he was English so the first copies aren’t at american soil (if I guessed correctly), I’m not sure how far a christotyrannical regime would go for “serving God’s will”.
So, in summary, I’d say everything should be archived. Both physically and digitally. It’s worth mentioning how Internet Archive is being attacked: the Internet Archive holds many digital copies of important esoteric and occult knowledge as well. If Internet Archive goes permanently down, it’d ripple to other sites such as sacred-texts.
A good start would be the books they are currently banning in Florida(and elsewhere) in your up until now “non fascist” country.
Holy shit lemmy is unusable now. Please at least spear the book club with this child like behaviour. Just caz you lost the vote it’s not as bad as nazi germany xd.
“Lemmy is unusable now” … wait until it’s blocked in the US due to its liberal and uncontrollable nature.
Either that or they simply pass a law to require age verification via government ID, like Pornhub.
You know, gotta protect those kids from them commie ideals!If the ID can then be linked to your posts to enable prosecution ? I mean moving the goalposts will occur in the next 4 years. It’s probably hate speech to even say the word “equality” … (and no, that is sadly not an exaggeration)
You poor American Souls…
And how long before we’re prosecuted just for the way we vote? Our votes are public information and anyone can look them up thanks to far-right organizations running websites to do so.
Have you taken a look at Project 2025 and half the crap that Trump has said he’s going to do?
You’re really behind the curve aren’t ya. America is finished. It’s a failed fascist dictatorship now
Not yet. But they’re hard at work making it happen.
