Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes and Ideology
Hamlet once said “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
We’re all on the path to find our personal ideology. A series of thoughts that one may use as guidelines to life and to keep himself oriented in the long-term.
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I’m reading a hilarious satire written called Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes, which is about if Hitler came back in 2011 who passes off as an “always in the role” comedian. While Hitler is still a person with a xenophobic jew-hating German Volk-loving authoritarian nazi with a terrible ideology, it’s quite inspiring to see how he sticks to his ideology and the power of his conviction.
At the very least, his commentary on a character named Sensenbrink is down right hilarious.
“His face exhibited the pallor of a gambler who knows that he cannot suffer a loss, or worse still, he cannot bear the moment in which it becomes obvious that his loss is inevitable. Such people never focus on their own goal, they always elect to pursue the goal that promises the most rapid success, and yet fail to recognize that this success will never be their own. They hope to achieve success, but they will only ever chaperone it, and because they sense this, they fear the moment of defeat when it becomes manifest that not only is the success not their own, but it is not even dependent on their chaperoning. Sensenbrink was anxious about his reputation, not the national cause.”
I find this paragraph compelling. People who pursue reputation-based success rather than success for an ideology for which they have conviction are often shallow to the point where they can never truly own the virtue of success, only merely chaperone it.
It reminds me of a lot of personal experiences. Of when other people or investors’ outright goal for $ overpowered my own goal for impact and made my pursuits feel secondary. Of when I college counsel some students and their or their parents’ fanaticism with admission into a university detracts from the students’ ability to genuinely express their true self (their own intentions, beliefs, interests, and dreams… assuming that they have them, because many sadly don’t). Ultimately in either scenario, sidelining your ideology for a half-baked goal that you yourself don’t believe in makes you wholly unworthy of the result.
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Respect conviction to stand by ideology—cracking is easy.
Don’t respect all ideologies. (Because after all, Hitler was a man of conviction who… yk the rest).
Respect intentions.
Respect pursuit of goals with intention.
Don’t blindly respect results—successes, failures, or the pursuit. (Because what’s the true net value of a college admission from a shitty candidate or making a lot of money from a shitty company.)
Theoretically, become a highly respectable person by having a well-made personal ideology (subjective) and by pursuing your goals with the right set of intentions in order to own your success rather than chaperone it.
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Messy notes on Look Who's Back:
The power of public speaking. (Silence paragraph)
The power of silence and controlling the pace/sound in a room:
“When everyone is listening for cannon fire, a falling pin can suffice.”
“I was greeted by rapturous applause. With each show I had found it easier to appear in front of the audience. A sort of ritual had evolved, as it had all those years ago in the Berlin Sportpalast incessant cheering, which I subdued to absolute silence by not saying a word and looking deathly serious for minutes on end. Only then, in this tension between the expectation of the crowd and the iron will of the individual, did I begin to speak.”
~the right time to attack a man is not when he is silent or in thought, it is as he tries to respond
The power of platitudes
Having veins of ice in front of subversive media attention, focusing strongly on your purpose and ideology
The power of a moral foundation in speech. Again— hopefully it’s a right set of morals and not an evil one…. regardless it’s powerful
The power of playfulness/humorousness/wittiness in conversation
Some pages I took pics of:
