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Short version: MLK and Gandhi soufht to make peace and unite with their opponents, not attack and destroy them.

by tamana 10y ago

stcredzero 10y 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?
- neffy 10y ago
  Kind of sort of, but at the same time they were also former soldiers, who thought they'd been forced to surrender when they still had a chance of winning, who organized themselves into a political party.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    Kind of sort of Any group that sets itself apart and has a burning collective desire to change things is waking the same psychological mechanisms. So is cheering for sports teams. We're a bit more savvy as a culture about harnessing and controlling that in the case of sports. Yet, look at some of the stupid stuff ports fans still can get up to. Just look at history, and it's quite apparent that politics awakens the exact same tendencies, but without the same cultural/societal checks. Hell, just listen to what people say and observe how they start to prejudge and target each other based on surface-level signals.
    - neffy 10y ago
      There are certainly collective behaviour instincts that can kick in with groups and which can be manipulated to cause people to run amok, but it's not any group by any means. Take for example the English Society of Friends (Quakers), and their burning collective desire to stop the Slave Trade. (& for prison reform, but that was arguably self-interest because they kept ending up in them.) So perhaps the more interesting question is still which groups and why.
- HillRat 10y ago
  Well, it's not like they were organizing for a living wage and then decided, "Heck, let's burn the Reichstag and kill us some rootless cosmopolitans!" The rise of the Nazi party is basically intertwined with the right-wing militia politics of the mercenary freikorps that dominated the Weimar era. They started as a one of many bands of violent, murderous thugs and ended as the biggest, baddest band of violent, murderous thugs.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    They started as a one of many bands of violent, murderous thugs and ended as the biggest, baddest band of violent, murderous thugs. I guess it's progress in a way, now we only have "the biggest, baddest band of social media emotional abuse mobs." I'm not entirely sure the situation isn't merely physically safer but emotionally just as shitty. And I'm not so sure the mental states involved won't eventually cause a change in the physical safety part.
Natsu 10y ago
Thanks, but I was hoping for the long version :)

Short version: MLK and Gandhi soufht to make peace and unite with their opponents, not attack and destroy them.

by tamana 10y ago

Short version: MLK and Gandhi soufht to make peace and unite with their opponents, not attack and destroy them.

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?

neffy 10y ago
Kind of sort of, but at the same time they were also former soldiers, who thought they'd been forced to surrender when they still had a chance of winning, who organized themselves into a political party.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Kind of sort of Any group that sets itself apart and has a burning collective desire to change things is waking the same psychological mechanisms. So is cheering for sports teams. We're a bit more savvy as a culture about harnessing and controlling that in the case of sports. Yet, look at some of the stupid stuff ports fans still can get up to. Just look at history, and it's quite apparent that politics awakens the exact same tendencies, but without the same cultural/societal checks. Hell, just listen to what people say and observe how they start to prejudge and target each other based on surface-level signals.
  - neffy 10y ago
    There are certainly collective behaviour instincts that can kick in with groups and which can be manipulated to cause people to run amok, but it's not any group by any means. Take for example the English Society of Friends (Quakers), and their burning collective desire to stop the Slave Trade. (& for prison reform, but that was arguably self-interest because they kept ending up in them.) So perhaps the more interesting question is still which groups and why.
HillRat 10y ago
Well, it's not like they were organizing for a living wage and then decided, "Heck, let's burn the Reichstag and kill us some rootless cosmopolitans!" The rise of the Nazi party is basically intertwined with the right-wing militia politics of the mercenary freikorps that dominated the Weimar era. They started as a one of many bands of violent, murderous thugs and ended as the biggest, baddest band of violent, murderous thugs.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  They started as a one of many bands of violent, murderous thugs and ended as the biggest, baddest band of violent, murderous thugs. I guess it's progress in a way, now we only have "the biggest, baddest band of social media emotional abuse mobs." I'm not entirely sure the situation isn't merely physically safer but emotionally just as shitty. And I'm not so sure the mental states involved won't eventually cause a change in the physical safety part.

Natsu 10y ago

Thanks, but I was hoping for the long version :)