{"id":86068,"date":"2014-07-01T09:29:56","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T13:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=86068"},"modified":"2014-07-01T13:21:56","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T17:21:56","slug":"the-books-arguably-once-upon-a-time-in-germany-by-christopher-hitchens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=86068","title":{"rendered":"The Books: Arguably<\/i>, \u2018Once Upon a Time in Germany\u2019, by Christopher Hitchens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arguably<\/a><\/p>\n

On the essays shelf<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens<\/a>\"\"<\/i><\/p>\n

\nA couple things. <\/p>\n

The following is Hitchens’ review of the German film The Baader Meinhof Complex<\/i> (2008), which obviously was right in Hitchens’ wheelhouse. He called it one of the best films of the year. It portrayed the cultish and manic properties of the terrorist group operating in West Germany known as the Red Army Faction, or, more commonly, the Baader Meinhof Group\/Gang. It is a completely insular look at how that group thought, and the word “belljar” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The film is phenomenal, and really captures the whole thing in a way that is stressful and enraging. People got “caught up” in it, and at a certain point (and there’s the rub, because when is that point?) they turned off their critical thinking skills, their moral compasses, and submitted to the group. There’s a reason why this political organization is now known in psychological circles as the Baader Meinhof Phenomenon, or Complex. <\/p>\n

\n\"baader-meinhof-komplex-poster-0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nI knew that a couple of people had recommended the movie to me in a comments section here but I couldn’t remember when or why so I did a search and found the post.<\/a> Not surprisingly, it was a post I wrote about Patty Hearst’s abduction and indoctrination into the Symbionese Liberation Army (as Joan Didion so devastatingly summed them up: “one ex-convict and five children of the middle class.”) Brainwashing and cults have always held a fascination for me, since I was a kid, really, as strange as that may seem. Not to get too woo-woo about it, but I wonder if I knew somewhere that something was wrong with my brain<\/a>, even when I was a kid. I mean, I remember clearly some pretty intense moments of dissociation as early as 8 years old. I don’t know. So how the brain works, its strengths and also its ultimate fragility – the fact that it can be changed, molded, up-ended – fascinated me and terrified me. Where was I susceptible? I FELT like I was Me, and that nobody could change that, but all the reading I did about cults made me question that (as well it should). There’s a reason why I have devoted time and energy to trying to infiltrate a certain cult, going to meetings, and taking private tours, and talking to people, and it’s all been quite elaborate and I finally had to stop doing it. Mainly because the cult began to implode before my very eyes. I couldn’t believe it. People were getting out AND they were talking about it. But whatever the reason, I wanted to see how “they” would try to brainwash me. I wanted to experience it for myself. <\/p>\n

Life on the Wild Side, by Sheila O’Malley. <\/p>\n

Anyway, Todd and Dan both recommended that I watch The Baader Meinhof Complex<\/i>, because it dovetailed with what I was talking about in regards to Patty Hearst. I took them up on it, and was totally wowed by the film. <\/p>\n

\"_badder-final-for-web-(2)\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nI highly recommend it. <\/p>\n

Hitchens reviews the film, but, in typical Hitchens style, he also talks about the background of that time, the landscape from which groups like the Red Army Faction and, also, the Red Brigade in Italy (so memorably portrayed in Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers<\/i><\/a>\"\"<\/a>, the best new novel I have read in YEARS. Seriously. Believe the hype. It really is that good and that unique.) Hitchens remembers the events of those years first-hand, and how these groups proliferated in free societies. I mean, we had the Weather Underground here. So. What was going on. Obviously the answer depends on a lot. It depends on where you stand and how you view things like inherited guilt, Socialism, violence, ends-justify-means, all that. There are still those who think the Weather Underground people are martyrs. Beautiful martyrs to a beautiful cause. I am not one of those people, to put it mildly. But you know. That’s my standpoint. There are definitely others, and when those Weather Underground people are arrested now, tracked down, living in, oh, Minnesota under an assumed name, the reaction is always fascinating. These people are still True Believers. It’s incredible. The indoctrination is so total<\/i>. <\/p>\n

It reminds me of Running on Empty<\/i>, obviously inspired by the Weather Underground. Both parents (Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti) have gone underground to escape the FBI. They are Wanted for blowing up a chem lab on a college campus and blinding a janitor who, as Lahti says to her stern father (Steven Hill), “He wasn’t supposed to be there.” They have two young sons who are raised on the run, having to dye their hair and change their names from town to town. The glorious days of the 60s and early 70s are over, and now the radical parents have to satisfy themselves with activism like organizing protests against waste dumps and nuclear reactors. When one of their old “colleagues” (played, chillingly, and perfectly, by L.M. Kit Carson) shows up one day, with a trunk full of guns, wanting to pull off a bank robbery just like the good old days \u2026 it highlights the schism in the group, as it was, but also highlights the hypocrisy of everyone involved. Kit Carson sneers at Lahti and Hirsch – “You think you’re better than me?” They aren’t. Lahti knows it more than Hirsch. And all of this is complicated by the fact that they are now parents. And how do they teach their sons right from wrong if they are living such horrendous lies on a casual everyday basis. There’s a lot in that film about the mindset of radical groups and how disoriented everyone must have been when “things” calmed down and there wasn’t a clear enemy anymore, like Nixon, or the Vietnam War. <\/p>\n

More than Running on Empty<\/i>, The Baader Meinhof Complex<\/i> is about the MINDSET (“complex” being in the title), and it’s a completely destabilizing and fascinating experience, the film. <\/p>\n

Here’s the trailer.<\/p>\n

\n