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I feel like there is much more of propaganda than insight in this piece. For one, because it looks specifically at Nazi-ism, and collaboration, rather than at f

I feel like there is much more of propaganda than insight in this piece. For one, because it looks specifically at Nazi-ism, and collaboration, rather than at fascism from the home front. Secondly, it reeks of 'The good old boy' and the idea that a good man could never be deceived. It promotes a sense that, if you are simply American enough, you can escape the feverish grip of nationalism or public panic.

cowpig 9y ago
I didn't get that from the article at all. I think this sentence in the last section of the article is the central point: > Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. That Nazism is a product of cruelty, unhappiness, and insecurity. Fascism is about dominance. About being a part of the group to which the other is subordinate. Which is something that appeals to people who are deeply bitter, delight in suffering (of their own or others), or lack a sense of self-identity.
- chillacy 9y ago
  Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never... become school shooters, or terrorists, etc. At some level, people want to be winning at life: if they are, they're invested in the current system. If they aren't, they may seek change (or at least immerse themselves in some subculture).
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    'winning' implies that there has to be someone 'losing' and I don't feel like that represents my view of my life though I do feel very satisfied. I am very glad that I was able to purchase a modest house that I can work on and modify. I'm happy with designing and implementing solutions to the technical problems my job entails. I'm happy that I have the opportunity to save so that I have a financial cushion should many unexpected events occur. And I don't think this situation requires anyone else to lose. Now I would admit that I might not be and likely am not representative of everyone in our society but isn't that more of an attitude towards expectations than some sort of static rule? I might have the expectation that I should have a Ferrari and an attractive and doting partner, or a happy perfect family, but there is no reason my expectations justify hurting others. I think if we look closer at social dysfunction in general we would see that the people lashing out have either unrealistic expectations or have someone been marginalized even beyond what we all might agree about as a baseline of expectations: that we have the opportunity to take part in society without being treated shabbily for no reason, that we are appreciated at some level by someone, and that we can be vulnerable and rely on others without being neglected or ostracized. There will always be people who are naturally dysfunctional due to mental health issues but I have to think most of the worst problems society faces could be greatly reduced if we cared about each other more.
    - psyc 9y ago
      > I don't think this situation requires anyone else to lose. I don't know enough macroeconomics, nor enough about the veracity of macroeconomics, to determine whether this is true. I'm not calling you out, or asking you to defend your thesis to strangers. I'm just wondering whether you're able to reason end-to-end about this in your own mind, to reach this conclusion. Also, whether or not your good fortune depends on losers, there are losers. An exchange at dinner the other night went like this: What slogan did Obama run on? Change. And what is it that people want to change? They want their lives to stop sucking so hard.
      - fleetingmoments 9y ago
        Whether their lives are "sucking" is a matter of perspective. There are billions of people around the world who would be only too grateful for a life that "sucks" as much as theirs do. You'll find people from all walks of life who have convinced themselves that their life sucks and that, if only they got that raise, or if the economy grew at x % or if the guy who talks like them became president, it would suck less. As long as the majority of people keep looking to external factors to determine their happiness and satisfaction with life, your society will always be vulnerable to populism.
        psyc 9y ago
        At best, I think this could only be a solution for an individual. Perhaps I'm simply lacking imagination here, but the U.S. adopting some alternative to materialism is one of the last things in the world I can picture.
    - darkerside 9y ago
      What did you anchor these modest goals upon? Chances are they were based on your perception of how people around you are doing. If you lived in the Paleolithic, perhaps winning would have been having a decent cave, and enough game to feed your family. In another world, perhaps you'd require only one or two modest robot butlers, not a fleet like many others have. Dumb analogies, I know. The point is that, most people's goals are derived from what seems achievable based on perceptions of how everybody else is doing at "the game" we call capitalism. As soon as you start doing that, there are winners and losers by definition.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    I think the article addresses that, too, with Mr. C: "...he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him—intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism."
    - api 9y ago
      > a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery Wow. How little things change.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        I love to read ancient documents that have survived to our days, all the way back to the first written forms of documentation. The conclusion taken from almost 4 000 years of written information is that indeed things change very little regarding human politics.
- candiodari 9y ago
  > Fascism is about dominance. About being a part of the group to which the other is subordinate. This is utterly correct. > Which is something that appeals to people who are deeply bitter, delight in suffering (of their own or others), or lack a sense of self-identity. This is absurd, and does not follow from the first part. Here's the truth (and you do get this from the article) : anyone who rises a lot in the world, or has that as an ambition, in either popularity or money, would "go nazi". That is very different from actively persecuting people, and that should be clearly understood. I feel like dropping another 10 points on this site, so may I just make the point. Someone who was born a man (or woman) of some privilege (not necessarily much, but some) and does not really seek to advance, someone who gets his life pre-planned for them, and follows the plan. "Dad was a doctor, and I will be too". Those are the people that do not go Nazi, that, no matter what, will never join. In other words : rich republicans would be the bastion against Nazism. They would be the people that, no matter what efforts are done, cannot be converted. Doctor families. Lawyer "dynasties". The Bay Area ... would be a hotbed of Nazism in America. No doubt about it. Nazism has everything that SF wants : loads of young people. Support from universities and "follows science" (read the newspapers from the time). It sings the praises of the poor, gives a clear reason for the poor getting repressed (rich jewish bankers), Nazism hates the status-quo and wants to change it at all costs (even though most people don't nearly realize just how big those costs were going to get. Please keep that thoroughly in mind before judging people).
  - PaulRivers 9y ago
    Yeah, this article was very "See if you're a good person like me you'd never go nazi". If the SJW's taught me anything it's that the people loudest yelling that they're the good people would be the first people to go nazi. It wouldn't be the same nazi's nowadays - their uniforms would be different, their slogans would be different, the group they scapegoat all their problems on would be different. But they'd still be plowing through imprisoning and killing people who fit into their nearly arbitrary category not caring what kind of people they actually are because "their group is the reason why bad things happen!". They'd simply go on their facebook feed, be told who they should hate this week, and gleefully post about how they're being put in camps to slowly die, all the while convinced they were doing the right moral thing.
- OtterCoder 9y ago
  Fascism, for the people who shape it as such, will be pushed forward by some of the kinds of people the article mentions. However, Germany was and is and always will be peopled by mostly reasonable, kind, stout folks, because most people everywhere are reasonable, kind, and stout. Even the cream of a country can be goaded and led and pushed into fascism, as the tide sweeps across a frightened or depressed people. The soldiers of Germany had to be shown the horrors and crimes of their superiors in gory detail, and still they had to be marshaled by strict speech laws to prevent the resurrection of a horror that largely benefitted the masses.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Compare how Germany was treated by the world after WWI, and after WWII. Big difference in treatment, and consequences for that treatment. Fortunately the lessons of WWI hadn't been forgotten when it came time to cleanup after WWII.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      Even if a punitive approach had been taken, it would have been a very different post war period. Germany was utterly destroyed, beaten and occupied. In WW1 that wasn’t the case and while there had been massive loss of life, Germany was intact.

cowpig 9y ago

I didn't get that from the article at all. I think this sentence in the last section of the article is the central point: > Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. That Nazism is a product of cruelty, unhappiness, and insecurity. Fascism is about dominance. About being a part of the group to which the other is subordinate. Which is something that appeals to people who are deeply bitter, delight in suffering (of their own or others), or lack a sense of self-identity.

chillacy 9y ago
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never... become school shooters, or terrorists, etc. At some level, people want to be winning at life: if they are, they're invested in the current system. If they aren't, they may seek change (or at least immerse themselves in some subculture).
- wavefunction 9y ago
  'winning' implies that there has to be someone 'losing' and I don't feel like that represents my view of my life though I do feel very satisfied. I am very glad that I was able to purchase a modest house that I can work on and modify. I'm happy with designing and implementing solutions to the technical problems my job entails. I'm happy that I have the opportunity to save so that I have a financial cushion should many unexpected events occur. And I don't think this situation requires anyone else to lose. Now I would admit that I might not be and likely am not representative of everyone in our society but isn't that more of an attitude towards expectations than some sort of static rule? I might have the expectation that I should have a Ferrari and an attractive and doting partner, or a happy perfect family, but there is no reason my expectations justify hurting others. I think if we look closer at social dysfunction in general we would see that the people lashing out have either unrealistic expectations or have someone been marginalized even beyond what we all might agree about as a baseline of expectations: that we have the opportunity to take part in society without being treated shabbily for no reason, that we are appreciated at some level by someone, and that we can be vulnerable and rely on others without being neglected or ostracized. There will always be people who are naturally dysfunctional due to mental health issues but I have to think most of the worst problems society faces could be greatly reduced if we cared about each other more.
  - psyc 9y ago
    > I don't think this situation requires anyone else to lose. I don't know enough macroeconomics, nor enough about the veracity of macroeconomics, to determine whether this is true. I'm not calling you out, or asking you to defend your thesis to strangers. I'm just wondering whether you're able to reason end-to-end about this in your own mind, to reach this conclusion. Also, whether or not your good fortune depends on losers, there are losers. An exchange at dinner the other night went like this: What slogan did Obama run on? Change. And what is it that people want to change? They want their lives to stop sucking so hard.
    - fleetingmoments 9y ago
      Whether their lives are "sucking" is a matter of perspective. There are billions of people around the world who would be only too grateful for a life that "sucks" as much as theirs do. You'll find people from all walks of life who have convinced themselves that their life sucks and that, if only they got that raise, or if the economy grew at x % or if the guy who talks like them became president, it would suck less. As long as the majority of people keep looking to external factors to determine their happiness and satisfaction with life, your society will always be vulnerable to populism.
      - psyc 9y ago
        At best, I think this could only be a solution for an individual. Perhaps I'm simply lacking imagination here, but the U.S. adopting some alternative to materialism is one of the last things in the world I can picture.
  - darkerside 9y ago
    What did you anchor these modest goals upon? Chances are they were based on your perception of how people around you are doing. If you lived in the Paleolithic, perhaps winning would have been having a decent cave, and enough game to feed your family. In another world, perhaps you'd require only one or two modest robot butlers, not a fleet like many others have. Dumb analogies, I know. The point is that, most people's goals are derived from what seems achievable based on perceptions of how everybody else is doing at "the game" we call capitalism. As soon as you start doing that, there are winners and losers by definition.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  I think the article addresses that, too, with Mr. C: "...he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him—intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism."
  - api 9y ago
    > a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery Wow. How little things change.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      I love to read ancient documents that have survived to our days, all the way back to the first written forms of documentation. The conclusion taken from almost 4 000 years of written information is that indeed things change very little regarding human politics.
candiodari 9y ago
> Fascism is about dominance. About being a part of the group to which the other is subordinate. This is utterly correct. > Which is something that appeals to people who are deeply bitter, delight in suffering (of their own or others), or lack a sense of self-identity. This is absurd, and does not follow from the first part. Here's the truth (and you do get this from the article) : anyone who rises a lot in the world, or has that as an ambition, in either popularity or money, would "go nazi". That is very different from actively persecuting people, and that should be clearly understood. I feel like dropping another 10 points on this site, so may I just make the point. Someone who was born a man (or woman) of some privilege (not necessarily much, but some) and does not really seek to advance, someone who gets his life pre-planned for them, and follows the plan. "Dad was a doctor, and I will be too". Those are the people that do not go Nazi, that, no matter what, will never join. In other words : rich republicans would be the bastion against Nazism. They would be the people that, no matter what efforts are done, cannot be converted. Doctor families. Lawyer "dynasties". The Bay Area ... would be a hotbed of Nazism in America. No doubt about it. Nazism has everything that SF wants : loads of young people. Support from universities and "follows science" (read the newspapers from the time). It sings the praises of the poor, gives a clear reason for the poor getting repressed (rich jewish bankers), Nazism hates the status-quo and wants to change it at all costs (even though most people don't nearly realize just how big those costs were going to get. Please keep that thoroughly in mind before judging people).
- PaulRivers 9y ago
  Yeah, this article was very "See if you're a good person like me you'd never go nazi". If the SJW's taught me anything it's that the people loudest yelling that they're the good people would be the first people to go nazi. It wouldn't be the same nazi's nowadays - their uniforms would be different, their slogans would be different, the group they scapegoat all their problems on would be different. But they'd still be plowing through imprisoning and killing people who fit into their nearly arbitrary category not caring what kind of people they actually are because "their group is the reason why bad things happen!". They'd simply go on their facebook feed, be told who they should hate this week, and gleefully post about how they're being put in camps to slowly die, all the while convinced they were doing the right moral thing.
OtterCoder 9y ago
Fascism, for the people who shape it as such, will be pushed forward by some of the kinds of people the article mentions. However, Germany was and is and always will be peopled by mostly reasonable, kind, stout folks, because most people everywhere are reasonable, kind, and stout. Even the cream of a country can be goaded and led and pushed into fascism, as the tide sweeps across a frightened or depressed people. The soldiers of Germany had to be shown the horrors and crimes of their superiors in gory detail, and still they had to be marshaled by strict speech laws to prevent the resurrection of a horror that largely benefitted the masses.
- cmurf 9y ago
  Compare how Germany was treated by the world after WWI, and after WWII. Big difference in treatment, and consequences for that treatment. Fortunately the lessons of WWI hadn't been forgotten when it came time to cleanup after WWII.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Even if a punitive approach had been taken, it would have been a very different post war period. Germany was utterly destroyed, beaten and occupied. In WW1 that wasn’t the case and while there had been massive loss of life, Germany was intact.