What is a Nazi?

[Lexicus]

Imho, presidents have been given too much power and congress is broken. Elected officials were supposed to compromise for the good of the country, not cling to extreme ideologies. My suspicion is your argument is not "because there isn't enough moderation"

No, my view is that moderation in government has generally been a sign of deep injustice in the US. Like the golden age of compromise and comity that ended in the 1850s and the Civil War, which was based on tolerating slavery, or the long period of moderation and compromise which followed the betrayal of Reconstruction and which was based on the systemic exclusion of black people from the polity.

I agree completely that the President has accrued far too much power, incidentally.

yep

Talk about extreme ideologies! This is literal 1984 stuff, up is down because the Party says so...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think a lot of you are missing it. Again, we use the term Nazi because they exemplified The Thing, which is not limited to their being fascists, and there are those today that are also The Thing. We do not use Nazi because these people are Literal 1930s Nazi Party Members but because Literal 1930s Nazi Party Members are the thing that these people are as well, without The Thing being stretched to include more than that which the Nazis exemplified.

So the issue is not the name, however some of you are having trouble seeing it, so I'm hoping we can find some description for what is perhaps too plain for words at times.

I don't think you need to take a term which means something very specific and try to turn it into things it does not mean. It's absurd to have far left and right both fall under "that guy is a Nazi". Yes, both are authoritarian. Yes, both do evil things, for more common standards of good vs evil. But surely, we can use a different term than this, which better constrains anticipation to "the thing" than does the word "Nazi".

You could call the bad actors in "OP" pretzels too. Pretzels can be used to mean "the thing" now, if you want. It's arbitrary, but so is using "Nazis" when that kind of behavior could just as easily been found in Soviet Russia, and was probably a closer fit with their "find me the man and I'll find you a crime" approach to getting rid of people they didn't like/need any more.

 

[Angst]

Sorry but that is absolutely wrong.
The military plans of the Germans are pretty well documented actually.

The German attack on France had been planned right from the beginning, just like a later attack on Britain in a phase two was planned as well.
France was a primary strategic goal to be conquered early on to serve as bastion and later as staging place for the also planned war against e.g. Britain.

German militaries knew that they had to avoid a long lasting 2 frontier war and knew that they would be fighting longer in the East against Russia due to the vast distances there.
Thus Germany had to conquer France as fast as possible to prevent France becoming a staging place for e.g. British troops and eventually other enemies.

Also German militaries wanted to take back the regions that Germany had lost to France in the treaty of Versaille and they also knew that Britain would not just look at this passively for long.
And of course France was also completely aware of all these things but had falsly relied on the "Maginot Line" as defense not considering the Germans to attack through neutral Belgium.

-------

Nazi miltiaries had always been planning to attack France right in the beginning of the War.
There simply was no reasonable other strategy to prevent being caught in a two frontier war.

Nazi militaries had planned to eliminate the other major powers in Europe to actually achieve real European dominance.
This of course included to attack and defeat the other 2 major Eurioean powers in Europe, which were France and Britain.

If the US had not joined the War on the West Front, Germany would most likely have been able to easily defend French coasts against Britain.
Without US support Britain might even at some point have been forced into an armistice or even a surrender.

But without Germany eliminating France from the equation, Germany would at some point have been crushed by France and Britain in the west and Russia in the east.
German militaries knew very well that Germany did not have the resources to fight a long lasting war, they needed to win the war fast or in the end lose just by lack of resources to continue fighting.

That's on me then! I'm actually following the history I've read which in my case has been pretty adamant that it was going all east, so to say. Maybe I misremember it, maybe I've been reading the wrong stuff. It's knowledge from high school - and onwards, mind you - but I trust that I'm wrong here.

In regards to US entering the fray, USSR was overwhelming Germany in the east, so I'm not sure that particular outcome (Nazis losing) was dependent on US intervention, but I'm myself quite happy that the USSR military only made it to East Germany, so to say.

It’s a hard one because on the one hand you have the rank-and-file Nazis who identify as Christians, Hitler who is often ambivalent and pragmatic, and hard ideologues like Goebbels who wanted to smash the church all the time.

Would anti-clerical be a better descriptor? I suppose rather than looking at it from ideological grounds, the structure of the party itself may have not opposed the idea of Christianity as a unifying force, but wouldn’t tolerate a parallel organization that could challenge the Nazi monopoly on power.

I'm not quite sure, problem was that it indeed was ambivalent. Their return-to-origin-nonsense was pretty Roman tinted, going for some weird Roman pagan Norse syncretism as a core ideal, but the Nazi party was overall quite ambivalent as to the question of Christianity. Anti-clerical, I mean, maybe? It's a massive, complicated question, haha. I at least don't think it was foundational for Nazi thought as much as your other pointers.

 

[Hygro]

I don't think you need to take a term which means something very specific and try to turn it into things it does not mean. It's absurd to have far left and right both fall under "that guy is a Nazi". Yes, both are authoritarian. Yes, both do evil things, for more common standards of good vs evil. But surely, we can use a different term than this, which better constrains anticipation to "the thing" than does the word "Nazi".

You could call the bad actors in "OP" pretzels too. Pretzels can be used to mean "the thing" now, if you want. It's arbitrary, but so is using "Nazis" when that kind of behavior could just as easily been found in Soviet Russia, and was probably a closer fit with their "find me the man and I'll find you a crime" approach to getting rid of people they didn't like/need any more.

No. Pretzels don’t exemplify the thing so they are not substitutable.

it still makes sense to call your copy machine a xerox when it’s another brand. That’s how speech works for example in the UK. It especially helps when “nazi” is copy-machine and “authoritarian” is “office machine” to say Nazi if everyone gets what the “is” of a nazi is but there’s no good title for “copy machine”.

 

[Angst]

Personally I think it's more pragmatic actually to not call it Nazi, because centre people will immediately stop listening. Whatever the accuracy (and I believe it's off solely due to strict terminology), it makes crucial people stop listening to you.

Sadly this also goes the other way. Often you can't call actual Nazis Nazi because of the same function. It's somehow alarmist to call Nazis Nazis because they're waving a US flag as they yell that thing about Jews.

Like, I want to underline how much I agree with you in regards to the travesty of the situation, Hygro. I haven't followed TheMeInTeam's arguments, so I have no clue as to what I think about his position. The US seriously need police reform because of a complete lack of accountability and thoroughly fascist, racist structures in the system. Smarter people than me have explained to me why abolition is a good idea, and I have to say a lot of it makes a lot of sense. My point is that at the very minimum, we need to root out fascist tendencies here; but I think calling it Nazism is counterproductive to this endeavour.

 

[aelf]

The Christian right has been behind the anti abortion movement for many decades and includes people of all ages in every generation. As one generation dies off the next in line takes over.

And who are the ones passing the laws now? That's what pertains to my original comment, if you want to keep it US-centric.

Personally I think it's more pragmatic actually to not call it Nazi, because centre people will immediately stop listening.

The 'centre' stops listening for many reasons. It's foolish to play this game with them.

 

[Hygro]

Sadly this also goes the other way. Often you can't call actual Nazis Nazi because of the same function. It's somehow alarmist to call Nazis Nazis because they're waving a US flag as they yell that thing about Jews.

Right so you don't be a lying coward and you fight the fight.

 

[Angst]

Right so you don't be a lying coward and you fight the fight.

Like, I want to, and this goes for aelf too maybe, but is this saying that I'm a coward?

I mean maybe I am, but in this regard it more has to do with actually getting results. And I do call Nazis Nazis so idk.

 

[Lexicus]

There's an element of amusement that I get from watching people who don't get what Hygro's talking about frantically try to stop me from using the word Nazi.

"What? Noooo, you can't just call people Nazis just because they're racist, militarist authoritarians! You're only allowed to call someone a Nazi if they are a card-carrying member of the NSDAP from 1919-1945..."

"I don't care"

 

[amadeus]

For every Nazi out there, there’s a K-12 teacher talking about Critical Race Theory to elementary school students.

 

[Kyriakos]

There's an element of amusement that I get from watching people who don't get what Hygro's talking about frantically try to stop me from using the word Nazi.

"What? Noooo, you can't just call people Nazis just because they're racist, militarist authoritarians! You're only allowed to call someone a Nazi if they are a card-carrying member of the NSDAP from 1919-1945..."

"I don't care"

That bearded chad there looks like a nazi though

 

[amadeus]

That bearded chad there looks like a nazi though

You know who was a Nazi? Forrest Gump.

Straight, white, cis southern boomer who fought in Vietnam, made his first business taking it from a black man, then became a millionaire on the stock market.

He even once demolished the childhood home of a poor, sick woman just out of spite.

 

[Kyriakos]

You know who was a Nazi? Forrest Gump.

Straight, white, cis southern boomer who fought in Vietnam, made his first business taking it from a black man, then became a millionaire on the stock market.

He even once demolished the childhood home of a poor, sick woman just out of spite.

What I find interesting is that (as I learned a few days ago...) Gump actually means something (seems to mean 'cretin', pretty much). It sort of gives the movie a strangely comedic tone, for something supposed to be high-brow

 

[Gori the Grey]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I think one thing that plays in to our looser of the word "Nazi" is the the historical lesson that we learned from Nazism, strictly considered: namely, that if one doesn't take a stand against incipient authoritarianism, there quickly comes a point where one no longer can.

So "Nazi" partly communicates this: The behavior you're engaging in, left unchecked, can by degrees (and in fact pretty quickly) eventuate in genocide, so I'm going to check that behavior by referencing a genocidal authoritarianism that has fully played itself out.

All of that is to say, yes, we perhaps use the word prematurely and in cases that don't represent an exact analog to 30s-40s Germany, but that's precisely in an effort to ward off the horror.

 

[Lexicus]

For every Nazi out there, there’s a K-12 teacher talking about Critical Race Theory to elementary school students.

both sides...many sides

 

[Zardnaar]

There's an element of amusement that I get from watching people who don't get what Hygro's talking about frantically try to stop me from using the word Nazi.

"What? Noooo, you can't just call people Nazis just because they're racist, militarist authoritarians! You're only allowed to call someone a Nazi if they are a card-carrying member of the NSDAP from 1919-1945..."

"I don't care"

Racist militaristic right wing authoritarian isn't Nazi as such though.

China comes to mind crappy regimes but not Nazi.

China's probably the closest thing to a modern Facist regime, North Korea Stalinst regime.

Most right wing authoritarian regimes aren't fascist let alone Nazi. There's the classic three and Paraguay under Stroesser or whatever his name was. And the Nazi puppet regimes (Croatia, Hungary 1944 etc).

 

[aelf]

What I find interesting is that (as I learned a few days ago...) Gump actually means something (seems to mean 'cretin', pretty much). It sort of gives the movie a strangely comedic tone, for something supposed to be high-brow

It was never supposed to be "high-brow" lmao.

Once again, Kyriakos doesn't understand pop culture.

 

[red_elk]

Forrest Gump is a serious comedy. My high-browmeter went off scale when I tried Tarkovsky movies.

 

[Kyriakos]

It was never supposed to be "high-brow" lmao.

Once again, Kyriakos doesn't understand pop culture.

To spell it out: forum posting, for many people, tends to often not be as serious as you think, and not really an attempt to express insight. It's one of many possible dynamics; but you can miss that if you get too enthusiastic about thinking you found some error.

 

[Lexicus]

To spell it out: forum posting, for many people, tends to often not be as serious as you think, and not really an attempt to express insight. It's one of many possible dynamics; but you can miss that if you get too enthusiastic about thinking you found some error.

like clockwork