Populism and Nazism

[Wycoff]

Re: Wycoff - you are wrong

Originally posted by FredKarno You seem to be saying that socialism is a benign force, working for the good of the whole.

I didn't say it was benign, and I didn't say that it wasn't. Notice that I've said that a certain level of socialism/ group consciousness is incompatable with liberal democracy. If you think that's bad, then you can say its not benign. I think that too much individualism is, in the end, bad for society, but I am also distrustful of too much group consciousness. People can do many bad things when they say that the needs of the many should always trump the needs of the few. I'd probably be about a (5,5) on that graph.

[Kidlicious]

Don't feed Ned's DL.

[FredKarno]

don't fanny about

whats this, I do and I don't? Rendolant of university brainwashing I think. Graphs about politics? What twaddle.
Sorry mate, the real world is far removed from all this socio-politically-correct gunge.
Socialism has caused the deaths of tens of millions of people since 1918. It cannot be excused at all.
Do not think by saying this is cause of a label - for example, that I am 'right wing nut' , or a 'neo-con'.
We all love to label people, but socialists are the arch-exponents of this - working class, middle class, Aryians, Jews, Kulaks..............

[Wycoff]

Re: don't fanny about

Originally posted by FredKarno

Sorry mate, the real world is far removed from all this socio-politically-correct gunge.

What are you talking about? Just trolling? I just get a kick from someone calling me politically correct.

[FredKarno]

crap education

Have you been to a university? If your chart was a piss-take then please accept my apologies. If it was serious then you have been badly brainwashed.
Of course I may be too harsh in my judgment on you.

[Wycoff]

Re: crap education

Originally posted by FredKarno
Have you been to a university? If your chart was a piss-take then please accept my apologies. If it was serious then you have been badly brainwashed.

What was so bad about it? Have you read any of the posts explaining the terms in order to give the graph some context? If you're trying to offend me you're failing miserably.

[FredKarno]

I've been out of order. Too much booze, with a mighty twist of anger and bitterness. I'll be much more repentent tommorow too!
You seem to be a decent bloke. All the best to you. Complety knackered, must go now. Cheerio.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by FredKarno
I've been out of order. Too much booze, with a mighty twist of anger and bitterness.

No problem, I've been there before myself.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by FredKarno
I've been out of order. Too much booze, with a mighty twist of anger and bitterness. I'll be much more repentent tommorow too!
You seem to be a decent bloke. All the best to you. Complety knackered, must go now. Cheerio.

He wont be back until he gets drunk again.

[RGBVideo]

thread

people who seriously post to a thread made by a college junkie who advocates sex with 11-year olds and has too much time in his hands.

[Kidlicious]

Someone is feeling superior again.

[Whaleboy]

I'm back!

Ok all I've taken some of the criticisms on board, especially some of Wycoffs excellent points, though I still don't agree with all of them I think in the changes of my argument you can see how its evolved accordingly. Re-written the article, cannibalised bits of the old one so sorry about that, and why the hell won't Excel do my XY graphs?

******

Often it has been said and accused of the British National Party, and their ilk on the far-right, that they are Nazis, as though to associate anyone on the far right by definition with Hitler. Certainly their history of violence, terrorism, anti-Semitism and thuggery supports that view and yet many of them claim not to be, on the grounds that they do not worship Hitler, are not German and do not consider the superiority of the Aryan race, and supposedly have no hatred for Jews. This I grant them. However, this is also obvious. I am to examine whether any comparisons or associations with Nazi Germany should end here and ultimately if we can attribute any of the responsibility for the crimes of that state onto those we denote as Nazi.

To answer this question, we must first examine historical Nazism, and so we must surely begin at the most palpable features; anti-Semitism and Aryan racial superiority. Who can fail to be aware of the inordinate suffering and death of the holocaust, and the near-destruction of one of Europe’s most prodigious cultures? Against this background of concentration camps, slave labour and forced deportation, the virtues of a pure Aryan race were extolled and the people plied with propaganda such as the need for Lebensraum (living space) and even the bastardisation of Plato’s Atlantis.

Apparently the Aryans were descended from Atlantans who came to Earth on a comet, but retreated to the icy North on contact with those who were to become the Jews et al. Those blonde-haired, blue-eyed interstellar immigrants apparently preferred Scandinavia and Northern Germany due to its similarity to a giant snowball. What is even more absurd, if one can believe it, is that manufactured ideology such as this was used to bind people together in a very real way, best seen in Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film “The Triumph of the Will”, where we can see soldiers marching in formation to stirring harmonies and Hitler claiming to be a prophet from God.

Can either of these; horrendous beyond belief on the one hand and ridiculous on the other, be used to define Nazism? If one is a logical positivist, then perhaps this alone is satisfactory, however if we are seeking to define Nazism, it is a more prudent approach to examine it not from the direction of property but cause. If we were to limit the definition to specifics, including a direct prejudice and contempt against Jews, then we might as well claim that Nazism is necessarily German, requires Adolf Hitler, or Cpl. Friedrich Ernst Ziegelheim of the SS Panzer Division on the Eastern Front in 1944. The claim that Nazism is the specific and determinable sum of its collective consequences is dangerously opaque, since it denies any attempt at generalising the forces that caused it, and thus prevents us from learning any lessons from it. The claim “it could always be different in the future” would preclude any attempt to apply the events of our past to situations in the present. It is far more useful to ask “why?” in order to determine if there was anything at work then that could present an issue now. Let us assume then that there is something beneath the specific whens and wheres and we shall come back to this later.

One useful clue as to something we can use as a deeper definition can be found in the name of the Nazi party; Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National Socialist German Workers Party – National Socialism. Can it be said that the Nazis had the properties of Nationalism and Socialism? An opaque question at first, but consider the concepts at hand. Nationalism is the preference for ones own “group” of people over others. That group could be most obviously ones nation but this could extend to any distinction between one collection of people and others, for example race, religion or politic. Whether this has any merit begs the question of the logical validity of such distinctions.

It is a fallacy that such distinctions have any inherent worth; that “it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country” to quote the Roman poet Horace, seems absurd to me when that country is nothing more than a manmade political entity, a geographic location and a culture that changes every day without need of a single death or blinded eye. It makes no more sense to prefer ones country over another than it does to prefer apples over oranges. If one is more beneficial, then that is an economic motivation, liable to change and since it does not make any claims as to the properties of that nation, nationalism cannot apply. Nationalists respond to this by claiming that it is reasonable to wish to defend and fight for ones you love; family and friends for instance and with that I have no contention. However to go to say that they love their country and culture and their brethren within seems nonsensical. Unless one has knowledge of everyone, how is it possible to love them - to wish to go to such extremes, and how more so than one who happens to be on the other side of one of those artificial boundaries?

Nazism maintained the superiority of the German people and the Aryan race over other nations, peoples and religions, notably Slavic nations and peoples, Jews, or anyone unrelated to ABBA. It would be impossible to claim that they did not possess nationalism, but can we distinguish between cause and manifestation, or nationalism as an internally consistent holism or something more general of which German nationalism was merely a symptom? It is largely a question of semantics of course which ignores the fact that Nazism wasn’t simply a category within which we can place Hitler, the German people and the Holocaust, as in any ideology there were differences at the individual level; in degrees of nationalism or fervour for example. To be able to talk about a political system as a singularity is one of the luxuries of retrospect, in application it is largely useless because to make a conscious decision to follow a set of ideologies requires the individuals consent, which will come out of circumstances as subjective as the individual themselves. We look at Nazism today and see the net result as being an extreme form of nationalism, but this had to be a human phenomenon, and not something forced upon that population by the History Channel. Naturally, this lends itself to the view that Nazi nationalism was symptomatic of some human condition, and nationalism as a concept would interface with that condition in its simplest form; a preference for ones own group above others. What would carve Nazism into its exact form were situation factors.

To view socialism in this way is more difficult because to use that word we instantly think of a myriad in political thought, thousands of different Marxist systems from the brutal to the benign, the successful and the horrific. If I were to choose one and apply it to Nazi Germany, one could easily present another that appears antithetical and claim it to be the one true socialism instead. Quite clearly this is unsatisfactory and solving this problem necessitates a similar application of Occam’s razor to socialism as with nationalism. Historically it can be loosely defined as the use of state or majority control over individualism; say competition, egoism and resources. This still seems rather vague however, considering the first people to use the word described it as “noncoercive communities of people working non-competitively for the spiritual and physical well-being of all” (1). This emphasis on non-competitiveness is key because it assumes altruism (in other words that humans can act out of no self-interest, and thus absolutely for others) and leads to non-elitism. If this were not the case then egoism would be fundamental, and so any pretence at a cooperative society would merely be a means to an end for the individual, and liable to change should the economic or social situation demand it. This would necessarily render all socialist systems false, therefore the premise for socialism has to be altruism and a cooperative society. This has the obvious social consequence of ‘the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few’ and a form of utilitarianism evolving. It is this utilitarianism that seems the biggest factor to vary, since it determines tyranny by majority or minority. In a reciprocal fashion to the social consequence works the economic; the level of taxation, state-ownership and the extent of commerce. This means that socialism as I define it is the conceptual precursor to all socialist and communist systems – the line between the two is not distinct but imprecise and vague.

Was socialism then present in Nazism? This is a complex question to answer, and to do so thoroughly would require a major dissertation on the contradictions in Nazi society. Hitler, for example, encouraged a highly competitive environment amongst his staff to which some attribute the inefficiency and ultimate downfall of the German military machine. On the other hand, and most significantly, the people were encouraged to believe in the unity of the German people and their liberation from oppressors; the Jews for supposedly hoarding the money of pure ethnic Germans, and Marxists for signing the 1918 Armistice and burning down the Reichstag. The value of Germans and their commodities were defined by virtue of their being German and not market value, an economic distinction that sits on the fault line between altruism and egoism itself. Though any system or state professing to be capitalist or socialist will always have anomalies in the guise of another politic, it seems safe to say that socialism was present in Nazism in such a way that it was rooted in the heart of nationalism. It is easy to see how nationalism leads to a form of exclusive socialism by the very claim that one prefers this group over another which necessarily states that yours is superior and others inferior. Whether or not you describe them as inferior in relative or absolute terms depends on whether a declaration that your group is superior is subjective or categorical. This is bound to lead to unity and socialism since it gives the impression that one is under attack. The defence of ones group as a whole over the individual against any external threat is a way in which socialism can lead to nationalism, hence the interplay between the two.

To create a situation where national socialism escalates by introducing a threat is not a new trend - the likes of Julius Caesar and Hermann Goering (3) were famous exponents of this phenomenon. It simply requires an appeal to the population, to create a populist movement which brings us to the second part of this article, the mechanism of national socialism through populism.

We notice throughout this explanation of nationalism and socialism that the views and behaviour of the population is key, in order to appeal to the masses rhetoric is used to suit the popular mood which takes the form of nationalism (the superiority or espousal of ones nation) and socialism (the unity, altruism and cooperation of the masses). To introduce an external threat, a scapegoat, is to heighten those elements in a dualistic relationship with whatever particular enemy happens to be convenient. In extreme circumstances, the justifications for persecution, deportation and genocide are based upon this premise, and rey upon popular support.

Populist elements can be identified in all political campaigns in the West, great and small. I can think of no better demonstration than the recent presidential election in the USA, where traditionally the party with the support of churchgoers is almost guaranteed to win. The Republican’s pretension of being “moral” through it’s persecution of gay people and the denial of rights to women over their own bodies helped to secure those Christian votes, and thus victory.

One sees those seeking to gain power through populism therefore railing against what is perceived to be elitist or aristocratic, we see rhetoric such as “the ivory tower intellectual elite”, “they think they know better than you, “the left/liberal media” (they’re preaching tolerance, God help us all) and the like. An intriguing observation is that this populist critique of the status quo is a favourite of the far-right, and yet is a predictable consequence of socialism, forming the basis of Marxist principles. Any distinction of “left” and “right” it seems is insufficient, historically those definitions were merely platonic whereas the nature of a party supposedly on the “right” for example will often transcend economic distinctions – political distinctions are far more fluid.

The anti-establishment rote is performed in an effort to appeal to a popular sentiment of oppression or subjugation of the masses at the hands of the elite who are often painted as being anti-patriotic and somehow against the interests of that nation, i.e., “The anti-British liberal elite” and such from the BNP (noted for their glittering social commentaries such as “the DJ didn’t sound black on the phone”).

To introduce an enemy, whether within through some class construct a la socialism or without in nationalism is an inevitable consequence of populism if you accept that populism requires a unified group of people of the same opinion or a wave of “people power” in order to be popular. An opinion, a race, any shared characteristic is relative, and as such only relevant where it can be compared to that which is different.

It seems inevitable, if incredible that populism causes an interplay between nationalism and socialism, or rather some exclusive socialism, since inclusive/libertarian socialism is also possible, but is less reliant upon nationalism. Certainly the egalitarianism with an anti-elite attitude, brutal utilitarianism never mind the good of the economy (economists and sociologists requiring numeracy and literacy which is far too elitist of course) and a belief in the graciousness and superiority of the group are indicative of socialist tendencies. Further to this is an extension of populism itself. That popular = correct leads to a sort of vigilante morality, since any notion of objective correctness or impartial justice is lost in favour of subjective weight of numbers. As a conclusion, an atmosphere of state-sponsored witch-hunts or totalitarianism is fostered for all; tyranny by majority via a populist government. Never mind the sufferings that can be inflicted on those unlucky enough to be the victims of the populist, people themselves can be manipulated into happily surrendering their liberties when they feel threatened, as again described by the prophetic Herr Goering.

We think of totalitarians as dictatorships who govern in spite of the people, but is such governance possible without popularity? To an extent perhaps, but the most stable dictatorships throughout history have been those with popular support and coming to power without it is a difficult task indeed. The Nazi’s on the other hand were voted into power through a democratic election. That the state must come before the individual is a common thread in totalitarian and extreme socialist governments and this again leads to nationalism.

Along with democracy, populism is at first glance noble in appearance; governing for and by the people as a whole but the entire concept rests upon the assumption “that which is popular is correct”. A peculiar supposition and a falsehood (argumentum ad populum/bandwagon fallacy). It should be self-evident that this is so – the child bullied for not following a particular fashion is comforted with this refutation and yet will grow up with the same canard the moment he is told he is under attack. Semantic word games determine whether or not such a lie is taken seriously, and noble lies are built upon it. It is, after all, empowering for the masses and encourages unity in the face of something supposed to be an enemy, whether that results in the exclusion or the annihilation of that enemy.

How is populism able to achieve this? It all comes down to human psychology, which is something that will have important consequences later. When people are told they are under attack and given a group to which they can staple their banner, they are succumbing to obedience. This exploitation of our capacity for fears and prejudices was realised by the psychologist Stanley Milgram, who noted that obedience “is a deeply ingrained behaviour tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy and moral conduct”. (2) With a large group of discontented people, this is like a spark to a tinderbox; it does not always require a prominent individual to cause obedience. A self-sustaining anger and suspicion in many communities is sufficient, and then it is simply a question of obedience to popular opinion. We see this increasing in Britain with a moral panic regarding immigration. Urban legends, uninformed hysteria and a need for a moral “baddie” against which to band together and fight make it exceptionally easy for a populist like the BNP to associate itself with the interests of the masses and identify an enemy in a different culture, race or even an alien philosophy. Latent prejudice makes that choice for him. The unfortunate people to come under this attack was the Jews by the Nazis, taking advantage of an entrenched intolerance toward them in Europe at the time. The would-be victims of the BNP in the UK at the time of writing are Muslims and Asian immigrants, though throughout their history it has been black people, Jews, communists, whatever prejudice was fashionable they adopt it.

This tribalism reduces the collective “span of sympathy” of the group being courted by the Populist, such that an “us and them” mentality is formed. This was demonstrated in 1954 by Muzafer Sherif in the “Robbers Cave” experiment (4). Friendly relationships were encouraged between a selection of boys who were then separated into two groups. Activities changed from the cooperative to the competitive between the two groups whose attitudes to each other soon became hostile, which demonstrates how easily people can be manipulated into abandoning sympathy simply on the basis of group. The collective tendency then is to consider solely the perceived negativity of amorality of their victims and not the underlying narrative that caused this perception.

We might, thinking as individuals, stand a better change of doing so, a chance that sadly decreases when one in authority says otherwise. The new enemy can then be made to appear somehow less human, less worthy, less good. Reveal that the baddies are attacking the goodies, often by amplifying a relatively small indiscretion (the more repugnant the better) into a perception of major deviancy or malevolence and the group will gladly fall into line behind their new popular champion. This is where the tabloid media play a role as both the means and a symptom of populism. Surely the ultimate conclusion and aim of every populist, the more extreme this situation, the more powerful the popular become.

[Whaleboy]

Earlier, I stated that populism is based in human psychological tendencies and this is important here. Taking populism as leading to a symbiotic relationship to national socialism (itself in symbiosis) then it means the capacity for populism, and thus national socialism are as human as the tendency to obedience and tribalism. This succeeds in demonstrating the point earlier that national socialism not merely a terrible historical anomaly, and where it could be said that Nazism a manifestation of German anti-Semitism or racial supremacy, that in turn is a product of national socialism. Terrifyingly, it raises the spectre that no human subject to known psychology is exempt from the possibility of national socialism in the future and whether or not the potential of national socialism (later say that an extreme example of this potential can be demonstrated in Nazi Germany wrt Graph) can be realised depends on subtle variables that cannot be accounted for here. Reasonable examples include a culture of patriotism, level of education and of course socio-economics.

One should note an interesting irony in the people and those who would be their popular leaders. The leaders, or those with the loudest voices, are able to wield power by changing peoples’ opinion, yet their power is limited by that opinion. No matter the style of government, an executive can only go so far without the support of the people. In which case one should not differentiate between those in power and the people themselves, they are the same entity, it is merely incidental who is trusted as the leader. When the die is thrown, whatsoever face is drawn is still a part of the die. Thanks to human nature as previously discussed, the two cannot function without each other, they are an organism. Perhaps then one face in six is the Nazi face, proportional to the degree of populism.

This conceptual relationship should be possible to graph in an analogous fashion, as follows:

****

We see that the manifestation of Nazi Germany can be represented as a specific point on both graphs, while the surrounding area one could call its cousins. It is here that we find our answer to the problem of the BNP and Nazism. Are they the same political system as Nazi Germany? No. They are different points on the graph. They are symptomatic of the same phenomenon however, and due to their extreme populism have consequently high levels of national socialism.

National socialism is not something we can so easily confine to the history books, nor is it something we can sit comfortably and ignore, for it has roots in the psychology of every human, a potential that can be unleashed in varying degrees depending on populism and the conditions in which it can thrive. It is something bigger than “Nazism”, if for the sake of semantics we use the latter to describe Nazi Germany, just as we say that communism is bigger than Stalinist Russia. It is something to be observed in all human communities, a weapon that remains so regardless of target or user. How can this be combated? I haven’t slept in days, and I intend to spend this morning dancing on the furniture. We’ll save it for another day.

Refs:
(1)http://www.britannica.com/ebc/articl...=socialism&ct=
(2)http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html
(3)http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_G%C3%B6ring
(4)http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psych...xperiment.html

****EDIT: Damn graphs will have to at the bottom

[Whaleboy]

Originally posted by VJ
thread

people who seriously post to a thread made by a college junkie who advocates sex with 11-year olds and has too much time in his hands.

Firstly if you don't like the thread, then **** off and don't waste your time. Secondly, wtf???

[Drogue]

Originally posted by VJ
thread

people who seriously post to a thread made by a college junkie who advocates sex with 11-year olds and has too much time in his hands.

You've become quite the acid-tongue lately!