11 ms·

Ten years on, and it's chilling to consider how much more widespread Brevik's ideology has become worldwide. Ethnonationalism has elbowed its way to a seat at t

Ten years on, and it's chilling to consider how much more widespread Brevik's ideology has become worldwide. Ethnonationalism has elbowed its way to a seat at the table, demanding "toleration" for itself that it would never reciprocate for pluralism.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
It's the paradox of tolerance in action. Tolerate intolerant ideals and there will be a sudden jerk to intolerance.
- praptak 5y ago
  The paradox disappears when you treat tolerance as a peace treaty rather than a universal moral obligation.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  For context Karl Popper's quote on the paradox of tolerance: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." [0] [0] K. Popper (1945) 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'
  - smcl 5y ago
    Amazing that he anticipated "So much for the tolerant left" about 70 years before it became a widespread complaint
  - belorn 5y ago
    > and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. It would be great if that condition was used to distinguish between individuals that are intolerant and those that simply are dissenting. A dissenter might disagree with the rationality of the arguments being presented. They might be in minority in term of public opinion. Suppression would still certainly be most unwise.
    - jolux 5y ago
      You can’t perfectly distinguish between intolerance and dissent from first principles because the distinction is inherently political, and intolerance could also be characterized as dissent in a society that practices tolerance. In most cases though I think intolerance is pretty clear: when you start denying people’s status as full citizens of a nation, you are being intolerant.
- refurb 5y ago
  The paradox of Tolerance says to actually tolerate intolerance unless it’s violent.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    No, it does not.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Unfortunately the paradox of tolerance is trivially abused. If someone concludes that Islam is intolerant, that person feels that the PoT gives them moral license to behave in tolerantly toward Muslims. I think we also see this in American culture war where the definition of “intolerance” is contorted such that it matches one’s ideological opponents. Perhaps we need a firmer test for what constitutes tolerance or intolerance, although even then the semantic contortionists would probably just redefine the terms that constitute the test.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  What's left is to determine who is tolerant and who isn't.
  - hackeraccount 5y ago
    Yeah and it's a bit tricky. Best to leave it to someone who knows what they're doing. I vote for me.
- harpersealtako 5y ago
  It's the paradox of intolerance because it's a paradox, i.e. a logical contradiction. If you are tolerant to intolerant views, they will gain power and censor your tolerant speech. But on the other hand, if you are intolerant towards intolerant views and censor them, then it's ok for someone else to censor YOU for being intolerant. You can go a step farther and say that "tolerance towards intolerance leads to intolerance, therefore we should be intolerant towards tolerance in the first place!" It's a paradox for a reason, and no high-minded solutions of "intolerance in the name of tolerance" are able to sidestep its implications. There are two conclusions that I personally draw from it. The first is that intolerance/tolerance is not a binary, is not easily definable, and therefore there is no clear standard for what speech is right to censor and which is not. i.e. the paradox is unsolvable. The second is that "tolerance" and "intolerance" are not great words to describe the dynamics at play, they carry extra nuance that is not helpful. (if you can't tell, I'm not a fan of the paradox of tolerance)
  - api 5y ago
    It reminds me of game theory and how difficult it is to create cooperator strategies that prevent the invasion of defectors in e.g. the prisoners' dilemma.
  - mrkstu 5y ago
    The outcome should be, tolerance for others to express their intolerance, and you to express your intolerance of their intolerance, but no one gets to shut anyone's expression's down. You can ignore them, don't have to amplify them or give them a platform, but you don't shout them down and you don't allow them to shout others down or stop them from building their own platform. The Communists in America have been marginalized for a long time in America, but even the most totalitarian/Stalinist believing of them aren't muzzled. Whatever one's extreme belief, a truly robust society has the tools to survive their ability to talk about them.
seumars 5y ago
A recent study concluded that Breivik’s influence on right wing terrorism is close to none. But yes, the 22 july attacks is certainly a critical chapter in the overall rise of nationalist movements in the last decade. Link to study: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2021/issue-3/macklin-and-bjorgo.pdf https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/cu...
- seumars 5y ago
  Unsure about the downvotes, but needless to say, the results of the study are, well, positive: https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/ny-studie_-anders-behring-breivik-har-hatt-mindre-innflytelse-enn-det-man-forst-fryktet-1.15549063 https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/ny-studie_-anders-behring-breiv...
toss1 5y ago
Yup, an he was an early (in this cycle) example of the importance of the Paradox of Tolerance. "A concept advanced by the philosopher Karl Popper which claims that unlimited tolerance necessarily results in the destruction of the tolerant by the intolerant, resulting in a society in which tolerance is no longer possible. Therefore, while paradoxical to the concept of free speech, it is necessary to be intolerant of intolerance. "[1] In short, in a society of unlimited tolerance, the intolerant will drive out tolerance and take over. In This murderer's example, by simply eliminating those whose views he doesn't like. [1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- toss1 5y ago
  Seems the point is being missed here - the point is that tolerant societies must nevertheless be vigilant to contain serious intolerance or it will take over. It is easy to have an absolutist rule "oh just let anyone say and do anything". Seems like the simple freedom, but the paradox points out that this WILL be hacked and destroyed by some intolerant group. It is much harder to implement a few constraints that are actually required to keep things free. But it is necessary (and that murderous rampage to literally eliminate a class of future leaders is an example of why it is necessary).
jollybean 5y ago
Ethnonationalism (or at least ethnocentrism) is as old as time, and probably the 'default' mindset. Lack of any other force, especially when combined with the 'nation' part i.e. organized nation state, it might get out of hand, which is why it can come to be a problem, but nominally, it's not. It's probably a defining feature of how we organize ourselves. So the very existence of most of our nations, is a form of 'Tolerance' of it. If you look at the borders of Europe and how they flop around over time, it becomes clear that the 'delineating' factor is mostly ethnicity, at least crudely. Sometimes, a political dynasty can force those lines (i.e. Habsburg) but those don't last. What were the chances that Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia etc. were going to stay organized under one House? Even highly authoritarian ideological secular organizations i.e. USSR failed. Napoleon failed outside his borders whereas within France, it might have just worked for him. Religious Empires aka Arabic conquest, have some lasting impact but that didn't change borders in any lasting way mostly (although maybe in SE Europe). Despite a degree of 'multi-culture' in China, the CCP authoritarianism hinges on Han ethnocentricism without which it probably would not hold together. Where those 'ethnic lines' are drawn poorly, we see trouble. Belgium is almost a 'failed political state' (literally 100's of days in a row without a government) and the 'division' is 100% because of Flemish/Walloon divide. Canada has the 'Quebec' factor which has really fundamentally affected things and has a profound effect. The 'Long Straight Lines in the Desert' in the Middle East were arguably drawn poorly after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and a lot of people tend to point at that as an existential source of instability and why we see problems to this day. Iraq is not a functional state as the Kurds have de-facto independence, and the primary source of instability is the Shia/Sunni divide, unfortunately inflamed by neighbouring parties for their own gain. The 'New World' aka US, Canada, Australia, Brazil represent something different surely, but even there, it's hard to ignore strong ethnic foundations of the colonizing powers. Greece is still Greece today after 2500 years, the borders are similar. Also note their 'primary antagonists' i.e. 'Persians' are also something very roughly resembling a state today. Of course for every 'long lived state' there are 10 that don't exist anymore, but there seems to be resiliency in culture more than anything else. So I think it's a matter of keeping 'true extremists' (aka not vast government spying and overreach) under wraps as individuals, not so much thinking about specific kinds of movements. I also believe that these kinds of people would just as easy fall under some other cultural/religious/ideological/extremist umbrella. I don't think there's much difference between 'XXX extremist' and 'YYY extremist' even if they are ostensibly opposed to one another.
alexmcc81 5y ago
From his wikipedia entry: > The Jerusalem Post describes his support for Israel as a "far-right Zionism". He calls all "nationalists" to join in the struggle against "cultural Marxists/multiculturalists" [1] Now fear of "cultural Marxists" destroying Europe/US/Christianity etc is mainstream talk in right of center politics. [1] http://www.jpost.com/International/Norway-attack-suspect-had-anti-Muslim-pro-Israel-views http://www.jpost.com/International/Norway-attack-suspect-had...
throwaway894345 5y ago
Do I misunderstand these terms, or hasn't ethnonationalism been the norm historically and pluralism quite rare?
- tgv 5y ago
  I think so. IMO, tolerance is a result of education, easily unlearned under pressure.
- jollybean 5y ago
  I think we could make a distinction between 'ethnocentrism' as identification with culture and being 'historically normative' at least somewhat, and 'ethnonationalism' which is the addition of the nation state, where it can possibly get more extremist under an operationally effective entity and codified/organized ideology aka Nazism. That's just my view.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  Recent history, 19th and 20th century, yes. Older than that, no. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't French a minority language in France until the government decided to pursue a policy of francisation?
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  No, the existence of ethnicities is old but the concept of tying them to national borders is very young (modern era, and mostly 19th century and beyond) and the specific interpretation of ethonationalism here (ethno exclusionism within a set of borders) is even younger. I have to work right now so can't work through all the examples listed by another poster below, but will try to come to this thread later. But if you look at e.g. historical Europe or Rome you will rarely find borders defined by ethnicity, and you will rarely even find people defining themselves by a singular ethnicity. Look at the e.g. Franks, the Germanic political entity that ended up defining modern France (and Holland and Germany and Belgium, etc.) A Germanic-speaking tribe that took over a Celtic (Gaulic) and Latin speaking territory, went to war with other "Germans", switched to speaking Latin in some places, but not all, and on the territory where they once ruled you now have a shattered mirror of dozens of ethnicities ("German", "Dutch", "Walloon", "French", "Alsatian", etc) in a nested fractal pattern depending on what lense you use, none of which correspond to any exact political border and which are fluid and changing from decade to decade. My take: Ethnicity exists, is fluid, etc. Ethnonationalism is a tool, an ideological tool, mobilizing ethnicity for its own ends, using a specifically modern era mechanism ("nations", which are only ~200-300 years old) for the purposes of whoever is wielding it. E.g. the ambitions of an e.g. Milosevic type personality. My ancestors are from both Alsace and Germany, so I take an interest in this topic.
tomjen3 5y ago
On the contrary, I don't see any widespread nazi ideology. I see people open disagree with the left and some of its goals but that is, and I hope you agree, not the same thing.
- rvz 5y ago
  > I don't see any widespread nazi ideology Perhaps they have played too much Wolfenstein VR to come to that conclusion of seeing Nazis everywhere or some sort of hidden agenda of a secret Nazi invasion from space. SlateStarCodex (A HN favourite) put it more accurately about the media (and social media) during the recent events in 2017 and still to this day: "I also think events proved me right in saying that the media was going crazy in a particular way where they would read racism into anything..." "...At some point you just have to admit everyone went crazy for a few years and seeing started seeing Nazis in trees and rocks and grilled cheese sandwiches and Trump was an especially tempting target." [0] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-grading-my-trump-predictions https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-grading-...
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    Speech obesity is an inherent need of attention economy: the heavier the words the better they sink.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
jacquesm 5y ago
The fascist that inspired Breivik is still in parliament in NL, and has since then been joined by many (worse) examples. "Breivik's subtitle is lifted from a 2007 essay by fellow Norwegian blogger "Fjordman". Extensive citations - often plagiarised - also refer to other anti-Muslim ideologues and groups, from the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Steven Yaxley-Lennon's English Defence League to the likes of Jihadwatch and Stop the Islamisation of Nations (SION). " From: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19366000 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19366000
cannabis_sam 5y ago
It’s even more depressing when you realize there is a large contingent of Norwegians that are far more worried about their potential political association with the terrorist, than they are about the actual terrorist attack and the murder of children. Since literally the day of the attack, there has been a strong and consistent pressure from various right-wing-adjacent groups to deny the political motivations of Breivik’s gruesome crimes. (Edit: Clearly evident by the downvotes without replies… if only these sad crypto fascists could contribute to society in a meaningful way that wasn’t just hate…)
- cannabis_sam 5y ago
  (The sad dumbfucks downvoting this shit is clearly from a hatefull breed lol, fuck em and their hate-based ideology!)
skinkestek 5y ago
Two things I would do to stop this: 1. stop calling it right wing extremism. These guys are mad nationalists, not Ayn Rand (not that I am a fan of Ayn Rand either.) By calling it by its real name it won't come across as just a variant of conservative or liberal. Because we absolutely detest them and I guess I speak for most of us when I say we don't even want them to vote for us. 2. Encourage serious debate. Dare to meet people. I wrote about this the other day in the context of climate change: Climate change believers are awfully fast to reach for the branding iron whenever someone asks an innocent questions. Meanwhile climate change deniers will patiently smooth talk people and dig out "study" after "study" carefully picked to prove their point. Same goes for this: the only place you can safely discuss immigration without risking someone sneaking up on you with a red hot "racist" iron is - you probably guessed it - with the racists. Now why don't we fix this? Probably because we'd have to admit that there are some serious problems with the way immigration has been practiced.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

It's the paradox of tolerance in action. Tolerate intolerant ideals and there will be a sudden jerk to intolerance.

praptak 5y ago
The paradox disappears when you treat tolerance as a peace treaty rather than a universal moral obligation.
DoingIsLearning 5y ago
For context Karl Popper's quote on the paradox of tolerance: "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." [0] [0] K. Popper (1945) 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'
- smcl 5y ago
  Amazing that he anticipated "So much for the tolerant left" about 70 years before it became a widespread complaint
- belorn 5y ago
  > and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. It would be great if that condition was used to distinguish between individuals that are intolerant and those that simply are dissenting. A dissenter might disagree with the rationality of the arguments being presented. They might be in minority in term of public opinion. Suppression would still certainly be most unwise.
  - jolux 5y ago
    You can’t perfectly distinguish between intolerance and dissent from first principles because the distinction is inherently political, and intolerance could also be characterized as dissent in a society that practices tolerance. In most cases though I think intolerance is pretty clear: when you start denying people’s status as full citizens of a nation, you are being intolerant.
refurb 5y ago
The paradox of Tolerance says to actually tolerate intolerance unless it’s violent.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  No, it does not.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
throwaway894345 5y ago
Unfortunately the paradox of tolerance is trivially abused. If someone concludes that Islam is intolerant, that person feels that the PoT gives them moral license to behave in tolerantly toward Muslims. I think we also see this in American culture war where the definition of “intolerance” is contorted such that it matches one’s ideological opponents. Perhaps we need a firmer test for what constitutes tolerance or intolerance, although even then the semantic contortionists would probably just redefine the terms that constitute the test.
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
What's left is to determine who is tolerant and who isn't.
- hackeraccount 5y ago
  Yeah and it's a bit tricky. Best to leave it to someone who knows what they're doing. I vote for me.
harpersealtako 5y ago
It's the paradox of intolerance because it's a paradox, i.e. a logical contradiction. If you are tolerant to intolerant views, they will gain power and censor your tolerant speech. But on the other hand, if you are intolerant towards intolerant views and censor them, then it's ok for someone else to censor YOU for being intolerant. You can go a step farther and say that "tolerance towards intolerance leads to intolerance, therefore we should be intolerant towards tolerance in the first place!" It's a paradox for a reason, and no high-minded solutions of "intolerance in the name of tolerance" are able to sidestep its implications. There are two conclusions that I personally draw from it. The first is that intolerance/tolerance is not a binary, is not easily definable, and therefore there is no clear standard for what speech is right to censor and which is not. i.e. the paradox is unsolvable. The second is that "tolerance" and "intolerance" are not great words to describe the dynamics at play, they carry extra nuance that is not helpful. (if you can't tell, I'm not a fan of the paradox of tolerance)
- api 5y ago
  It reminds me of game theory and how difficult it is to create cooperator strategies that prevent the invasion of defectors in e.g. the prisoners' dilemma.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  The outcome should be, tolerance for others to express their intolerance, and you to express your intolerance of their intolerance, but no one gets to shut anyone's expression's down. You can ignore them, don't have to amplify them or give them a platform, but you don't shout them down and you don't allow them to shout others down or stop them from building their own platform. The Communists in America have been marginalized for a long time in America, but even the most totalitarian/Stalinist believing of them aren't muzzled. Whatever one's extreme belief, a truly robust society has the tools to survive their ability to talk about them.

seumars 5y ago

A recent study concluded that Breivik’s influence on right wing terrorism is close to none. But yes, the 22 july attacks is certainly a critical chapter in the overall rise of nationalist movements in the last decade. Link to study: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2021/issue-3/macklin-and-bjorgo.pdf https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/cu...

seumars 5y ago
Unsure about the downvotes, but needless to say, the results of the study are, well, positive: https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/ny-studie_-anders-behring-breivik-har-hatt-mindre-innflytelse-enn-det-man-forst-fryktet-1.15549063 https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/ny-studie_-anders-behring-breiv...

toss1 5y ago

Yup, an he was an early (in this cycle) example of the importance of the Paradox of Tolerance. "A concept advanced by the philosopher Karl Popper which claims that unlimited tolerance necessarily results in the destruction of the tolerant by the intolerant, resulting in a society in which tolerance is no longer possible. Therefore, while paradoxical to the concept of free speech, it is necessary to be intolerant of intolerance. "[1] In short, in a society of unlimited tolerance, the intolerant will drive out tolerance and take over. In This murderer's example, by simply eliminating those whose views he doesn't like. [1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
toss1 5y ago
Seems the point is being missed here - the point is that tolerant societies must nevertheless be vigilant to contain serious intolerance or it will take over. It is easy to have an absolutist rule "oh just let anyone say and do anything". Seems like the simple freedom, but the paradox points out that this WILL be hacked and destroyed by some intolerant group. It is much harder to implement a few constraints that are actually required to keep things free. But it is necessary (and that murderous rampage to literally eliminate a class of future leaders is an example of why it is necessary).

jollybean 5y ago

Ethnonationalism (or at least ethnocentrism) is as old as time, and probably the 'default' mindset. Lack of any other force, especially when combined with the 'nation' part i.e. organized nation state, it might get out of hand, which is why it can come to be a problem, but nominally, it's not. It's probably a defining feature of how we organize ourselves. So the very existence of most of our nations, is a form of 'Tolerance' of it. If you look at the borders of Europe and how they flop around over time, it becomes clear that the 'delineating' factor is mostly ethnicity, at least crudely. Sometimes, a political dynasty can force those lines (i.e. Habsburg) but those don't last. What were the chances that Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia etc. were going to stay organized under one House? Even highly authoritarian ideological secular organizations i.e. USSR failed. Napoleon failed outside his borders whereas within France, it might have just worked for him. Religious Empires aka Arabic conquest, have some lasting impact but that didn't change borders in any lasting way mostly (although maybe in SE Europe). Despite a degree of 'multi-culture' in China, the CCP authoritarianism hinges on Han ethnocentricism without which it probably would not hold together. Where those 'ethnic lines' are drawn poorly, we see trouble. Belgium is almost a 'failed political state' (literally 100's of days in a row without a government) and the 'division' is 100% because of Flemish/Walloon divide. Canada has the 'Quebec' factor which has really fundamentally affected things and has a profound effect. The 'Long Straight Lines in the Desert' in the Middle East were arguably drawn poorly after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and a lot of people tend to point at that as an existential source of instability and why we see problems to this day. Iraq is not a functional state as the Kurds have de-facto independence, and the primary source of instability is the Shia/Sunni divide, unfortunately inflamed by neighbouring parties for their own gain. The 'New World' aka US, Canada, Australia, Brazil represent something different surely, but even there, it's hard to ignore strong ethnic foundations of the colonizing powers. Greece is still Greece today after 2500 years, the borders are similar. Also note their 'primary antagonists' i.e. 'Persians' are also something very roughly resembling a state today. Of course for every 'long lived state' there are 10 that don't exist anymore, but there seems to be resiliency in culture more than anything else. So I think it's a matter of keeping 'true extremists' (aka not vast government spying and overreach) under wraps as individuals, not so much thinking about specific kinds of movements. I also believe that these kinds of people would just as easy fall under some other cultural/religious/ideological/extremist umbrella. I don't think there's much difference between 'XXX extremist' and 'YYY extremist' even if they are ostensibly opposed to one another.

alexmcc81 5y ago

From his wikipedia entry: > The Jerusalem Post describes his support for Israel as a "far-right Zionism". He calls all "nationalists" to join in the struggle against "cultural Marxists/multiculturalists" [1] Now fear of "cultural Marxists" destroying Europe/US/Christianity etc is mainstream talk in right of center politics. [1] http://www.jpost.com/International/Norway-attack-suspect-had-anti-Muslim-pro-Israel-views http://www.jpost.com/International/Norway-attack-suspect-had...

throwaway894345 5y ago

Do I misunderstand these terms, or hasn't ethnonationalism been the norm historically and pluralism quite rare?

tgv 5y ago
I think so. IMO, tolerance is a result of education, easily unlearned under pressure.
jollybean 5y ago
I think we could make a distinction between 'ethnocentrism' as identification with culture and being 'historically normative' at least somewhat, and 'ethnonationalism' which is the addition of the nation state, where it can possibly get more extremist under an operationally effective entity and codified/organized ideology aka Nazism. That's just my view.
smnrchrds 5y ago
Recent history, 19th and 20th century, yes. Older than that, no. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't French a minority language in France until the government decided to pursue a policy of francisation?
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
No, the existence of ethnicities is old but the concept of tying them to national borders is very young (modern era, and mostly 19th century and beyond) and the specific interpretation of ethonationalism here (ethno exclusionism within a set of borders) is even younger. I have to work right now so can't work through all the examples listed by another poster below, but will try to come to this thread later. But if you look at e.g. historical Europe or Rome you will rarely find borders defined by ethnicity, and you will rarely even find people defining themselves by a singular ethnicity. Look at the e.g. Franks, the Germanic political entity that ended up defining modern France (and Holland and Germany and Belgium, etc.) A Germanic-speaking tribe that took over a Celtic (Gaulic) and Latin speaking territory, went to war with other "Germans", switched to speaking Latin in some places, but not all, and on the territory where they once ruled you now have a shattered mirror of dozens of ethnicities ("German", "Dutch", "Walloon", "French", "Alsatian", etc) in a nested fractal pattern depending on what lense you use, none of which correspond to any exact political border and which are fluid and changing from decade to decade. My take: Ethnicity exists, is fluid, etc. Ethnonationalism is a tool, an ideological tool, mobilizing ethnicity for its own ends, using a specifically modern era mechanism ("nations", which are only ~200-300 years old) for the purposes of whoever is wielding it. E.g. the ambitions of an e.g. Milosevic type personality. My ancestors are from both Alsace and Germany, so I take an interest in this topic.

tomjen3 5y ago

On the contrary, I don't see any widespread nazi ideology. I see people open disagree with the left and some of its goals but that is, and I hope you agree, not the same thing.

rvz 5y ago
> I don't see any widespread nazi ideology Perhaps they have played too much Wolfenstein VR to come to that conclusion of seeing Nazis everywhere or some sort of hidden agenda of a secret Nazi invasion from space. SlateStarCodex (A HN favourite) put it more accurately about the media (and social media) during the recent events in 2017 and still to this day: "I also think events proved me right in saying that the media was going crazy in a particular way where they would read racism into anything..." "...At some point you just have to admit everyone went crazy for a few years and seeing started seeing Nazis in trees and rocks and grilled cheese sandwiches and Trump was an especially tempting target." [0] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-grading-my-trump-predictions https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/mantic-monday-grading-...
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  Speech obesity is an inherent need of attention economy: the heavier the words the better they sink.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jacquesm 5y ago

The fascist that inspired Breivik is still in parliament in NL, and has since then been joined by many (worse) examples. "Breivik's subtitle is lifted from a 2007 essay by fellow Norwegian blogger "Fjordman". Extensive citations - often plagiarised - also refer to other anti-Muslim ideologues and groups, from the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Steven Yaxley-Lennon's English Defence League to the likes of Jihadwatch and Stop the Islamisation of Nations (SION). " From: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19366000 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19366000

cannabis_sam 5y ago

It’s even more depressing when you realize there is a large contingent of Norwegians that are far more worried about their potential political association with the terrorist, than they are about the actual terrorist attack and the murder of children. Since literally the day of the attack, there has been a strong and consistent pressure from various right-wing-adjacent groups to deny the political motivations of Breivik’s gruesome crimes. (Edit: Clearly evident by the downvotes without replies… if only these sad crypto fascists could contribute to society in a meaningful way that wasn’t just hate…)

cannabis_sam 5y ago
(The sad dumbfucks downvoting this shit is clearly from a hatefull breed lol, fuck em and their hate-based ideology!)

skinkestek 5y ago

Two things I would do to stop this: 1. stop calling it right wing extremism. These guys are mad nationalists, not Ayn Rand (not that I am a fan of Ayn Rand either.) By calling it by its real name it won't come across as just a variant of conservative or liberal. Because we absolutely detest them and I guess I speak for most of us when I say we don't even want them to vote for us. 2. Encourage serious debate. Dare to meet people. I wrote about this the other day in the context of climate change: Climate change believers are awfully fast to reach for the branding iron whenever someone asks an innocent questions. Meanwhile climate change deniers will patiently smooth talk people and dig out "study" after "study" carefully picked to prove their point. Same goes for this: the only place you can safely discuss immigration without risking someone sneaking up on you with a red hot "racist" iron is - you probably guessed it - with the racists. Now why don't we fix this? Probably because we'd have to admit that there are some serious problems with the way immigration has been practiced.