The Zone of Interest is a brutally effective film, and it doesn’t show any image or event that is shocking. Its PG-13 rating is hardly stretched. The vast majority of the movie takes place in entirely banal settings: a family home, a backyard, an office, a boardroom. Probably 80% of what happens onscreen is conversation, and most of that is conversation of the most homespun kind. Siblings play and quarrel. A woman shows her mother what she’s done with the place. Infants cry, adults mutter, people sing “Happy birthday.”
This is so very true, reminds me the saying of " I have seen the enemy and it is us" Truth of the matter we are the villains in our story and lives and do not even realize it at times.
None of us are above this no matter how Christian we think we are. Until our natures are changed and we are no longer in a fallen world or in a fallen state, we are all villains to some extent in this life, it is only in the matter of degrees that we commit evil or turn a blind eye to evil, but we are guilty of it to some degree.
I don't think their will ever be time that we will not be complicit with evil to SOME degree as long as we live in a fallen world. Introspection and thinking for ourselves might help, but unfortunately the pressures of living in this world will cause many to cave in or turn a blind eye to just be able to survive.
Living in this fallen world is hard because it is full of fallen sinful human beings.
Let us not forget, there was always a force of resistance. Those who recognized the evil and were willing to sacrifice their lives for the better choice, good. I like to think God’s good, Called by something inside them to go this path, to work toward saving lives. I ask myself would I be able to serve in a similar manner? Where would I find myself? But I never think of myself as going along.
Feverant prayer would have been the least resistance a believer might muster.
Yes, yes. Thank you. I had a conversation, similar to your comments about monuments, street names, etc., with some folks regarding Wheaton College's library name change last year due to the man's racist decisions. I think similarly...when we erect a monument or name something after someone, we are not saying they are perfect people. If this were the standard, there could be no monuments.
Nailed it! Even the Pharisees thought they wouldn’t do such things, as shown in Mt. 23:30. We want to see violence as something outside of ourselves. When in reality its roots run deep in our hearts, to the point of not even realizing it.
In the one part of the British Isles (the Channel Island) occupied by Germany, the locals collaborated just like anywhere else. A splendidly insightful article.
Love the post! Great job Sam, I’ve had this type of conversation with wife before. Had I grown up in Nazi Germany or in the Deep South in the 40/50s, no doubt that I would joined in
Sadly, the last couple of years exposed how many people would go along with the narrative and demonize people with little question. So many people calling for jail or worse for those questioning an experimental rushed to market drug. Why? Pretty much because they were told to believe those people were evil by the media and leaders. No critical thinking and little love, even within our churches.
Even worse - those feelings till linger today among far too many and there's little introspection from people other than "that was the past, let's move on". If you were one of those wanting the "unclean" rounded up and mistreated ... yeah, you would have been a Nazi.
I can easily see how those in 1930's Germany would respond to a leader bringing their country out of a horrible depression and giving hope to the people. The initial results of the National Socialist party looked great - structure for the youth, better economy for the country, a vision for the future. Those all look great. The evil that came in with it ... a slow boil and then the fear of speaking out lest you join those "moving to a new town" on a special train. :(
When you think how many Christians didn't seem to be concerned about the fear mongering & propaganda over covid, then you can see how easily people can be led into believing what's told them over & over & allowing personal rights & freedoms to be swept away so easily, absolutely closing their minds to anyone with a different perspective. Absolute faith in the world's establishment & leadership is inconsistent with Biblical teaching on the world & the evil one who rules it, yet people somehow believe in the basic goodness of man by default.
My understanding of the Holocaust these days, partly helped by Tooze's excellent book on the Nazi war economy, is that it evolved so gradually from a primarily economic to a primarily genocidal program that it can be hard to pinpoint when exactly it crossed over, and if the Holocaust deniers have any point, it's that the program WAS, for a time, mostly economic, and that most Germans continued to understand it as economic and not genocidal.
Germany was in fact short of labor, owing to the eventual mobilization of nearly its entire able-bodied male population, and found that it struggled to productively exploit conquered peoples for its war machine except under highly regimented programs of slave labor run by German corporations, of which Auschwitz was a part: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monowitz_concentration_camp#Buna_Werke).
Perhaps the most terrible thing about war -- and this has been observed many times over the millennia -- is the way that it gradually coarsens consciences and leads to escalating evils. This effect was most horrible in Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan, but there are examples of it all around. None of us really know what we'd be capable of after several years of exposure to horrors that promote this coarsening.
The only thing I can say is that I should hope we would be trained to react to any regime that seeks to censor or adulterate the Gospel with an immune response, an instant recognition that that regime is our and God's enemy, whatever positive feelings we may have had about it previously. From that standpoint, the experience of Niemoller is instructive: he supported the Nazis until they rose to power and began to betray faithful Christians -- something Hitler, in fact, directly denied he would ever do. It was out of his refusal to stay silent about this fact that he was put away.
The Communists to my knowledge didn't offer the same sorts of assurances, and it was largely out of fear of Communism that the Nazis rose to power. It's a fair guess that many of us, of conservative mentality, would look at those choices and indeed decide that the Nazis aren't so bad and may be good for Germany and the church. I can only hope that our commitment to the Gospel would help us recognize our error long before 1939.
Let us see… Did you become an animal in 2020? Did you cheer on placing your mothers and fathers in solitary isolation to make sure government numbers in one column check out? Did you aid in killing people who could not survive isolation? Did you abandon the sick? Did you cheer in outcasting the unvaccinated? Did you think you can “save lives” by being a vile promoter of statistical salvation? If you answered yes to any of the above, congratulations, you are “a Nazi” in a sense that you fall for government propaganda and follow orders that harm individual people.
This article reminds me of the default state of humanity which is Tyranny and oppression. Even though it appears that we live in a sort of democracy, the potential for Tyranny and oppression is always there. It is like sin, it is always their ready to ensnare us.
That is why i am a Universalist, we cannot escape this fallen world or our fallen natures. We live in a constant state of slavery of somekind due to this being a fallen world. Everybody is fallen and broken and sinful, it is only in the matter of DEGREES that some are more evil then others, but only by degrees.
We are fundamentally fallen, or what you call totally depraved in our nature, we are diseased sick caused by the fall of man in the garden.
My hope is NOT this world but in the redeemed existence, whether it be in heaven or on earth.
MY favorite scripture is " Revelation 21:14 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
This world is broken because humanity is sick and broken from the disease of sin. We need new redeemed bodies and wills and one day that will happen, we will no longer be subject to our fallen natures.
Excellent post. I want my teen kids to read this. Thank you.
This is so very true, reminds me the saying of " I have seen the enemy and it is us" Truth of the matter we are the villains in our story and lives and do not even realize it at times.
None of us are above this no matter how Christian we think we are. Until our natures are changed and we are no longer in a fallen world or in a fallen state, we are all villains to some extent in this life, it is only in the matter of degrees that we commit evil or turn a blind eye to evil, but we are guilty of it to some degree.
I don't think their will ever be time that we will not be complicit with evil to SOME degree as long as we live in a fallen world. Introspection and thinking for ourselves might help, but unfortunately the pressures of living in this world will cause many to cave in or turn a blind eye to just be able to survive.
Living in this fallen world is hard because it is full of fallen sinful human beings.
Let us not forget, there was always a force of resistance. Those who recognized the evil and were willing to sacrifice their lives for the better choice, good. I like to think God’s good, Called by something inside them to go this path, to work toward saving lives. I ask myself would I be able to serve in a similar manner? Where would I find myself? But I never think of myself as going along.
Feverant prayer would have been the least resistance a believer might muster.
Do not be deceived.
Yes, yes. Thank you. I had a conversation, similar to your comments about monuments, street names, etc., with some folks regarding Wheaton College's library name change last year due to the man's racist decisions. I think similarly...when we erect a monument or name something after someone, we are not saying they are perfect people. If this were the standard, there could be no monuments.
Nailed it! Even the Pharisees thought they wouldn’t do such things, as shown in Mt. 23:30. We want to see violence as something outside of ourselves. When in reality its roots run deep in our hearts, to the point of not even realizing it.
Hauntingly great movie in that it forces me to come to that same conclusion. Thoughtful stuff as always
In the one part of the British Isles (the Channel Island) occupied by Germany, the locals collaborated just like anywhere else. A splendidly insightful article.
Of timeless relevance. Thank you
Love the post! Great job Sam, I’ve had this type of conversation with wife before. Had I grown up in Nazi Germany or in the Deep South in the 40/50s, no doubt that I would joined in
Sadly, the last couple of years exposed how many people would go along with the narrative and demonize people with little question. So many people calling for jail or worse for those questioning an experimental rushed to market drug. Why? Pretty much because they were told to believe those people were evil by the media and leaders. No critical thinking and little love, even within our churches.
Even worse - those feelings till linger today among far too many and there's little introspection from people other than "that was the past, let's move on". If you were one of those wanting the "unclean" rounded up and mistreated ... yeah, you would have been a Nazi.
I can easily see how those in 1930's Germany would respond to a leader bringing their country out of a horrible depression and giving hope to the people. The initial results of the National Socialist party looked great - structure for the youth, better economy for the country, a vision for the future. Those all look great. The evil that came in with it ... a slow boil and then the fear of speaking out lest you join those "moving to a new town" on a special train. :(
When you think how many Christians didn't seem to be concerned about the fear mongering & propaganda over covid, then you can see how easily people can be led into believing what's told them over & over & allowing personal rights & freedoms to be swept away so easily, absolutely closing their minds to anyone with a different perspective. Absolute faith in the world's establishment & leadership is inconsistent with Biblical teaching on the world & the evil one who rules it, yet people somehow believe in the basic goodness of man by default.
My understanding of the Holocaust these days, partly helped by Tooze's excellent book on the Nazi war economy, is that it evolved so gradually from a primarily economic to a primarily genocidal program that it can be hard to pinpoint when exactly it crossed over, and if the Holocaust deniers have any point, it's that the program WAS, for a time, mostly economic, and that most Germans continued to understand it as economic and not genocidal.
Germany was in fact short of labor, owing to the eventual mobilization of nearly its entire able-bodied male population, and found that it struggled to productively exploit conquered peoples for its war machine except under highly regimented programs of slave labor run by German corporations, of which Auschwitz was a part: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monowitz_concentration_camp#Buna_Werke).
Perhaps the most terrible thing about war -- and this has been observed many times over the millennia -- is the way that it gradually coarsens consciences and leads to escalating evils. This effect was most horrible in Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan, but there are examples of it all around. None of us really know what we'd be capable of after several years of exposure to horrors that promote this coarsening.
The only thing I can say is that I should hope we would be trained to react to any regime that seeks to censor or adulterate the Gospel with an immune response, an instant recognition that that regime is our and God's enemy, whatever positive feelings we may have had about it previously. From that standpoint, the experience of Niemoller is instructive: he supported the Nazis until they rose to power and began to betray faithful Christians -- something Hitler, in fact, directly denied he would ever do. It was out of his refusal to stay silent about this fact that he was put away.
The Communists to my knowledge didn't offer the same sorts of assurances, and it was largely out of fear of Communism that the Nazis rose to power. It's a fair guess that many of us, of conservative mentality, would look at those choices and indeed decide that the Nazis aren't so bad and may be good for Germany and the church. I can only hope that our commitment to the Gospel would help us recognize our error long before 1939.
Let us see… Did you become an animal in 2020? Did you cheer on placing your mothers and fathers in solitary isolation to make sure government numbers in one column check out? Did you aid in killing people who could not survive isolation? Did you abandon the sick? Did you cheer in outcasting the unvaccinated? Did you think you can “save lives” by being a vile promoter of statistical salvation? If you answered yes to any of the above, congratulations, you are “a Nazi” in a sense that you fall for government propaganda and follow orders that harm individual people.
The line between good and evil doesn't run between 'us' and 'them' but through the heart of every human being.
"It’s the unremarkable nature of it that is remarkable." What a line! Great piece.
This article reminds me of the default state of humanity which is Tyranny and oppression. Even though it appears that we live in a sort of democracy, the potential for Tyranny and oppression is always there. It is like sin, it is always their ready to ensnare us.
That is why i am a Universalist, we cannot escape this fallen world or our fallen natures. We live in a constant state of slavery of somekind due to this being a fallen world. Everybody is fallen and broken and sinful, it is only in the matter of DEGREES that some are more evil then others, but only by degrees.
We are fundamentally fallen, or what you call totally depraved in our nature, we are diseased sick caused by the fall of man in the garden.
My hope is NOT this world but in the redeemed existence, whether it be in heaven or on earth.
MY favorite scripture is " Revelation 21:14 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
This world is broken because humanity is sick and broken from the disease of sin. We need new redeemed bodies and wills and one day that will happen, we will no longer be subject to our fallen natures.