3 ms·
This reads like a big barrel of flamebait, but here's a European perspective that might be informative for some. I do agree that overt and unambiguous remembran
by stereolambda 4y ago
This reads like a big barrel of flamebait, but here's a European perspective that might be informative for some. I do agree that overt and unambiguous remembrance of totalitarian atrocities is important and beneficial. I have been badly surprised to discover the room that exists in the Anglosphere to casually joke about these things (or maybe existed some years back). I mean people shouldn't also be casually joking about massacres that happened on the American soil.
That being said, there is a difference between: (A) Nazi Germany, where a party rose to power in the modern world that recognized universal human rights and tried to preserve peace (League of Nations), with the official platform of nihilism, cult of strength, imperial conquest and murdering people (B) the long road of the USA from what was essentially pre-modern brutality and Mongol Empire-style conquest and colonialism. This a difference between difficulty of changing society once it's grown into bad ways for centuries (USA) and actively conspiring to destroy a relatively sane social contract (Germany). Both are instances of evil in the world, but fully equating them does harm to our understanding of history.
There is further nuance here. Hannah Arendt theorized that totalitarianism was partly importing colonial atrocities to Europe. The Confederate ideology was somewhat Nazi-like in that it was a new concoction of reactionary ideas that wouldn't fly on the public scene in the age of Enlightenment. But I think the simplistic way of talking about these topics that's in vogue now is often just an excuse for fanaticism and self-righteousness, with care for what happened coming second.