“Such is the world in which we find ourselves ― a world which, judged by the only acceptable criterion of progress, is manifestly in regression. Technological advance is rapid. But without progress in charity, technological advance is useless. Indeed, it is worse than useless. Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” ― Aldous Huxley, Ends & Means (1937)

I am not big fan of World War II films. Especially not action war films (they have been largely done to death, become saturated, unoriginal). For me to be interested it must be something more grounded, focused, limited in its scope, bottom-up rather than top-down, more about the emotionality and morality than the spectacle (which is more often than not all that it is — superficial, hollow, skin-deep, unimaginative, lazy, without any interest in the nuance that characterises any human being and therefore any human historical event). The Zone of Interest represents such an exception to the rule of World War II films, in my view. I would describe it as surreal horror. Surreal in its banal treatment (by design) of one of if not the most inhuman events in human history; horror in that not a single one of the characters (of whom are all staff or family members of staff working at Auschwitz) is repulsed, horrified, or remotely disturbed by the events taking place just over a wall from them (the goings on being audible at all times throughout the film, but never visible); the entire event — the extermination (or attempted extermination) of an entire people — is treated as a benign backdrop to their happy family lives and promising career prospects; as a matter of fact rather than something to investigate morally in any way (there seems to have been a definite cascading psychological effect on Germans from first using Zyklon-B to bug bomb factories before it was used on humans). And this to me is a more accurate portrayal of what life was like for the average German at the time (dispelling the myth that the average person knew nothing of the camps): not anxious, unsettled, disquieted, or merely tolerating the goings on around them — for fear of the tyranny that might come their way instead — but gradually having come to accept it, to adapt to it, to pay it no mind, to blend it into the otherwise monotonous scenery of everyday life, it eventually becoming as banal as everything that envelopes it (in fact the thing that first attracted me to the film was that it reminded me of the weird photo albums and footage of life for staff at the camps; smiles, picnics, bike rides, pretty dresses, crisp uniforms — only a few hundred yards from a death factory, mass graves). All this is to say that I would recommend the film. Highly recommend it. It is a slow burn. A very monotonous one at that. But that is where the true horror lies. As Hannah Arendt put it in Eichmann in Jerusalem, “Conscience as such had apparently got lost in Germany, and lost to a point where people hardly remembered it and had ceased to realize that the surprising ‘new set of German values’ was not shared by the outside world... In the Third Reich evil lost its distinctive characteristic by which most people had until then recognized it. The Nazis redefined it as a civil norm.”

“God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of humans are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with the quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations! And, now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: may they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.” ― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (1850)

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“Most of the people in our foreign policy conversation... are violence worshippers; they get off on war; they get off on hurting people; and on the power that that imbues them with... The more broken they are inside the more focused they are on war and foreign policy because it gives them a feeling of power and strength and success; like, ‘I can’t get my wife to respect me, I can’t get my kids to listen to me, I can’t pass any meaningful domestic agenda, but what I can do is bomb the living shit out of a foreign country.’” — Tucker Carlson

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“With neocons I always feel like their slogan is: ‘I forgot the question but the answer is war.’” — Cenk Uygur

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“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)

“The Anarchists are right in everything... They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a violent revolution... Dynamite and the dagger, as experience has already shown, only cause reaction, and destroy the most valuable power, the only one at our command, that of public opinion.” — Leo Tolstoy, On Anarchy (1900)

“Anthropologists may get killed; but anthropology goes on; and in the long run it can’t fail to succeed. Whereas your entomological approach... It may succeed at the beginning; you can generally frighten and overawe people into submission. That’s to say that, by treating them as bugs, you can generally make them behave like bugs — crawl and scuttle to cover. But the moment they have the opportunity, they’ll turn on you. The anthropologist may get killed while establishing his first contacts; but after that, he’s safe; he’s a man among men. The entomologist may start by being safe; but he’s a bug-hunter among bugs — among bugs, what’s more, who resent being treated as bugs, who know they aren’t bugs. His bad quarter of an hour comes later on. It’s the old story: you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them.” — Aldous Huxley, Eyeless in Gaza (1936)

“The Anarchists are right in everything.” — Leo Tolstoy, On Anarchy (1900)

“[How do you get rid of Hamas?] Get rid of the reasons that created Hamas.” — Bassem Youssef https://rumble.com/v4q1iv2-watch-the-israel-iran-and-palestine-debate.html

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“We do not defend Christ. It is Christ who defends us.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel

“When you go to Heaven and you meet Jesus face-to-face... [and then] you come back to Earth — who cares about a president, about Anthony Fauci, Klaus Schwab, George Soros, and the likes; who cares?” — Mar Mari Emmanuel

“But can you picture Jesus, with a machine-gun in his hand, blowing someone’s stomach out? Of course not.” — Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” — Milton Friedman

“If the Church stays silent in the face of what is happening, what difference would it make if no church were ever opened again?” — Franz Jägerstätter

“‘You can only be independent of God while you’ve got youth and prosperity; independence won’t take you safely to the end.’ Well, we’ve now got youth and prosperity right up to the end. What follows? Evidently, that we can be independent of God. ‘The religious sentiment will compensate us for all our losses.’ But there aren’t any losses for us to compensate; religious sentiment is superfluous. And why should we go hunting for a substitute for youthful desires, when youthful desires never fail? A substitute for distractions, when we go on enjoying all the old fooleries to the very last? What need have we of repose when our minds and bodies continue to delight in activity? of consolation, when we have soma? of something immovable, when there is the social order?” — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)