The Perils of Mocking Fascism

In 1935, Leni Riefenstahl presented to the world a heavily-orchestrated portrayal of the Nuremberg rallies known as Triumph des Willens -- Triumph of the Will in English.

In the decades since, the film has rightly become reviled as a propaganda piece for one of the most vile dictators the world has ever produced. (If judged by genocial fury, Hitler is by far history's worst villain. If measured by body count, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong may well have been worse. If measured by death toll as a proportion of a country's population, Pol Pot may have been worse yet.)

But what others revile often invites mockery. While the various Downfall videos recently removed by YouTube under copyright claims by the film's producers may have been a more popular internet meme, "The Notorious HIT" is a less popular mockery of Hitler.

The YouTube video presents Adolph Hilter addressing the Nuremberg rally with the Notorious BIG's "Come On" spliced over top of it. Hitler is shown ranting over the music, while his fawning crowd is shown reacting to Biggie Smalls' punchlines.

The video holds up Hitler's mania as something merely to be mocked.

Yet there is a danger in declaring an ideological mania as virulent as Nazism to be a mere object of ridicule. It implicitly underestimates the danger posed by these kinds of manias.

After all, something that is only to be mocked is something that is not to be feared. Something that is not to be feared is not something recognized as dangerous.

The truth about Nazism, however, is that it very much was something to fear, even when some of the western world's leaders may not have had the sense to reocgnoze it. Should Nazism, or a similar ideological construct, ever return in a form that could wield political power, it would very much be something to fear again.

Adolph Hitler's ideas should be treated with an appropriate level of seriousness. Only when these ideas are treated with that level of seriousness will the dangers be recognized in time to turn them back.