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Richie said:
You saying communism was less rigid and authoritarian than the West at that time?
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Would it surprise you if I were saying that? Just a little excursion before getting back to the series of which I have watched four episodes now.
Yes, when comparing my own experience with what I see in series and film, this seems to be the case. Things may get blurred if one fails to clearly differentiate between macro-level and micro-level perspectives. What is true along general lines while looking at the picture as a whole does not necessarily hold true for each individual. IOW, there's the well-known official propaganda and ideological framework, on the one hand, which is rigid and off-putting enough and which people who haven't had any personal experience of living in a dictatorship use as a basis for their own grasp of such a system. One needs to understand, though, that a part of it is theory, is generalisation, is abstraction and, thus, differs from the precise conditions and life of an individual.

Research on totalitarian regimes has shifted to micro-level investigations focussing on questions like: How much leeway was there for the individual? Did they have choices? What can be said about everyday life in a dictatorship? East Germany was also a niche society meaning that it was possible to lead a life below the state radar. I, for one, did not experience any personal punishment or humiliation (Pink Floyd's The Wall and their view on teachers is so far from my life at the time). Nor have I ever heard of such an incident. Teachers would have got into trouble if they had even tried to do that. On the other hand, you may have been told not to carry your belongings in a plastic bag from West Germany. That was also rare, changed over time, and was dependent on the headmaster of a school. I don't know of any such incident. In a nutshell, general indoctrination in a conciliatory tone vs demanding severe discipline and respect down to physical punishment of an individual is a formula describing the difference between East and West.
Craig, you may remember your question about ideological indoctrination which I haven't answered yet. But I'll do so in my next post.
 
looker-on said:
Would it surprise you if I were saying that? Just a little excursion before getting back to the series of which I have watched four episodes now.
Yes, when comparing my own experience with what I see in series and film, this seems to be the case. Things may get blurred if one fails to clearly differentiate between macro-level and micro-level perspectives. What is true along general lines while looking at the picture as a whole does not necessarily hold true for each individual. IOW, there's the well-known official propaganda and ideological framework, on the one hand, which is rigid and off-putting enough and which people who haven't had any personal experience of living in a dictatorship use as a basis for their own grasp of such a system. One needs to understand, though, that a part of it is theory, is generalisation, is abstraction and, thus, differs from the precise conditions and life of an individual.

Research on totalitarian regimes has shifted to micro-level investigations focussing on questions like: How much leeway was there for the individual? Did they have choices? What can be said about everyday life in a dictatorship? East Germany was also a niche society meaning that it was possible to lead a life below the state radar. I, for one, did not experience any personal punishment or humiliation (Pink Floyd's The Wall and their view on teachers is so far from my life at the time). Nor have I ever heard of such an incident. Teachers would have got into trouble if they had even tried to do that. On the other hand, you may have been told not to carry your belongings in a plastic bag from West Germany. That was also rare, changed over time, and was dependent on the headmaster of a school. I don't know of any such incident. In a nutshell, general indoctrination in a conciliatory tone vs demanding severe discipline and respect down to physical punishment of an individual is a formula describing the difference between East and West.
Craig, you may remember your question about ideological indoctrination which I haven't answered yet. But I'll do so in my next post.
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That is some answer to a short question Thomas. Yes I do want to know your views about ideological indoctrination back then under the East German system.. A short answer please mate.;)
 
Richie said:
Ok a semi- meaty answer.
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Ideological indoctrination? Such a wide field. It depends on whom you ask. People have different views on what it is, how it works, and also vary in terms of how susceptible they are to it. I observed that again during our class reunion.

People try to come to terms with a dictatorship in many different ways. What Martin Broszat once said about life in the NS regime applies to other dictatorships, too. "As in other areas, there were enthusiasts and the convinced, opportunists and followers, 'inner emigrants' and tacit dissenters, as well as a mixture of all these motives in one...” The vast majority of people had found a niche for themselves (as part of an inner emigration). My niche was the tennis club where a certain type of people gathered and which had the strongest influence on me. It was my actual secondary socialisation, if you like. That environment plus West German TV made me immune to one-sided and coarse, woodcut-like propaganda.

All pupils were members of a youth organisation arranging after-school activities (similar to the boy/girl scouts but with a stronger emphasis on indoor entertainment, outings, dancing, etc.), and from the age of 14, attended a class called Civics for 45' a week where the socialist/communist system was presented as the superior one. Membership in that organisation was expected but engaging in it was not. As a non-active member you wouldn't be disadvantaged nor would activists automatically be privileged. Outsiders tend to overrate the significance of it and the effect it had on its members.

Indoctrination works on a subconscious level – for some, not for everybody. Some people couldn’t cope with it. There were those who used to be the strongest critics of the system tended to advocate it after it had collapsed. They couldn't bring themselves to welcome the western system wholeheartedly. There's so much nostalgia. And that means that, whether they like it or not, they were and still are, subconsciously more indoctrinated than they are willing to admit.

The region around Dresden (where Putin was based as a KGB officer) became notorious since Western TV couldn't be received at all for technical reasons which meant that the only source of information was communist propaganda through state-owned TV channels, which would hold true for a lot of East Germans. Those were the ones who later were overwhelmed by what they saw in West Germany after the wall had come down.
It makes a difference whether you internalise the propaganda as it was presented or whether you take it with a pinch of salt because there's a counter draft, a corrective, which you compare it to. In Germany there are three groups of people in our generation: the West Germans, on the one hand, and the East Germans, OTOH, who, again, were divided by having access to West German TV. Luckily, I was among those who had been able to watch West German TV since I was a child in the 60s. As a young man I used to be quite uncritical of the US and tended to adore them for its history, scientific achievements, nature, living standard, etc. getting some glimpses about it through westerns, crime movies and TV-series and, later on, through other, more demanding movies and TV documentaries. I also tuned in to radio stations broadcasting from West Germany like the English-speaking BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service), the German-speaking RIAS (Radio in the American Sector of West-Berlin) or RTL (Luxemburg/Europe).
My attitude toward the US changed in the course of time but I’ve always been more pro-American than Pro-Russian like the vast majority of East-German voters for extremist and populist parties are.

So there were choices within the given framework. Indoctrination attempts did not always fall on fertile ground and where they did, they were not necessarily long-lasting. Differentiation is key.
PS: Sorry for the longer post. I didn't have time to write a short one. ;)
 
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looker-on said:
Ideological indoctrination? Such a wide field. It depends on whom you ask. People have different views on what it is, how it works, and also vary in terms of how susceptible they are to it. I observed that again during our class reunion.

People try to come to terms with a dictatorship in many different ways. What Martin Broszat once said about life in the NS regime applies to other dictatorships, too. "As in other areas, there were enthusiasts and the convinced, opportunists and followers, 'inner emigrants' and tacit dissenters, as well as a mixture of all these motives in one...” The vast majority of people had found a niche for themselves (as part of an inner emigration). My niche was the tennis club where a certain type of people gathered and which had the strongest influence on me. It was my actual secondary socialisation, if you like. That environment plus West German TV made me immune to one-sided and coarse, woodcut-like propaganda.

All pupils were members of a youth organisation arranging after-school activities (similar to the boy/girl scouts but with a stronger emphasis on indoor entertainment, outings, dancing, etc.), and from the age of 14, attended a class called Civics for 45' a week where the socialist/communist system was presented as the superior one. Membership in that organisation was expected but engaging in it was not. As a non-active member you wouldn't be disadvantaged nor would activists automatically be privileged. Outsiders tend to overrate the significance of it and the effect it had on its members.

Indoctrination works on a subconscious level – for some, not for everybody. Some people couldn’t cope with it. There were those who used to be the strongest critics of the system tended to advocate it after it had collapsed. They couldn't bring themselves to welcome the western system wholeheartedly. There's so much nostalgia. And that means that, whether they like it or not, they were and still are, subconsciously more indoctrinated than they are willing to admit.

The region around Dresden (where Putin was based as a KGB officer) became notorious since Western TV couldn't be received at all for technical reasons which meant that the only source of information was communist propaganda through state-owned TV channels, which would hold true for a lot of East Germans. Those were the ones who later were overwhelmed by what they saw in West Germany after the wall had come down.
It makes a difference whether you internalise the propaganda as it was presented or whether you take it with a pinch of salt because there's a counter draft, a corrective, which you compare it to. In Germany there are three groups of people in our generation: the West Germans, on the one hand, and the East Germans, OTOH, who, again, were divided by having access to West German TV. Luckily, I was among those who had been able to watch West German TV since I was a child in the 60s. As a young man I used to be quite uncritical of the US and tended to adore them for its history, scientific achievements, nature, living standard, etc. getting some glimpses about it through westerns, crime movies and TV-series and, later on, through other, more demanding movies and TV documentaries. I also tuned in to radio stations broadcasting from West Germany like the English-speaking BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service), the German-speaking RIAS (Radio in the American Sector of West-Berlin) or RTL (Luxemburg/Europe).
My attitude toward the US changed in the course of time but I’ve always been more pro-American than Pro-Russian like the vast majority of East-German voters for extremist and populist parties are.

So there were choices within the given framework. Indoctrination attempts did not always fall on fertile ground and where they did, they were not necessarily long-lasting. Differentiation is key.
PS: Sorry for the longer post. I didn't have time to write a short one. ;)
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That was a very interesting and meaty story Thomas.
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
 
I loved 'The Big Bang Theory' and recently 'Young Sheldon' but that's finished now. 🙁
Our SBS movies in Oz can be great but with many free to air streaming channels the choice is wide.
It's a given I watch/listen to reputable channels like our ABC & BBC, DW, ...
One semi quiz show I love to watch is "Tipping Point". It's on before the Ch 9 news here. I've watched the British one too. It's got everything: knowledge, reflexes, probability, mechanics, tactics, strategy, gambling ... my pets' noisy feeding time...too!
 
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