11 ms·

Nazi is an easy shorthand for evil. You don't need to show a Nazi kicking a puppy to say the Nazi is evil, because they're already a Nazi! We get it. The down

Nazi is an easy shorthand for evil. You don't need to show a Nazi kicking a puppy to say the Nazi is evil, because they're already a Nazi! We get it. The downside of this shorthand is that it dumbs down conversation. The Nazi-accuser shunts the Nazi-accused into a digestible category that needn't be historically comparable at all to be rhetorically effective, and the accused has less incentive to cordially communicate when it is clear that they are not being taken seriously, so either reasonable people leave or inflammatory folks troll, and we're all worse off.

tstactplsignore 11y ago
At the same time, not all Nazi analogies are equally wrong- it's fallacious to claim that moustaches are evil because Nazis had them; it isn't exactly fallacious to claim that persecuting and demonizing a minority combined with enthusiastic nationalism through slowly increasing propaganda campaigns under the leadership of a charismatic leader should seem at least slightly worrying because we have Nazis as a historical example. The Nazis and the 30s and 40s can present real historical lessons- another is that in the 30s, the German Communist party declared "After him, us!" in response to Hitler's rise and their refusal to cooperate with the socialists, with the reasoning being that his disastrous short term would hasten about a communist revolution. Unfortunately, we often see the exact same argument used by both socialists and some of the more extreme Bernie Sanders fans today with regards to Trump. There are historical lessons and analogies in the past which can be genuinely useful to understanding the present. At this rate, it feels like if 1930s Germany had Godwin's law, it would have been used to quash any dissent about the actual rise of Nazism.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  You're right. Too right. The Nazis are a rightfully perfect metaphor for these times and many others. But there are always exceptions. Nobody is wheelbarrowing carts of Deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread. Race (and the idea of inherent superiority/inferiority) is viewed much differently, in fact until the 70s it was generally accepted that Neanderthals became whites, Homo Erectus became Asians, and so on. And if the post-Cold War era has taught us anything, there is no "End of History" where humanity converges along the One True Path. No analogy is perfect. American slaves had little relation to Roman slaves aside from being owned people. Too much has changed since the 30s to be an exact repeat.
  - stcredzero 11y ago
    Nobody is wheelbarrowing carts of Deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread. Race (and the idea of inherent superiority/inferiority) is viewed much differently But that's almost never the specific argument of people who fall into the mistake of "Nazi" as analogy. In fact, many people use these overly-specific points as a fallacious straw-man rebuttal. Often, the specific, functional points are complaints of: - stereotyping of a group - quick and prejudicial characterization of a person as member of the group - certain moral/ethical positions irrationally ascribed to the group - said group being demonized with lurid, emotional language - actions by a number of persons against a perceived member of the group - use of exclusionary, inflammatory, and violent tactics against the same MLK and Gandhi carefully and very specifically structured their movements to account for people falling into such patterns of behavior and besmirching their causes. We are all subject to such mental patterns, and they require specific mental effort to combat. In particular, they were aware that people engaged in activism are especially vulnerable to these phenomena. Society and rational thought would be greatly helped by a language and cognitive tools to calmly think and speak about such phenomena.
    - Natsu 11y ago
      > MLK and Gandhi carefully and very specifically structured their movements to account for people falling into such patterns of behavior and besmirching their causes. I don't know enough of that history to know specifically what you're referring to, could you elaborate further on this point?
      - tamana 11y ago
        Short version: MLK and Gandhi soufht to make peace and unite with their opponents, not attack and destroy them.
        stcredzero 11y ago
        It's quite unfortunate that many forget the Nazis in their early days were effectively activists organizing themselves into a political party. Maybe someone needs to write an article outlining historical groups who are good functional analogues and who aren't the Nazis?
- th0waway 11y ago
  we should be worried because we are humans - every human endeavor will, at some point, turn bad. It's human nature. Nationalism is good, to point. So are many other things. Blind nationalism with no empathy for anyone other than your own countrymen can be (but not necessarily is) bad. If you think there is any form of human institution than cannot be subverted to evil acts, you are uninformed.
- zeemonkee3 11y ago
  > the German Communist party declared "After him, us!" They were kind of prophetic about that.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Good job sneaking in a comparison of Trump to the Nazis without a shred of supporting argument. I'm no Trump fan but the comparisons to Hitler are totally unwarranted. Take his most controversial proposal. Deporting 11 million people--who don't have the right to be here in the first place--is bad policy and callous, but it's fair. There's plenty of examples of populist nationalist leaders hurting their countries, like Berlusconi in Italy. No need to raise the false specter of concentration camps, mass murder, and totalitarianism.
  - tamana 11y ago
    He also proposed banning all Muslims from entering the US, and tagging and tracking all curent Muslim residents.
    - refurb 11y ago
      These political arguments never seem to go well, but anyways... I'd love to see a source/quote on that. From the news that I saw (actually digging into the details), Trump said something like "Until we have the proper means to screen Muslims for security risk, I propose we put a (temporary) halt to letting them immigrate." This was in direct response to the attacks in France. Now, for a lot of people, that's still an offensive proposal, but it's not the same as "lets ban all Muslims (forever)". What I think is interesting about Trump's appeal is that he doesn't filter what he says. A seasoned politician would say "I'm committed to securing this country against terrorist threats", then they put a ton of Muslims on no-fly lists and you kind of get the same thing. But it doesn't look as bad. I get the sense a lot of people, when they listen to Trump, think "At least he doesn't offer watered down drivel like most politicians".
      - foldr 11y ago
        First of all, the whole idea of some kind of special screening process for Muslims is already discriminatory, and quite possibly unconstitutional in itself. Second, it's patently obvious that no brilliant new techniques for screening out terrorists are magically going to materialize all of a sudden, so that the "temporary" ban would become effectively permanent.
- btilly 11y ago
  Unfortunately, we often see the exact same argument used by both socialists and some of the more extreme Bernie Sanders fans today with regards to Trump. Why do you consider this unfortunate? First of all it is not just those groups. Are you aware that the same comparison has been made by Holocaust survivors like Anne Frank's step-sister, national leaders such as the president of Mexico, and prominent conservatives like Glenn Beck? It isn't just a few socialists who are concerned. That said, it would be unfortunate if the assertion had no basis in reality. But does it? According to political scientists, the one trait that is most likely to predict you supporting Trump is how much you tend towards authoritarianism. This is why extremely authoritarian groups such as the KKK and neo-nazis have come out in support of Trump. Extreme authoritarianism certainly matches Hitler. Next there is the question of truthfulness. According to Politifact, over 2/3 of Trump's public statements are lies. In fact he's more likely to issue "pants on fire" lies than to say something that is true or mostly true. (See http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ for a source.) Furthermore when he lies and is challenged on it, he shows no regard for the truth. Instead he repeats his lies over and over again, very forcefully. This "Big Lie" technique was a classic trademark of Hitler's. What else is characteristic of Hitler? Extreme nationalism! Do I need to enumerate instances? How about war mongering? Oh boy. So far Trump has promised to bomb North Korea, Syria and Isis. He has also suggested bombing Iraq and starting a trade war with Mexico to get them to pay for the wall he wants. What about mass deportion? Hitler promised to deport the Jews, then killed them when nobody else wanted to take them. Trump promises to deport about 11 million people from the USA. How do you think that will work in practice? You apparently think that Trump/Hitler comparisons are unfortunate. I consider it a quick way of identifying all of the characteristics that Trump has which make me afraid of the possibility of his being President.
  - AReallyGoodName 11y ago
    The person you replied to was talking about the unfortunate situation of some communists and socialists supporting Hitler over the respective competing party. It's analogous to Bernie supporters saying they'd vote Trump over Hillary or vice versa.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  Do you happen to have a source for the "After him, us!" quote? I can't seem to find it, at least not literally. Googling for that phrase and 'german' gives me this thread.
  - NoGravitas 11y ago
    Here's some of what I've been able to find. "Social fascism"[0] "After Hitler, Our Turn!"[1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism [1]: https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/world/ch12.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/world/ch12....
lqdc13 11y ago
Also shows how much of an echo chamber it is. You cannot accuse someone of being a Nazi and get upvoted if people aren't already on your side.
stcredzero 11y ago
Nazi is an easy shorthand for evil. It's often that, but it's often not only that. It's often a shorthand for extreme political ideology leading to authoritarianism. It's a shorthand for a particular affective/mental state groups of people can enter into. (1) The country that became Nazi Germany was highly educated, western, democratic, and industrialized. Germans are ordinary people, just like you and me. There is nothing peculiar or special or demonizing about them, or Russians or Chinese or Cambodians or Americans or any other group containing members who have enacted mass killings and genocide. Our species' brain is wired to enable us gang-up together, feel solidarity, and take action against other groups. The way this happens fits certain functional objective patterns of behavior, and Nazis are a very prominent mental "attractor." Unfortunately, "Nazi" has such a strong emotional connotation, it renders rational thought about such group dynamics difficult in any public communications medium. The Nazi-accuser shunts the Nazi-accused into a digestible category that needn't be historically comparable at all to be rhetorically effective It's also often used to talk about attributes and events that are historically comparable to the activities of the Nazi party in its early, obscure days, before it had political power. The same group dynamics that applies to them, applies to other groups of people all throughout history. Unfortunately, the comparison it has such strong emotional connotations, the irrational feelings drown out useful rational discussion. From what I've seen, invocations of "Godwin's Law" are often used by people who are subject to the beginnings of the same group-dynamic negative-affective death spiral -- precisely to shut down discussion of the phenomena they are subject to. This culture sorely needs a way to calmly and meaningfully discuss such group-dynamics. If society was 1/10th as savvy about group dynamics as it is savvy about the cognitive bias caused by love and sexual desire, we'd be vastly more advanced. (1) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11630275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11630275
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  You make a great argument, but I fear that until we have no global population of have-nots, even an educated society can fall victim to manipulatiors who need not believe their own rhetoric. I doubt Trump truly believes what he says about Mexicans and Muslims, but he sees clearly that they are effective scapegoats, and frustrated people are easy to placate with blame on someone else.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
antisthenes 11y ago
The problem with that analysis is that you're expecting quality conversation from threads with 1000+ comments in which comment threads themselves are largely insulated from each other. There are very rarely reference to another comment thread within the same post, which leads to isolation and localized groupthink. Generally speaking, threads of that size imply that they are posted on a very popular public subreddit, which requires no special qualifications to post in. Invariably this leads to at least _some_ comment threads being low quality. I would not be surprised if the majority of such highly commented posts contained isolated comment threads with racist remarks.
SolarNet 11y ago
It's not a recent thing either. Before nazis it was the pharaohs.
munchbunny 11y ago
It's also a shorthand for "I'm going to nitpick your grammar but I don't want to be downvoted into oblivion so I will call myself a grammar nazi". I'd be curious about a breakdown of usage in the instances of nazis being mentioned... I wonder if many of these usages are actually referencing the German National Socialist party of the 1930s/1940s.

tstactplsignore 11y ago

At the same time, not all Nazi analogies are equally wrong- it's fallacious to claim that moustaches are evil because Nazis had them; it isn't exactly fallacious to claim that persecuting and demonizing a minority combined with enthusiastic nationalism through slowly increasing propaganda campaigns under the leadership of a charismatic leader should seem at least slightly worrying because we have Nazis as a historical example. The Nazis and the 30s and 40s can present real historical lessons- another is that in the 30s, the German Communist party declared "After him, us!" in response to Hitler's rise and their refusal to cooperate with the socialists, with the reasoning being that his disastrous short term would hasten about a communist revolution. Unfortunately, we often see the exact same argument used by both socialists and some of the more extreme Bernie Sanders fans today with regards to Trump. There are historical lessons and analogies in the past which can be genuinely useful to understanding the present. At this rate, it feels like if 1930s Germany had Godwin's law, it would have been used to quash any dissent about the actual rise of Nazism.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
You're right. Too right. The Nazis are a rightfully perfect metaphor for these times and many others. But there are always exceptions. Nobody is wheelbarrowing carts of Deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread. Race (and the idea of inherent superiority/inferiority) is viewed much differently, in fact until the 70s it was generally accepted that Neanderthals became whites, Homo Erectus became Asians, and so on. And if the post-Cold War era has taught us anything, there is no "End of History" where humanity converges along the One True Path. No analogy is perfect. American slaves had little relation to Roman slaves aside from being owned people. Too much has changed since the 30s to be an exact repeat.
- stcredzero 11y ago
  Nobody is wheelbarrowing carts of Deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread. Race (and the idea of inherent superiority/inferiority) is viewed much differently But that's almost never the specific argument of people who fall into the mistake of "Nazi" as analogy. In fact, many people use these overly-specific points as a fallacious straw-man rebuttal. Often, the specific, functional points are complaints of: - stereotyping of a group - quick and prejudicial characterization of a person as member of the group - certain moral/ethical positions irrationally ascribed to the group - said group being demonized with lurid, emotional language - actions by a number of persons against a perceived member of the group - use of exclusionary, inflammatory, and violent tactics against the same MLK and Gandhi carefully and very specifically structured their movements to account for people falling into such patterns of behavior and besmirching their causes. We are all subject to such mental patterns, and they require specific mental effort to combat. In particular, they were aware that people engaged in activism are especially vulnerable to these phenomena. Society and rational thought would be greatly helped by a language and cognitive tools to calmly think and speak about such phenomena.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    > MLK and Gandhi carefully and very specifically structured their movements to account for people falling into such patterns of behavior and besmirching their causes. I don't know enough of that history to know specifically what you're referring to, could you elaborate further on this point?
    - tamana 11y ago
      Short version: MLK and Gandhi soufht to make peace and unite with their opponents, not attack and destroy them.
      - stcredzero 11y ago
        It's quite unfortunate that many forget the Nazis in their early days were effectively activists organizing themselves into a political party. Maybe someone needs to write an article outlining historical groups who are good functional analogues and who aren't the Nazis?
th0waway 11y ago
we should be worried because we are humans - every human endeavor will, at some point, turn bad. It's human nature. Nationalism is good, to point. So are many other things. Blind nationalism with no empathy for anyone other than your own countrymen can be (but not necessarily is) bad. If you think there is any form of human institution than cannot be subverted to evil acts, you are uninformed.
zeemonkee3 11y ago
> the German Communist party declared "After him, us!" They were kind of prophetic about that.
marcoperaza 11y ago
Good job sneaking in a comparison of Trump to the Nazis without a shred of supporting argument. I'm no Trump fan but the comparisons to Hitler are totally unwarranted. Take his most controversial proposal. Deporting 11 million people--who don't have the right to be here in the first place--is bad policy and callous, but it's fair. There's plenty of examples of populist nationalist leaders hurting their countries, like Berlusconi in Italy. No need to raise the false specter of concentration camps, mass murder, and totalitarianism.
- tamana 11y ago
  He also proposed banning all Muslims from entering the US, and tagging and tracking all curent Muslim residents.
  - refurb 11y ago
    These political arguments never seem to go well, but anyways... I'd love to see a source/quote on that. From the news that I saw (actually digging into the details), Trump said something like "Until we have the proper means to screen Muslims for security risk, I propose we put a (temporary) halt to letting them immigrate." This was in direct response to the attacks in France. Now, for a lot of people, that's still an offensive proposal, but it's not the same as "lets ban all Muslims (forever)". What I think is interesting about Trump's appeal is that he doesn't filter what he says. A seasoned politician would say "I'm committed to securing this country against terrorist threats", then they put a ton of Muslims on no-fly lists and you kind of get the same thing. But it doesn't look as bad. I get the sense a lot of people, when they listen to Trump, think "At least he doesn't offer watered down drivel like most politicians".
    - foldr 11y ago
      First of all, the whole idea of some kind of special screening process for Muslims is already discriminatory, and quite possibly unconstitutional in itself. Second, it's patently obvious that no brilliant new techniques for screening out terrorists are magically going to materialize all of a sudden, so that the "temporary" ban would become effectively permanent.
btilly 11y ago
Unfortunately, we often see the exact same argument used by both socialists and some of the more extreme Bernie Sanders fans today with regards to Trump. Why do you consider this unfortunate? First of all it is not just those groups. Are you aware that the same comparison has been made by Holocaust survivors like Anne Frank's step-sister, national leaders such as the president of Mexico, and prominent conservatives like Glenn Beck? It isn't just a few socialists who are concerned. That said, it would be unfortunate if the assertion had no basis in reality. But does it? According to political scientists, the one trait that is most likely to predict you supporting Trump is how much you tend towards authoritarianism. This is why extremely authoritarian groups such as the KKK and neo-nazis have come out in support of Trump. Extreme authoritarianism certainly matches Hitler. Next there is the question of truthfulness. According to Politifact, over 2/3 of Trump's public statements are lies. In fact he's more likely to issue "pants on fire" lies than to say something that is true or mostly true. (See http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ for a source.) Furthermore when he lies and is challenged on it, he shows no regard for the truth. Instead he repeats his lies over and over again, very forcefully. This "Big Lie" technique was a classic trademark of Hitler's. What else is characteristic of Hitler? Extreme nationalism! Do I need to enumerate instances? How about war mongering? Oh boy. So far Trump has promised to bomb North Korea, Syria and Isis. He has also suggested bombing Iraq and starting a trade war with Mexico to get them to pay for the wall he wants. What about mass deportion? Hitler promised to deport the Jews, then killed them when nobody else wanted to take them. Trump promises to deport about 11 million people from the USA. How do you think that will work in practice? You apparently think that Trump/Hitler comparisons are unfortunate. I consider it a quick way of identifying all of the characteristics that Trump has which make me afraid of the possibility of his being President.
- AReallyGoodName 11y ago
  The person you replied to was talking about the unfortunate situation of some communists and socialists supporting Hitler over the respective competing party. It's analogous to Bernie supporters saying they'd vote Trump over Hillary or vice versa.
lazaroclapp 11y ago
Do you happen to have a source for the "After him, us!" quote? I can't seem to find it, at least not literally. Googling for that phrase and 'german' gives me this thread.
- NoGravitas 11y ago
  Here's some of what I've been able to find. "Social fascism"[0] "After Hitler, Our Turn!"[1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism [1]: https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/world/ch12.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/world/ch12....

lqdc13 11y ago

Also shows how much of an echo chamber it is. You cannot accuse someone of being a Nazi and get upvoted if people aren't already on your side.

stcredzero 11y ago

Nazi is an easy shorthand for evil. It's often that, but it's often not only that. It's often a shorthand for extreme political ideology leading to authoritarianism. It's a shorthand for a particular affective/mental state groups of people can enter into. (1) The country that became Nazi Germany was highly educated, western, democratic, and industrialized. Germans are ordinary people, just like you and me. There is nothing peculiar or special or demonizing about them, or Russians or Chinese or Cambodians or Americans or any other group containing members who have enacted mass killings and genocide. Our species' brain is wired to enable us gang-up together, feel solidarity, and take action against other groups. The way this happens fits certain functional objective patterns of behavior, and Nazis are a very prominent mental "attractor." Unfortunately, "Nazi" has such a strong emotional connotation, it renders rational thought about such group dynamics difficult in any public communications medium. The Nazi-accuser shunts the Nazi-accused into a digestible category that needn't be historically comparable at all to be rhetorically effective It's also often used to talk about attributes and events that are historically comparable to the activities of the Nazi party in its early, obscure days, before it had political power. The same group dynamics that applies to them, applies to other groups of people all throughout history. Unfortunately, the comparison it has such strong emotional connotations, the irrational feelings drown out useful rational discussion. From what I've seen, invocations of "Godwin's Law" are often used by people who are subject to the beginnings of the same group-dynamic negative-affective death spiral -- precisely to shut down discussion of the phenomena they are subject to. This culture sorely needs a way to calmly and meaningfully discuss such group-dynamics. If society was 1/10th as savvy about group dynamics as it is savvy about the cognitive bias caused by love and sexual desire, we'd be vastly more advanced. (1) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11630275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11630275

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
You make a great argument, but I fear that until we have no global population of have-nots, even an educated society can fall victim to manipulatiors who need not believe their own rhetoric. I doubt Trump truly believes what he says about Mexicans and Muslims, but he sees clearly that they are effective scapegoats, and frustrated people are easy to placate with blame on someone else.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

antisthenes 11y ago

The problem with that analysis is that you're expecting quality conversation from threads with 1000+ comments in which comment threads themselves are largely insulated from each other. There are very rarely reference to another comment thread within the same post, which leads to isolation and localized groupthink. Generally speaking, threads of that size imply that they are posted on a very popular public subreddit, which requires no special qualifications to post in. Invariably this leads to at least _some_ comment threads being low quality. I would not be surprised if the majority of such highly commented posts contained isolated comment threads with racist remarks.

SolarNet 11y ago

It's not a recent thing either. Before nazis it was the pharaohs.

munchbunny 11y ago

It's also a shorthand for "I'm going to nitpick your grammar but I don't want to be downvoted into oblivion so I will call myself a grammar nazi". I'd be curious about a breakdown of usage in the instances of nazis being mentioned... I wonder if many of these usages are actually referencing the German National Socialist party of the 1930s/1940s.