It's a huge things among boomers, if pop culture and my parents are anything to go by. Having less than someone else is shameful because we associate wealth with virtue.

I cant speak for OP but my Parents are also German boomers and a very rampant Part of Most boomers is the Attitude that If Others have it worse than you then it cant be that Bad for you.

You cant blame them all for it because some use it as a coping mechanism trying to be more content with what they have. For me that coping mechanism never worked because i never got how that should be making me feel better.

Then i got it. This only makes you feel better If you place your own wellbeing above others. This way you also trick yourself into accepting one of Capitalism oldest lies, the implicit scarcity of the world. Meaning If Others have it worse you implicitly have to be better Off because Theres Not enough for everyone.

Ofc in this system everyone has to Look for their own wellbeing. But i wont be Feeling better because Others have it worse. In fact in my Mind human suffering IS human suffering and Others having it worse Just makes me feel worse.

What if your computer doesn't run elden ring?

You can’t eliminate poverty mindset in just a few decades. Success, as we see it today and back then before the various socialist revolutions, usually meant you are able to move upward in society.

I don’t think many people have the explicit goal of “being better” than their neighbors, it’s just that’s how it usually ends up being. And a lot of the times success meant (and means) you don’t have time to look back on the people you left behind because you may be a paycheck away from ending up like them again. You start comparing yourself to others’ success or lack thereof because you’re worried about materially being in a worse spot than where you are now - it’s not always out of competition.

Socialist countries were changing what was considered valuable in life, as seen here with the state encouraging students to pursue the arts in addition to hard science and other technical fields. But it takes longer than a couple generations to understand that you don’t need a 5 story home and 3 cars to be considered “no longer poor and struggling” or “successful.”

But that’s why capitalist propaganda is so pervasive, especially back then. Imagine being uplifted from absolute poverty or in some countries, literal shackles and chains, and you get to live inside a house and sleep in a bed and go to school. Everything seems good, but then you keep seeing ads about America getting a bunch of pop stars visiting or fifty variations of mayonnaise or everyone is wearing jeans. Everyone is happy and smiling with their new treats. It’s not always malicious - in fact you may desire all that crap for your own country because you went through absolute destitution, and now you wish for happiness for others, and everyone is smiling on the American commercial so what’s bad about it? You believe that it would enhance the existing society, not replace it. I believe this was one of the main betrayals of the East Germans. Many believed that their capitalist brothers would simply enhance their lives, but when the walls fell, they immediately came in and stripped the East of its industries and services.

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.nadeko.net
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video

Not really by the sounds of it, mate.

sooo your grandpa was a nazi and your family were parasites

sounds like they got more or less what they deserved

Political repression is obvious not ideal - political openness and free expression are objectively preferred over limiting political expression. But… this is the ideal. The practical reality is that, in times of war every country represses political expression. In the US, UK, and France, for example… in WWI or WWII, what happened to you if you spoke out against the war? Spoke in solidarity with workers in the “enemy” country? What if you expressed that you wanted your country to capitulate to the German Empire/Third Reich?

And make no mistake, for the entirety of the existence of the DDR, it was in a state of war. The capitalist west poured as many resources into toppling socialism in the east as they would a real shooting war. Allowing complete free expression would have opened the door to complete manipulation by the west. To do otherwise would be to betray the very workers - the great majority of the people - who built the DDR. You’re in a workers state and the state is entrusted with the protection of those workers. Anyone who is acting in a way that betrays those workers should be dealt with. Political repression isn’t great but as you saw what happened in the 90s in the former DDR, the workers suffered immeasurably from “losing” the Cold War.

There is very strong relationship between how much political expression a government allows and the level of existential threat that same government faces. In the US or Germany today, sure you can express your politics all you want. Because any form of political expression poses ZERO threat to the powers that be. If we were ever in a situation where in the US, the left posed a real threat, I guarantee you all our free speech protections would go out the window. By the way, in the free, capitalist Germany of today, what would happen to you if you went into the town square and openly expressed solidarity with Hamas - an organization which poses zero threat to Germany or Germans?

And to another point… I am more familiar with USSR than the DDR, but I think it’s fair to say the former was more repressive of speech. And the reality is that, at least after Stalin, in the USSR you could fit the number of people jailed for political crimes in any given year into one-half of a basketball court (that’s in a country orders of magnitude larger than the DDR). That’s for several reasons, but a big one is that the USSR had a policy of prophylaxis. First off, if you were just complaining about your representative or if you were a capitalism enjoyer, you were generally left alone. You actually had to do enough to get on the radar. And if it got to that point, someone would approach you and tell you to knock it off, or there would be consequences. And lots of people who were brought to trial weren’t convicted because they weren’t a big enough threat, and plenty more similarly had convictions overturned. The point of all this is to say, in much of the Eastern Bloc, it took quite a bit to actually get in jail for political expression. If you’re at the point where you are in jail, there’s likely a long road that brought you there. So when you say “my grandfather was jailed for speaking out against the government”, I am going to apply a hefty dose of skepticism that he was just expressing his displeasure to friends at the local cafe or whatever.

Unfortunately my Grandpa was imprisoned for being against the governmet at the time there, while the other part of my family was basically cast out for being capitalists (They had a small "factory" with 5ish workers). So there certainly have been some downsides.

I see only upsides.

while the other part of my family was basically cast out for being capitalists

Good.

can you define "basically cast out"?

Unfortunately my Grandpa was imprisoned for being against the governmet at the time there, while the other part of my family was basically cast out for being capitalists

Lmao

What's your opinion on immigration?

Were they Nazis?