[Image IDs: Tweets from (((Yonatan Zunger))) (@/ yonatanZunger) on 10/22/17 reading: People seem to think “Nazi” is meant as a slur or term of abuse. It’s not: it has a straightforward, literal meaning.
After WWII, there was a campaign to argue that Nazism had no real ideology, that it was just some group of people, to delegitimize it.
That had some value, but is downside was that people forgot that Nazism *does* have an ideology, and it never went away.
Nazism conceives of the world as a struggle between races.
That’s not “race” in the 20c US “black/white” sense; Jews, Slavs, Britons, and so on are all “races,” too.
And Nazis believed that races have certain characteristics, which are passed on through the blood: and that they are bound to some land.
There are a few other articles of Nazi belief: for example, that acting (“the will”) is better than thinking (a sign of weaker races).
And that the strength of a race is most strongly exemplified through the untrammeled Will of its leaders.
(If you’re thinking, “Wait, you just made an ideology around obeying people who don’t think?” you may have spotted one of the problems.)
The “National Socialism” is a very real thing, too. It’s socialism *for members of the nation.* And they decide who’s in and who’s out.
Government subsidies for “good, decent people?” Sure. Just don’t give it to those parasites.
So here’s the important thing: These ideas make up Nazism. You don’t need to wear a swastika to believe in them.
And here’s the other important thing: If you’re in the US, you may have grown up hearing “Nazis are the bad guys” without learning *why.*
Or you may have learned about concentration camps, but not about what happened in the ten years leading up to them.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they didn’t build camps. they passed laws restricting jobs for “non-German” races (nations).
They argued that money spent on the disabled was simply a drain on society and we should move them to hospitals.
They held angry public rallies which often included violence. Their leaders and militias flaunted the law, because they knew it didn’t apply.
They saw who they could kill and get away with, and gradually, over time, expanded that.
They encouraged “voluntary self-deportation” of unwanted Jews, by banning them from holding jobs.
When no country wanted a few million refugees, it was their proof that nobody wanted the Jews.
So camps were started up as administrative holding centers, where they could be put to good use - that is, as slave labor.
The disabled, moved to remote hospitals, were out of sight out of mind: so that’s where they did their first experiments of mass murder.
I could go on about this for hours, but the point is: this was a story of an ideology which did exactly what it said on the label.
Not by showing up one night and starting to kill people, but slowly, gradually, building up public normalization of what they did.
When I refer to Nazis in the US, I am not using this as some kind of generic slur against people I disagree with.
Nazis are people who subscribe to the ideology of Nazism, plain and simple, whatever organizations they do or don’t affiliate with.
Nazism is an ideology fundamentally inimical to everyone who isn’t a Nazi. It is a known and proven threat to life.
“Punching Nazis” is a way to signal to them that their ideology is not welcome in the public sphere, to keep them quiet and afraid.
If Nazis are extremely few in number, and very reluctant to speak, then their public speech becomes an opportunity for the public…
to rally against them, to reiterate its refusal to allow this. This is where the old ACLU “speech for Nazis” argument came from.
If they are somewhat bigger in number, they become a part of public discourse - thus legitimating questions like “well, *are* [X] people?”
To legitimate these questions is to require every such group to continuously prove their humanity, an their right to even argue back.
This is not a real counterspeech remedy. Normalizing the question of “is [X] human?” places the burden on them to continuously prove it.
This is why Nazi speech is a public danger when they are in anything but the smallest numbers.
What are their numbers? cf this Reuters/lpsos poll from a few weeks ago: centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/wp…
14% of people (N=5,360) were neutral to positive on Nazis *when referred to by that name*. Support for their ideals was much higher.
Punching Nazis is a minor control mechanism: it silences the danger without amplifying its speech. But it doesn’t solve anything.
Historically, there has been exactly one solution for Nazis. It did not come cheap.
Never forget what Nazism is - and that when it appears, it needs to be stopped immediately and vigorously.
“Nazi” is not a slur, and it should not be used for anyone who does not advocate those ideas. But it should be used for those who do.
And for those: no peace, no sympathy, no quarter, and no mercy. // /End IDs]
