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> though the fascist is Trump, not Mussolini or Hitler, so it's presumably not such a minority opinion in the US overall Does that make a difference? You could

by latexr 11mo ago

> though the fascist is Trump, not Mussolini or Hitler, so it's presumably not such a minority opinion in the US overall Does that make a difference? You could levy the exact same argument about the other two in their respective countries in their respective times. Doesn’t make it OK.

incrudible 11mo ago
It is OK in the sense that these are not fringe opinions, they are part of the mainstream political discourse that, as a serious person, you can not effectively dismiss by throwing around certain bad words like fascist.
- latexr 11mo ago
  > these are not fringe opinions Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. > throwing around certain bad words like fascist Fascism has a very clear definition. It describes a particular set of behaviours and actions, all of which you can compare to reality and determine if it’s happening or not. It’s an objective word. If anyone is trying to “dismiss” anything, it’s the people pretending it’s subjective because they support its outcome.
  - jstimpfle 11mo ago
    The therm "fascist" is definitely being thrown around like it was nothing, for the most unnewsworthy opinions or statements. There are definitely people who call anyone fascist who would dare to claim that there might be differences between the sexes on average for example. Doing so probably has a fascist element itself (not accepting different opinions). It's also unreasonable, and let me say _ridiculous_, to even doubt that there are certain differences. To be clear, it's of course not right to make any prescriptions what any specific member of a sex should or could do -- but that's a completely different thing.
    - immibis 11mo ago
      "There are differences between men and women" isn't a fascist-coded statement because of the statement itself - it's obviously a true statement no matter what you believe. It's fascist-coded. This statement is almost exclusively said by fascists, for reasons that have not much to do with the statement itself. Why is that? IMO it's because fascist slogans always tend to drift away from their actual meaning, towards things that are socially acceptable to say. Back in Hitler's time, Hitler didn't give speeches about "Let's kill all the Jews" - he'd rather give speeches about "Let's clean up Germany" even though he clearly wanted to kill all the Jews. When Hitler says "Let's clean up Germany" and the crowd goes wild, you know they're going wild because they're wild about the idea of killing the Jews, not because they're wild about the idea of mopping the floor. At least I assume you would know that now, with the benefit of hindsight. You'd have to be living under a rock not to. And that's not a euphemism for "Let's kill all the Jews" specifically. It's a general euphemism for all the bad things he wanted to do with all the people. It's not like there's one euphemism for "Let's kill the Jews" and a different euphemism for "Let's gas the Jews" and a different euphemism for "Let's kill the gays". It's more like all the euphemisms point to all of the underlying true thoughts, all at once. One loose region of semantic space points to another loose region of semantic space. You can see how Hitler could have started out saying what he actually meant, but to avoid scrutiny he'd drift towards more innocuous words, but anyone who's been following his whole campaign would know what was meant. It's a bit like Cockney rhyming slang - the pointer drifts until it has no surface-level relation to the pointee, but just because it's not surface-level obvious, doesn't mean it's unknowable (as people who pretend not to recognize the statements often claim). And if I'm in Germany in 1932 and I'm following politics, and my friend says "I support cleaning up Germany" I'm going to do a double-take. I'm going to suspect he's not talking about mopping the floor and picking up litter. Though, if I'm in Germany in 1932 and I'm ignoring politics, I might reasonably assume that he is talking about those things and get quite confused why my other friend thinks he's a fascist. In modern fascist dialogue, "men and women have differences" is a pointer to the semantic space containing statements like "women belong in the kitchen", which itself is pointer to the semantic space containing statements like "women should do what men tell them". You can see how this came about because saying "women should do what men tell them" would be unpopular, then fascists justified it with logic like "well women are biologically submissive and men are biologically dominant" and it over time it got watered down to stuff like "men are biologically different from women"
  - incrudible 11mo ago
    > Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was, but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. Consider yourself lucky. > Fascism has a very clear definition. First of all, that isn't true. Secondly, even if it was true, it wouldn't matter. You are using the word as a though-terminating cliché. That doesn't work in the long run, you'll just get ignored. As a result, you can pat yourself on the back for calling out fascism while all the behaviors and actions that you believe to be fascist are mainstreamed and affecting people's lives. If I was you, I'd be more worried about criticizing those behaviors and actions on their merits (or lack thereof), rather than trying to tie them to some textbook definition fascism and dismissing them wholesale.
    - magicalist 11mo ago
      > From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was, but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. Consider yourself lucky. ...do you not also consider yourself lucky about this? Weird phrasing.
    - latexr 11mo ago
      > From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was I sincerely doubt the slaves would agree with you. Just because one group was economically and societally OK with it, doesn’t make it morally OK. > but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century Again, I doubt the slaves would agree with you. > Consider yourself lucky. That’s a really strange comment. What does that mean? > First of all, that isn't true. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism Seems pretty clear to me. > You are using the word as a though-terminating cliché. Of course I’m not, I barely use the word. Pay attention to the person you’re replying to. What you’re doing is putting me in a box of other people you’ve seen online and making a bunch of wrong assumptions. You’re not engaging with the arguments, you’re fighting against a straw man in your imagination.
  - grog454 11mo ago
    > Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. It may well have been morally OK to most people (see: moral relativism), and since you're implying it wouldn't have been OK to you, it's worth pointing out that you probably wouldn't have done anything about it in the relevant time periods. If you're an American you don't even need to try that hard to make moral relativism visceral: was the displacement (and far worse) of Native American tribes "OK"? I'd say no, but it isn't morally urgent enough to me or the 99%+ of Americans who are unwilling to pack their bags and return the entirety of two continents to the native descendants.
CraftingLinks 11mo ago
Yes it does. When you live in Europe and listened to your late grand parents talk about the war. In Europe, "fascist" actually has still some weight to it and it doesnt get thrown around so casually as the US, yet. Same strory with the word "communist"...
- latexr 11mo ago
  I do live in Europe, and I’m old enough to have close friends and family who were alive during fascist dictatorships.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]

by latexr 11mo ago

incrudible 11mo ago

It is OK in the sense that these are not fringe opinions, they are part of the mainstream political discourse that, as a serious person, you can not effectively dismiss by throwing around certain bad words like fascist.

latexr 11mo ago
> these are not fringe opinions Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. > throwing around certain bad words like fascist Fascism has a very clear definition. It describes a particular set of behaviours and actions, all of which you can compare to reality and determine if it’s happening or not. It’s an objective word. If anyone is trying to “dismiss” anything, it’s the people pretending it’s subjective because they support its outcome.
- jstimpfle 11mo ago
  The therm "fascist" is definitely being thrown around like it was nothing, for the most unnewsworthy opinions or statements. There are definitely people who call anyone fascist who would dare to claim that there might be differences between the sexes on average for example. Doing so probably has a fascist element itself (not accepting different opinions). It's also unreasonable, and let me say _ridiculous_, to even doubt that there are certain differences. To be clear, it's of course not right to make any prescriptions what any specific member of a sex should or could do -- but that's a completely different thing.
  - immibis 11mo ago
    "There are differences between men and women" isn't a fascist-coded statement because of the statement itself - it's obviously a true statement no matter what you believe. It's fascist-coded. This statement is almost exclusively said by fascists, for reasons that have not much to do with the statement itself. Why is that? IMO it's because fascist slogans always tend to drift away from their actual meaning, towards things that are socially acceptable to say. Back in Hitler's time, Hitler didn't give speeches about "Let's kill all the Jews" - he'd rather give speeches about "Let's clean up Germany" even though he clearly wanted to kill all the Jews. When Hitler says "Let's clean up Germany" and the crowd goes wild, you know they're going wild because they're wild about the idea of killing the Jews, not because they're wild about the idea of mopping the floor. At least I assume you would know that now, with the benefit of hindsight. You'd have to be living under a rock not to. And that's not a euphemism for "Let's kill all the Jews" specifically. It's a general euphemism for all the bad things he wanted to do with all the people. It's not like there's one euphemism for "Let's kill the Jews" and a different euphemism for "Let's gas the Jews" and a different euphemism for "Let's kill the gays". It's more like all the euphemisms point to all of the underlying true thoughts, all at once. One loose region of semantic space points to another loose region of semantic space. You can see how Hitler could have started out saying what he actually meant, but to avoid scrutiny he'd drift towards more innocuous words, but anyone who's been following his whole campaign would know what was meant. It's a bit like Cockney rhyming slang - the pointer drifts until it has no surface-level relation to the pointee, but just because it's not surface-level obvious, doesn't mean it's unknowable (as people who pretend not to recognize the statements often claim). And if I'm in Germany in 1932 and I'm following politics, and my friend says "I support cleaning up Germany" I'm going to do a double-take. I'm going to suspect he's not talking about mopping the floor and picking up litter. Though, if I'm in Germany in 1932 and I'm ignoring politics, I might reasonably assume that he is talking about those things and get quite confused why my other friend thinks he's a fascist. In modern fascist dialogue, "men and women have differences" is a pointer to the semantic space containing statements like "women belong in the kitchen", which itself is pointer to the semantic space containing statements like "women should do what men tell them". You can see how this came about because saying "women should do what men tell them" would be unpopular, then fascists justified it with logic like "well women are biologically submissive and men are biologically dominant" and it over time it got watered down to stuff like "men are biologically different from women"
- incrudible 11mo ago
  > Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was, but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. Consider yourself lucky. > Fascism has a very clear definition. First of all, that isn't true. Secondly, even if it was true, it wouldn't matter. You are using the word as a though-terminating cliché. That doesn't work in the long run, you'll just get ignored. As a result, you can pat yourself on the back for calling out fascism while all the behaviors and actions that you believe to be fascist are mainstreamed and affecting people's lives. If I was you, I'd be more worried about criticizing those behaviors and actions on their merits (or lack thereof), rather than trying to tie them to some textbook definition fascism and dismissing them wholesale.
  - magicalist 11mo ago
    > From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was, but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. Consider yourself lucky. ...do you not also consider yourself lucky about this? Weird phrasing.
  - latexr 11mo ago
    > From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was I sincerely doubt the slaves would agree with you. Just because one group was economically and societally OK with it, doesn’t make it morally OK. > but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century Again, I doubt the slaves would agree with you. > Consider yourself lucky. That’s a really strange comment. What does that mean? > First of all, that isn't true. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism Seems pretty clear to me. > You are using the word as a though-terminating cliché. Of course I’m not, I barely use the word. Pay attention to the person you’re replying to. What you’re doing is putting me in a box of other people you’ve seen online and making a bunch of wrong assumptions. You’re not engaging with the arguments, you’re fighting against a straw man in your imagination.
- grog454 11mo ago
  > Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. It may well have been morally OK to most people (see: moral relativism), and since you're implying it wouldn't have been OK to you, it's worth pointing out that you probably wouldn't have done anything about it in the relevant time periods. If you're an American you don't even need to try that hard to make moral relativism visceral: was the displacement (and far worse) of Native American tribes "OK"? I'd say no, but it isn't morally urgent enough to me or the 99%+ of Americans who are unwilling to pack their bags and return the entirety of two continents to the native descendants.

CraftingLinks 11mo ago

Yes it does. When you live in Europe and listened to your late grand parents talk about the war. In Europe, "fascist" actually has still some weight to it and it doesnt get thrown around so casually as the US, yet. Same strory with the word "communist"...

latexr 11mo ago
I do live in Europe, and I’m old enough to have close friends and family who were alive during fascist dictatorships.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]