That's Australian for 'what do you do for a living? What's your job? For some years, whenever I am asked what I do for a crust, I have to suppress the wicked urge to reply: "I steal them from the ducks in the park!" because not everybody gets my sense of humour and they think I'm being a smart-arse.
Which I am.
Then they suspect I'm trying to make them look stupid - and with some people, they don't need my help. They're doing just fine all by themselves; and as stupidity is a kind of protection against impressions one cannot deal with; heck, I'll admit to being a tad envious of that bovine banal intelligence.
Just a tad.
But back to what we do for a crust and whether or not there is a scientific connection between breadcrusts and curly hair, there is certainly a connection between what some people did for a crust and ovens.
Will we ever Break the Chain?
The phrase 'banality of evil' relates to the fact that tens of thousands of ordinary individual people were complicit in the Final Solution. Many of them could not be charged with war crims later because they were just doing their job, just following orders, or just responsible for a tiny link in the chain. They followed orders mechanically and without questioning them. Consider the simplification of the chain:
Person A: I simply had the list of Jews in my municipality. I did not round up the Jews but I did pass this list on when requested to do so.
Person B: I was told to go to these addresses, arrest these people and take them to the train station. That's all I did.
Person C: My job was to open the doors of the train - that was it.
Person D: My job was to direct the prisoners on to the train.
Person E: My job was to close the doors, not to ask where the train was going or why.
Person F: My job was simply to drive the train.
[Through all the other small links in the chain that led to......]
Person Z: My job was simply to turn on the showers out of which the poison gas was emitted.
Which I am.
Then they suspect I'm trying to make them look stupid - and with some people, they don't need my help. They're doing just fine all by themselves; and as stupidity is a kind of protection against impressions one cannot deal with; heck, I'll admit to being a tad envious of that bovine banal intelligence.
Just a tad.
But back to what we do for a crust and whether or not there is a scientific connection between breadcrusts and curly hair, there is certainly a connection between what some people did for a crust and ovens.
Will we ever Break the Chain?
The phrase 'banality of evil' relates to the fact that tens of thousands of ordinary individual people were complicit in the Final Solution. Many of them could not be charged with war crims later because they were just doing their job, just following orders, or just responsible for a tiny link in the chain. They followed orders mechanically and without questioning them. Consider the simplification of the chain:
Person A: I simply had the list of Jews in my municipality. I did not round up the Jews but I did pass this list on when requested to do so.
Person B: I was told to go to these addresses, arrest these people and take them to the train station. That's all I did.
Person C: My job was to open the doors of the train - that was it.
Person D: My job was to direct the prisoners on to the train.
Person E: My job was to close the doors, not to ask where the train was going or why.
Person F: My job was simply to drive the train.
[Through all the other small links in the chain that led to......]
Person Z: My job was simply to turn on the showers out of which the poison gas was emitted.
The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference
- Ian Kershaw
Indifference.
 |
| White Astrid Rose |
...why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right - or rather, your moral duty - to eliminate this system?
So................what do you do ..for a crust?
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