Essay 6 presents a series of philosophical aphorisms and reflections composed against the backdrop of fascism and the era of Adolf Hitler.

Against Knowingness/Postscript

The authors argue that cleverness can be a form of stupidity, recalling “experts” who confidently dismissed Hitler’s rise even as it became obvious. This sense of intellectual superiority makes clever people easy prey for barbarians. A postscript extends the argument: Reason modeled on exchange, as when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain insisted on equivalent concessions in his prewar negotiations with Hitler, is powerless once a force like fascism simply takes what it wants without reciprocating. Meanwhile, bourgeois discussion has declined and people fill its absence with trivial activities such as card games. Fascists are impervious to reason, interpreting compromise as evidence of weakness. Yet fascism’s rejection of reason undermines it. Nazi leaders are thus simultaneously smarter than liberals and more foolish. Their ideas remained unchallenged only because opposition is suppressed, while bigotry and an inability to recognize contradictions drive them toward catastrophe.

Two Worlds

In what the authors imply is America, a person’s identity and economic fate are indistinguishable. People measure their own worth by their financial success or failure. The authors contrast a Chinese poem about accepting one’s lack of worldly fortune with the American self-verdict that one who fails to financially prosper is simply a failure.