This is the real issue with troll communities (and subreddits). The_Donald started out as a troll community, and it was effectively overrun with nutjobs.
Yes, satirizing these people is hilarious, but they’re often too stupid to differentiate between ironic support and endorsement and actual agreement. These are the same people who routinely fall for The Onion articles.
Don’t be surprised at the level of stupidity people are willing to duck under to confirm their own beliefs. Lol
A wise man once said “Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.”
Makes me think of the “fake it 'til you make it” saying. Guess the “pretending to be an idiot” folk end up becoming idiots from all the faking they did.
So the thing about calling right wingers nazis, is right wingers who seemingly have no qualms about people with actual nazi paraphernalia supporting the same causes and going to the same marches, but the second this is pointed out their retort is "what! we’re not nazis! the nazis were the national socialist workers party! it says socialist right in the name! Ergo the socialists are nazis!
I saw a video from Ronnie-boy who equated Fascism with the left because Fascism is government control and the left wants government control. I’ve found with the most far right, any “-ism” is a leftist idea, except for conservatism. That one’s all about freedom.
As someone who is fairly into ideologies I can tell you, that national-socialism or nazism, which is a sub-ideology of fascism isn’t called that for no reason. If you look at it closely it does take a lot home from nationalism, but socialisim as well. These are right-wing (with some exceptions) and left-wing ideologies respectively and both can take extremes. This is why a lot of people in the sphere call the fusion of these two the “Third Way”, meaning it’s between the extreme left and extreme right and opposite to Centrism, which is between the calmer ends of the two sides. This means that nazis are neither right nor left-wing, at least as seen in european politics, in the exteremely polarized american political climate they (or at least their grossly dumbed-down interpretation) could be considered extremly right wing, but I think american politics are stupid anyway. And now to answer the question (pretending I didn’t just saw a question where there wasn’t any) anyone who calls nazis leftists just has a politcal bias against them and tries to make them appear even worse by blending them with those goddamn liberals. Okay but seriously, people really shouldn’t dumb down “old enemies” because that just means that they didn’t learn anything.
You’re “fairly into ideologies”, but you’re not well versed on political literacy. It seems like you got your idea of where Nazism sits on the political spectrum from the PoliticalCompassMemes subreddit (where “nAzIS ARe aUtHCENter” is the most commonly promoted talking point).
First and foremost, “third way” isn’t even the correct term to use here. You’re most likely referring to the term “third position”, which is an honest mistake in terminology, but that term refers to a different thing than third way entirely.
“Third way” refers to the more social liberal side of centrism. “Third position” is in reference to fascist tendencies to reject the binary notion of either standard socialist economics and/or laissez-faire free market capitalist economics. This comes with an important caveat: rejection of “typical socialism” and “typical capitalism” doesn’t mean you’re neither left-wing or right-wing, as we don’t really, in terminology, use your stance on socialism and capitalism as an inherent way of noting whether you’re left-wing or right-wing.
Some people might hear this reference to Nazism and assume this means it’ neither left-wing or right-wing, but this is a misinterpretation of definitions. Nazis most certainly were not free market capitalists, but they weren’t socialists either. However, the methods in which you run your economy are not necessarily the prime dictator of being left-wing and/or right-wing, like I said.
Nazis have historically been, and to this day still are, placed on the far-right end of the political spectrum due to upholding hierarchical doctrines within society because left and right are not “socialism vs. capitalism” as much as they are “egalitarianism vs hierarchy”. Nazis didn’t take hugely consistent economic positions, but they still were extremely hierarchical, and that serves as the basis of considering their ideology far-right.
Unless you want to argue that Nazis are not fans of rigid hierarchies (which would be foolish to do so), then you should, in some capacity, be able to acknowledge them sitting on the far-right end of the polspec.
Also, one more thing to mention. Leftists tend to be socialists because it’s an egalitarian mode of production. However, you can still support a less regulative corporatist economy like Nazis did while not being any degree of egalitarianism. Just stating this so people don’t misinterpret me as saying that “leftists aren’t inherently socialists”.
You are probably right about the third way/position thing, it’s just that I haven’t informed from english-speaking sources, so I’ve never been really sure of the correct translation. This might just have completly screwed up the meaning of my comment. As for the rest I don’t oppose the idea that nazis are more right than left, I just say they incorporate enough ideas of the left-wing, both cultural and economic to be called a blend of the two sides.
Nazis took nothing from the left wing other than some rhetoric they used to gain popular support from the working class. Their politics were more inspired by European colonialism than anything else. Lebensraum is basically just manifest destiny applied to Europe.
Nazis are right wing in a European political context, that is not really a discussion in academia. This has nothing to do with current American politics, this is established history.
The only people claiming that they are left wing are right wing fascists who tries to distance themselves from the term (while doing everything in their power to emulate them), and that is done by both European and American fascists.
I got it, but in our current age with what’s going on we need to be clear unfortunately. We will not accept fascist/Nazi views and should do everything possible to remove them from society. Tolerance of intolerance (specifically in the context of this post) does not fly. Those views are not welcome in modern society. They should never be welcome in any society. This isn’t for you SeaJ. It’s for anyone who could even contemplate that ideology. If you sympathize with Nazi ideology you are not welcome here and “here” is Earth. Go subjugate Pluto and get off my planet!
~70% of communication is nonverbal. Body language and tone of voice convey that you intend something opposite of the literal words you’re using. When you throw the nonverbal aspect out the window for an entirely verbal exchange, especially online where everybody is a stranger and potentially something akin to but not necessarily a Nazi, it’s pretty difficult to ascertain whether you’re dealing with somebody who is broadcasting silly thoughts to satirically display the stupidity and absurdity of supporting fascism or an actual supporter of fascism who is actually stupid and absurd. Without using italics or “/s” we can’t know for sure because there are almost certainly some dipshits who believe whatever you say sarcastically without a shred of self awareness.
But yeah, I think the comment you’re talking about was pretty obviously meant to be sarcasm. It could only be misunderstood by people who don’t know what those words mean lol.
Fascism is not a political ideology, it is a system of oppression to the dry, where a person or a chosen elite dictates the rules for the rest of the population, eliminating personal rights and discrepancies, this is what is defined as dictatorship. It is irrelevant which political label is put on. Communism under these conditions is not communism, nor would a real democracy be, in both, by definition sovereignty resides in the population and never in a small elite or a single person. In the western world we have the illusion of living in a democracy, but this is an illusion, since it is not the people who dictate the rules, but the interests of capital for the benefit of a few. This is why a capitalist system always promotes fascism and fights and maligns communism, democracy and human rights…
Depends who you ask. If you ask a Marxist, they’ll tell you that in an electoral system where elections are largely determined by who has the most money in order to reach the most ears, is not really a democracy.
A democracy would be a system that gives you the right to actually and directly influence specific policy through voting (e.g. through referrenda), and direct control over representatives (e.g. ability to recall them if they are not doing their jobs).
In Norway and Germany (to use your examples) people might enjoy a lot of personal freedoms and a high standard of living, but both domestic and foreign policy is still functionally determined by corporations and the rich elite.
The economic system of capitalism makes it so governments realistically care more about the interests of business, rather than the interests of the citizens. And that’s an oligarchy. It’s just that some countries are better able to pacify their populace because they happen to have the resources to do so. But we still see that in Norway and Germany (and any other traditionally-regarded “good democracy”) the social welfare systems, that make them such appealing examples, are systematically diminished and destroyed. I do not think it’s the citizens who demand that.
All this, without getting into the fact that we spend 1/3 of our lives in a feudal-like or dictatorial system we call “job”, where we hardly have the power to influence how it operates.
I don’t really have anything to add, but I wanted you to know that you gently yet succinctly described the uncomfortable truth that America is borderline brainwashed into fervently defending capitalism to the point that most Americans can’t even fathom a functional system other than capitalism. The first time it clicked for me was from reading a comment very similar to yours a few years ago. You might not get much feedback, but I’m sure your comments will help educate people. Cheers!
Let me clarify. To be crystal clear, we’re talking about “left” and right on the political compass. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the most well known one. Overall, “left” and “right” are bizarre terminologies with aqueous meanings deeply embedded in history.
You are technically correct if you are talking about the political compass. we call “authoritarian left” “Stalinism” and we call “libertarian right” “anarcho-capitalism” or just “libertarianism” in the US.
The problem is that all philosophy founding “leftist ideology” has consistently been “libertarian left”, focusing on collapsing hierarchies, dividing power into many hands, and dismantling power structures (such as currency). Anarchism is basically the prime example.
With Marx’s communism, his end game is a system without any government, where people simply exchange services and collaborate to create only what they want or need (not to endlessly proliferate waste for profit). Even his “dictatorship of the proletariat”, one of the stepping stones to communism, is a democratic system. It is called a “dictatorship” because it revokes the voting rights of the rich.
To boot, the ideologies which exist in the “authoritarian left” and “libertarian right” are full of contradictions and mental gymnastics. They all swear they’re communist but make no attempts to actually disseminate power, or gear towards a more democratic system, directly going against Marx’s ideals.
Because of this, pretty much every leftist agrees that the “authoritarian left” are not leftist, because they directly betray the philosophy which founds leftist beliefs.
SO to conclude, there is literally no world where someone can genuinely believe the various philosophies within leftism while at the same time starting a campaign alienating minorities, appealing to the general population with populism and returning the state to a former glory, and embarking on a Nazi take-over. This is why Nazism and leftism are completely incompatible, and why literally no Authoritarian can be considered a leftist.
Thats not the point, youre twisting the order. Every nazi is right-wing, by definition. Not every right-winger is a nazi and thats not what people are saying. A big part of nazi ideology is overlapping with general right-wing ideologies, they are separate but not unrelated at all.
You don’t understand. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t care about it. Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing? No? Good, you shouldn’t. The same way you shouldn’t care if Nazis were right-wing.
Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing?
Kim Jong-Un is right wing. So were Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Xi, and Che Guevara. In fact, they were all moderate Republicans whose ideas are 100% in line with the current Republican Party platform. There’s no daylight at all between any of them and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Before you respond, remember that you don’t care what their politics are because it doesn’t matter.
Dafuq, North Korea is left wing. OK, so was the Soviet Union also right wing when they marginalized minorities through Russification?
“if it is bad, it is right-wing”.
And yes, my whole point is that the fact North Korea has a left-wing dictatorship doesn’t mean that all left-wing parties will become dictatorships. You finally got my point, damn, it took you so long.
North Korea is 100% a right wing country, right wing policies and a dictator. You can’t argue with that fact.
Stalin claimed his government was left wing and Marx based but it was revealed that he was right leaning, a dictator and instilled right wing policies.
Ah ok, as I said, “everything that is left wing is good and paradise. Everything right wing is pure evil”.
In a left-wing state the state always holds the power… So once that state becomes corrupted and uses that power to keep all workers equally poor, then it is suddenly right wing? Show me what were the capitalist principles in the Soviet Union? Was there a free market, private incentive, private property, competition, minimal state intervention, entrepreneurship, individual rights and freedoms? NOOO THERE WEREN’T. It wasn’t a right-wing state.
You guys are insane. Lemmy became an echo chamber for your delusions. It’s really sad to see people this radicalized.
A dictator is a dictator, who the fuck cares if they are right or left wing? A racist is a racist. A murderer is a murderer. They can be found in any side of the political spectrum, but you’re too biased to believe the left can be corrupted… You are too blinded by what is right and what is left and are totally unable to see there can be combinations of ideologies.
You say dictators are right wing because they don’t follow some left-wing principles? Then I could argue that all dictators are left-wing because by definition the right strives to minimize government controls, and a dictatorship is authoritarian, which goes against right-wing policies… But I’m done arguing. This is my last Lemmy comment. You are so blinded by the left vs right argument you can’t see beyond that. This degree of fanatism can’t be healthy, I don’t want to become radicalized like you people. This self imposed blindness is sad and pathetic. Good bye.
I’d argue that you should very much care about the political alignment of extremist leaders, because it show you where an ideology can ultimately lead to if left unchecked. As the poster above said, it doesn’t mean that all right-wing people are nazis, but knowing the nazis were right-wing shows you where a right-wing government can end up if the wrong set of conditions happen to come along. This is important information, as you can spot the warning signs as they appear and (hopefully) nip it in the bud before it gets to that point.
You could literally replace all this with “left wing” and use “communism” incorrectly instead of fascism (which isn’t just dictatorship, it was also a set of economic and societal philosophies invented by the fascisti of Italy) because at the end of the day, both sides of the political aisle have the same tendency to go extremist authoritarian when allowed.
There has been no non-authoritarian state of existence of humans inside any civilisation. None. Liberals/centrists playing this bullshit trope of feudalism or anarchism or some dreamy impossible organisation of society with literally zero hierarchy, is impossible. Direct democracy works at best on a scale of a small village. If we go by Dunbar’s number, no bigger than a group of 148 people can have direct relations.
They are behaving like Nazis regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing. Nazi behavior can happen in the left or the right. As I already said, discrimination, murder, superiority complex, racism and exploration has also happened in left-wing systems.
Of course bad things happen at the extremes of both sides, but I’m going to have to object to “regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing.” I don’t think there’s really room to equivocate on that - nazism is right-wing.
It is. Just like fascism, these are terms associated with the right-wing. But that’s not my point… My point is that whatever affiliation the right or left had in the past does not necessarily represent the current affiliations. The fact that the US right-wing is turning to white supremacy is unrelated to Nazis being right wing. That is just a reflection of their systemic racism.
What I’m saying is that it is irrelevant if Republicans are trying to associate the left with Nazis, because even if such association existed, it is not a valid argument to say that the left today is ruled by Nazis, or that the right can’t behave like Nazis. That’s just a fallacy, the same fallacy that they use to point out that voting left will turn us into North Korea or an authoritarian left-wing dictatorship.
I can’t believe people aren’t getting this. It’s like they don’t understand I’m actually pro-left with this argument, somehow they think I’m protecting Nazis and Republicans because I’m not shouting “REPUBLICANS BAD!”
Going back and pointing out how Nazis were right-wing is something that will bite the left in the ass because there are plenty of examples of the left turning into shit too. So instead of comparing with past examples, just analyze their current positions. Is the right currently behaving like Nazis? Yes. Do you need WWII Nazis to be right wing for this to be a fact? No. So even if they convince people that Nazis were left wing, how does that disprove that RIGHT NOW they are the racists and white supremacists?
I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse. You’re right in that by itself trying to define the nazi party of the past in terms of present day left/right ideology is reductivist, and unproductive in discourse. But you’re ignoring two important facts in the present day right/left dynamic. First that literal modern day nazis have shown a distinct preference for right wing ideaology. Second is that fascism as an ideology is a chameleon that latches onto present day conflict to unite people through oppression of a weak other, which is the basis for present day right wing policy. As such the comparison becomes apt because the fascists of the past are a model for the fascists of the present.
OK, by that same logic the left-wing dictators and collapsed systems of the past are a model for the present. So is the right justified to push fear with those past examples to show how bad the left is?
Do you see that’s just the same flawed logic they use to scare people away from the left?
The caveat is that being a “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” is a very right-wing thing. It wouldn’t be possible to fit that mold and be leftist because it’s entirely incompatible with leftist ideology.
So you’re saying that racism and mass murder did not exist under communist China?
What about Russification in the Soviet Union? Minorities were marginalized.
Why would it be a problem if the Nazis were actually left-wing? You’re not realizing you’re actually a victim of a fallacy. And even more concerning, you’re trying to use the same fallacy to attack back. It’s just flawed logic all over the place.
As I understand it the keystone between left and right is that:
The left belief is that all people are created equal and should have equal authority to point out wrong doing.
The right belief is that people should be in a hierarchy with people at the top exerting control downward.
I think they are actually just saying if you really believe everyone is equal you can’t pick a group to target for mass murder. But if you are at the top of a pyramid tge people below you naturally look expendable.
Correct, and my point was that they can’t. If you view everyone as equal you can’t make yourself a dictator. You can lie to yourself about your value, most people do for better or worse. But if everyone is equal you can’t decide to boost one group over another. Or if you do decide that is better and you deserve to be in charge, then your views have shifted right. That is my understanding of left vs right in it’s most basic form.
I said it doesn’t matter if the Nazis were right wing or left wing, what matters is that they were criminals. Then that person said that mass murder and racism is only aligned with the right, so I showed him/her that that is wrong, murder and racism can also happen on the left.
The point being that just because in the past there were rotten apples in the left/right, it doesn’t mean that being in the left/right makes you a rotten apple.
Hilarious how people who know exactly one “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” assume that it is a right-wing thing. Try humanities most famous left-winger ever.
Im not saying that nazis and right-wing are unrelated, but you picked exactly those characteristics in Hitler that actually arent related to political views at all.
It’s not uncommon for fascists to adopt socialist rhetoric to try and gain mass appeal. However that falls away under the lightest scrutiny of their actions and ideology. “National Socialism” is the most obvious example. I’d include Pol Pot in that bucket as well.
The USSR under Stalin and PRC under Mao are a bit different. The government in either case made decisions that led to unnecessary death, but there’s no evidence to suggest any of their missteps were motivated by racial animus.
Honestly, I think fascism can manifest from both leftist and right wing points of view. Like a lot of fascists organizations started as workers organizations who gathered together for better working conditions, compensation, and security, and down the line were convinced that racial minorities, jews, and immigrants were the cause of their problems.
A lot of the formally left wing people turned fascist I’ve known started from the point of view of capitalism, globalization, and wealth inequality being the causes of their problems, and overtime were convinced that this meant immigrants, erasure of their culture (white/American/Christian) and evil cabals of jews/queer people/atheists/satanists/etc.
Basically if you rally behind strongmen, aim for religious/cultural/racial dominion, and aim for the elimination of a certain group of people as a means of achieving your goals, you might be a fascists, and the path towards that can start from anywhere.
edit: yeah, I think going to delete this post soon. Many people seem to have taken this post as an opportunity to point the finger and rip at each other, as well as construe any negative action as “fascism” when the whole point of my post was to be introspective. Seems like a lot of people simply read the first sentence and decided to go to town instead.
Fascism is Capitalism’s self defense mechanism during intense crisis. It does appropriate “left” sounding phraseology, but under fascism the labor movement, and all other independent class movements, are completely subordinated under a singular national interest. All independent movements which refuse to subordinate are crushed. The labor organizations which turn fascist are the ones succumb, or are forced to subordinate, to class collaboration. That is why any genuine socialist movement must be inherently internationalist and anti- class collaboration and must never give up these principles at any cost.
Fascism absolutely is both left and right. Fascism is defined as “extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behaviour”.
Let’s have a look at the current “left”. Pro-censorship of any and all opinions that they don’t agree with. Trying to make laws that outlaw things they disagree with. Encouraging riots and harassment and violence against people they disagree with. Blame white people for all the problems in the world.
A political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
The emphasis on race and economic / social regimentation are the major break from the left.
That’s literally the whole American “MAGA” movement. They want Trump or someone like him as an absolute dictator and have no problem taking rights away from people.
Right. All the thousands of “god emperor” and “president for life” memes really make me confident in that…
Not to mention also the “helicopter ride” memes which were popular for a while. Face it. The right loves strongman populist authoritarians just as much as the tankies do.
I’m not sure where you got your definition of fascism, but I think the more formal definitions of it would say otherwise. But! Your definition, I think, is more in-line with how we use that word in the modern times. So, I’ll stick with it.
I think the left side fascism is lot harder to spot whereas the right side fascism is very obvious.
The extreme rights literally go around waving the nazi flag. They’re obvious fascists.
The extreme left has a different approach to fascism. They’re like, “Oh what you say is offensive, and it’s not nice. You need to be nicer and say these things. You’re hurting people’s feelings.” But by doing that, they’re effectively taking away speech and enforcing their world views on others. They’re just as intolerant of opposing views and will happily snuff them out. The cancel culture that has become the main weapon of the extreme left is most certainly fascism.
I also don’t believe extreme left are for being actually nice, they only want to push their specific agendas in a fascistic manner since they happily ignore other marginalized population and will even make fun of them. They are not nice people. For example a straight white man (which I am not) could be struggling to live for any reason. Could be illness, could be abused, anything really. But just because he is in the category of the straight white man, they’ll just insult him and how he deserves what happened to him, all the while ignoring everything else about him. He isn’t the oppressor, he isn’t the one who did wrong. Does it matter? No. That’s prejudice. And no one will defend those people, because if you do, you’re also not a nice person and must be cancelled. Guess which group does defend them? The extreme right. I wonder which side he’ll pick then.
Yeah, I definitely felt the same. As a bona fide straight white male, I felt pushed to the right by the left, despite also being against prejudice, being pro-lgbt, supportive of minorities, and for preserving culture (that last one is actually very anti-left if you consider history). But I have learned that the things we hear are almost exclusively the extremists on one side opposing the extremists on the other side, and both feed each other. Everyone seems to forget there is a nice moderate just-left-of-centre position where people pay for healthcare with their taxes and aren’t royally fucked by corporations.
That meme that musk posted ages back where the left keep pushing further and further left, to the point where they claim that people that were moderate left and haven’t changed their position at all are now far right, is spot on.
Can anyone explain how fascism as defined above could apply to the right extreme? Apart from the Nazis? Its really descriptive of the far left. Although oppressing non-cis/het relations is stereotypically right
EDIT: kind of important, fascism was auto-corrected to racism, corrected now
@luthis@Whirlybird, Racism, xeno- and homophobia have nothing to do with political orientation, but with personal aversions, fears and problems. They tend to be people, either indoctrinated by religion or looking for a strong leader because they lack their own ideas or initiatives. For this reason they are aligned in their vast majority with the fascist ideology and to a very lesser extent in the leftist sphere.
@Whirlybird@Roundcat, Fascism is not a political system, but a system of oppression, in which a minority or a single person decides the rules for the rest, it doesn’t matter if it is called dictatorship, democracy or communism, which in these circumstances is always a mere label. In real communism and real democracy, it is always the vast majority that dictates the rules, not the other way around. This is why capitalism always favors fascism, it is money that dictates the rules, not people.
Because people who can’t make their own discussions need an authority to follow. In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts. Most of them have serious daddy issues.
In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts.
In the US, the “opposite” side turns to CNN/BBC, toxic feminist Instagrammers and virtue signalling YouTubers. I cannot agree with that either.
There is a lot of adulteration in “leftism”, just as there are some correct things about “rightism”. I am no centrist, but I would rather take one step back from leftism, and be 10 steps away from rightism, than swing fully in any direction. I think contextual rationale, and not necessary a “centrist” 50-50 both sides bullshit, is the correct path to take. Forging your own path as a mindhacker with no like minded company is the hardest thing.
What do you really want to say? You’re trying very hard to say both sides are wrong without being labeled as a centrist.
“Toxic left wing” pundits haven’t gotten their followers to storm the capital building or fly a plane into an irs biulding. If you’re really mad someone has opinions on video games, install a 3rd party channel blocker for firefox. The things the toxic femists/pick-me types are up to pale in comparison to the manosphere are up to.
I cannot agree to just treating and branding men’s spaces like that. Manosphere may be doing a bad job, but its not all redpillers and Tateists. I hate this attack on and absolutist “shit on men constantly” trope in society. Its almost like the very thing feminists become they swear to destroy. Society and life is more complex than “shit on men and worship women”.
When feminists say “all men bad” “kill all men” “men are dogs” “men are b***hes” “masculinity is fragile” and so on, the ignorance of men being oppressed throughout history is really telling, and the same strong “fragile” men have built this world. Putting the bourgeois royalties’ doings on “men” exclusively is incredibly fascistic of feminists, and is the reason why I have taken one step back from leftism, while maintaining 10 steps distance from rightism.
If you want to know how leftist I am, I have been a 1 year long dedicated member of Lemmygrad.
Manosphere is a very specific thing. They’re the Andrew Tate types. If it’s a legitimate form of mental health or self care thing, it isn’t Manosphere. Hell, if it’s mental health, it’s rarely branded as male orientated because it’s genderless advice.
You’re creating this weird narrative in your head. The feminists you have a problem with are a minority who are only visible because they’re gaming the algorithm. They have no effect on your daily life.
Most feminists and women brand men’s safe spaces as redpill, right wing, part of manosphere, horrible and so on. They absolutely have an effect on me, the way random transphobes have an effect on the existence of transgender people. Men are not treated like equal humans with compassion, just because 0.1% rich ultracapitalists or harassers or rapists have subjugated women in society. There is no desire for equity or equality, but gender superiority. Plenty women who distance themselves from feminist movement agree with this today.
Manosphere is a very vague term in itself, even though it started as simply redpillers and Tateists. Wikipedia defines it as a “collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.[1] Communities within the manosphere include men’s rights activists,[2] incels (involuntary celibates),[3] Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW),[4] pick-up artists (PUA),[5] and fathers’ rights groups.[6]”
Its true that manosphere has misogyny, and that it has issues, but it provides an alternate point of view and is NOT all Tateists, even if there does exist misogyny, the same way misandry and vitriolic hatred for men exists in female safe spaces, which are abundant today. The world is not all black and white, and just as men treat women like a pair of breasts and a vagina, women treat men with the well known small dick hand gesture and other verbal slangs for degradingly equating us with penis. Women are more compassionate than men, and they have chosen to keep it all to themselves with their sisterhood. Men have no brotherhood today.
Every feminist I have met, no matter radical, communist or liberal, has always degraded and blamed all men, and downplayed issues with women while screaming “all men _____” the moment anything happens. And literally anything you say against this makes you a redpiller, woman hater, incel or any of the buzzwords they decide to cancel you with. I have a lot of grievances with it, and it affects all men, which includes me, so I will find solace in places that support men instead of supporting agendas aimed to hate men. Men have unheard grievances, and if feminists think they will win the battle against half the planet, their movement deserves to crash and doom. Feminism by the day is behaving less like a leftist movement for equality for both sexes, and more like a woman supremacist movement with right wing shades.
Strawman aside, anyone who thinks national socialism has anything to do with socialism needs to seriously educate themselves on Nazi ideology. Socialism to Hitler was nothing more than a buzzword he used to boost approval rates and votes quickly
As soon as they came into power, the Nazis did a complete 180° and swept every single promise they had made under the rug, kicking out or straight up murdering anyone, even in their own party (e.g. Sturmabteilung), who may have genuinely believed the party’s socialist façade.
Their socialist agenda was not the only falsehood the Nazis pushed though (surprising, I know!). The only three things the Nazis actually believed in were:
Hitler
Jews/Poles/anyone Hitler didn’t like = kill
Germany is entitled to take what they want from anyone because Lebensraum
Unfortunately in the west we are heavily indoctrinated against socialism. Or even knowing what socialism is. While at the same time heavily apologist to groups and parties closely aligned to the Nazis and the fascists. A large group of Republican legislators and their wealthy friends wanted a fascist overthrow around the same time Hitler attempted his first coup. They were never punished nor was the party ever admonished or reformed. To this day the descendants of people likely involved are still in power.
Sounds like we need to rebrand the original word “socialism” to something without the Nazi continuation. I’m thinking humanism (I’m worried that might turn into complete disrespect for any non-human form of life) or human dignitarian. I’d love to hear better versions than what I just came up with on the fly.
Lol good call on the /s especially in lieu of the seed of this thread. It’s pretty frightening just how willing so many are to go along with groupthink. And realistically espouse just that.
In the west means America? Bc I know for a fact that me, and many of my European brothers and sisters, are well aware of the tenets of socialism, and that our various socdem governments are little more than capitalists in sheep’s clothing. Also, fascism is not treated kindly here. Though tbf, also not harshly enough.
Especially in America definitely. Things are a little better in Europe. But are degrading heavily at a steady pace. But yes West generally means US sphere of influence. Because Europe and much of that is generally in what’s considered globally the east in a physical sense.
It is pretty terrifying though. How few people understand that while Hitler had his beer hall putsch. Republicans here were plotting their own. And we’re never punished or had any repercussions for it. They just got called out and temporarily shamed into behaving. But quickly went right back to fascist plotting. The extra sad bit being that our far left party here is actually well right of center. And generally pretty willing to work with fascist Republicans on many things.
I’m not gonna say you did, my reading comprehension might be off, but I got the impression that you implied Europe is part of the east, which is obviously silly. Also, the maps why use here does not even places us in the east, in a physical sense, but smack dab in the middle. I guess the takeaway should be, it all comes down to perspective… Also, I appreciate your comment, my friend.
Eastern hemisphere. Western sphere of influence. But yeah. We’re on the same page. I’m definitely open to being wrong though. I realized quite a while back just how indoctrinated and miseducated we Americans are. And constantly finding more to undo. Gotta keep an open mind and all.
Unless they didn’t pay attention they were taught it here in the U.S.
No one should be able to make a logical leap from the way people refer to hitler in the U.S. to anything attempting at equality or socialistic.
There are 2 seperate terms that are taught here that could confuse people though. State and Australia. Using the term state for a U.S. state like Utah or New York is somehow different than using the term state to define Germany or Pakistan. (Generally we are taught just to call them countries)
Australia on the other hand is taught to be a Country, and a Continent. Other places teach it under the name Oceania I believe which could confuse people. Saying New Zealand is in Australia would be both right and wrong. It is a part of the Australian continent, not a part of the country.
I’ve never heard of the continent Australia is on being called Australia. I’ve always heard and been taught that it’s Oceania here in Canada. Do people actually call it all Australia?
Socialism is very much not covered. In general it is just equated to ML communism and nothing more. No one is educated about true libertarians. Or what anarchism actually is or other forms of communism or anything like that. Maybe that’s different now back in the '80s no and before that hell no. I sincerely hope things are better now. But I can only go by what I personally experience.
I think it was more that in the early days of the Nazi party they did accept socialists. It was more of a big tent party because they needed to attract members. Hitler was never a fan of socialism and as he gained power he purged the socialists from the party.
When a small but dedicated group of vocal people started unironically and emphatically believing the planet was a pancake, I lost a significant portion of my lingering reserves of hope for the future of mankind.
Extremist politics and all the associated mindsets have long since jumped a row of sharks in my mind by comparison.
From my limited understanding, it mostly seems like misattribution of all the very obvious chaos and uncertainty about “grand” events like climate change, economical strife, etc.
It’s less that someone holds pancake planet as their sole belief but more a web of interconnected beliefs that would explain the true cause of these nebulous events if they were true.
Not that it makes the outcome any better that people choose a more palatable ideological narrative over reality but there is a part of me that recognizes ignorance would be more blissful.
They decided that the financial success of a certain group of people can be fully attributed to these people exploiting the rest of the populace, and therefore the world will only benefit if they get rid of these people.
Yup. Doesn’t sound like anything modern day leftists and socialists would say.
I think they mostly believe the way that some people on the left treat black people is worse than dislike from typical racists. They call it the bigotry of low expectations. Actually acting as if black people are lesser and unable to do the things white people are expected to do. It’s true there are people like that but it’s prevalence is questionable.
For clarification it’s because they don’t believe in the fact that systematic rasicim exsits or anything like that so in their world black people all end up in the worst places to live due to choice and ignorance rather being a byproduct of a system ment to bring any person of color down
I think they might be talking about stuff like “it’s wrong to expect black people to be on time for meetings” which was a quote I heard from someone who I believe meant well. There is a reasonable argument on both sides of that probably, but it left a bad taste in my mouth
Yeah. It’s not circumstances due to active oppression, but the assumption that black people cannot operate in a white man’s world at the same level so they need all kinds of accomodations. Like I said, I don’t know the prevalence but is absolutely a real thing and worth calling out.
I think he means more the way some white knights will belittle minorities in the process of trying to defend them. Using arguments about them being oppressed because of basic societal expectations that the particular white knight assumes they’re not capable of.
You’ll know it when you see it, it’s really strange to hear.
Both liberals and conservatives are basically servants of capitalism first, and derive their beliefs from rationalizing the state of the world that capitalism has created.
Conservatives believe that capitalism is the ‘natural state’ - so nothing needs to be done about the unequal outcomes.
Liberals believe that the unequal outcomes are unfair, but rather than attacking the source (capitalism), they try to solve it by ‘babying’ those they see as victims of the system, which doesn’t really help.
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This is the real issue with troll communities (and subreddits). The_Donald started out as a troll community, and it was effectively overrun with nutjobs.
Yes, satirizing these people is hilarious, but they’re often too stupid to differentiate between ironic support and endorsement and actual agreement. These are the same people who routinely fall for The Onion articles.
Don’t be surprised at the level of stupidity people are willing to duck under to confirm their own beliefs. Lol
A wise man once said “Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company.”
Makes me think of the “fake it 'til you make it” saying. Guess the “pretending to be an idiot” folk end up becoming idiots from all the faking they did.
LoveForLandchads is getting there
I’ve only ever heard people on the left calling right wingers nazis, never the other way around
So the thing about calling right wingers nazis, is right wingers who seemingly have no qualms about people with actual nazi paraphernalia supporting the same causes and going to the same marches, but the second this is pointed out their retort is "what! we’re not nazis! the nazis were the national socialist workers party! it says socialist right in the name! Ergo the socialists are nazis!
You live in a better world than I. I have colleagues who have made this claim…
I saw a video from Ronnie-boy who equated Fascism with the left because Fascism is government control and the left wants government control. I’ve found with the most far right, any “-ism” is a leftist idea, except for conservatism. That one’s all about freedom.
As someone who is fairly into ideologies I can tell you, that national-socialism or nazism, which is a sub-ideology of fascism isn’t called that for no reason. If you look at it closely it does take a lot home from nationalism, but socialisim as well. These are right-wing (with some exceptions) and left-wing ideologies respectively and both can take extremes. This is why a lot of people in the sphere call the fusion of these two the “Third Way”, meaning it’s between the extreme left and extreme right and opposite to Centrism, which is between the calmer ends of the two sides. This means that nazis are neither right nor left-wing, at least as seen in european politics, in the exteremely polarized american political climate they (or at least their grossly dumbed-down interpretation) could be considered extremly right wing, but I think american politics are stupid anyway. And now to answer the question (pretending I didn’t just saw a question where there wasn’t any) anyone who calls nazis leftists just has a politcal bias against them and tries to make them appear even worse by blending them with those goddamn liberals. Okay but seriously, people really shouldn’t dumb down “old enemies” because that just means that they didn’t learn anything.
You’re “fairly into ideologies”, but you’re not well versed on political literacy. It seems like you got your idea of where Nazism sits on the political spectrum from the PoliticalCompassMemes subreddit (where “nAzIS ARe aUtHCENter” is the most commonly promoted talking point).
First and foremost, “third way” isn’t even the correct term to use here. You’re most likely referring to the term “third position”, which is an honest mistake in terminology, but that term refers to a different thing than third way entirely.
“Third way” refers to the more social liberal side of centrism. “Third position” is in reference to fascist tendencies to reject the binary notion of either standard socialist economics and/or laissez-faire free market capitalist economics. This comes with an important caveat: rejection of “typical socialism” and “typical capitalism” doesn’t mean you’re neither left-wing or right-wing, as we don’t really, in terminology, use your stance on socialism and capitalism as an inherent way of noting whether you’re left-wing or right-wing.
Some people might hear this reference to Nazism and assume this means it’ neither left-wing or right-wing, but this is a misinterpretation of definitions. Nazis most certainly were not free market capitalists, but they weren’t socialists either. However, the methods in which you run your economy are not necessarily the prime dictator of being left-wing and/or right-wing, like I said.
Nazis have historically been, and to this day still are, placed on the far-right end of the political spectrum due to upholding hierarchical doctrines within society because left and right are not “socialism vs. capitalism” as much as they are “egalitarianism vs hierarchy”. Nazis didn’t take hugely consistent economic positions, but they still were extremely hierarchical, and that serves as the basis of considering their ideology far-right.
Unless you want to argue that Nazis are not fans of rigid hierarchies (which would be foolish to do so), then you should, in some capacity, be able to acknowledge them sitting on the far-right end of the polspec.
Also, one more thing to mention. Leftists tend to be socialists because it’s an egalitarian mode of production. However, you can still support a less regulative corporatist economy like Nazis did while not being any degree of egalitarianism. Just stating this so people don’t misinterpret me as saying that “leftists aren’t inherently socialists”.
You are probably right about the third way/position thing, it’s just that I haven’t informed from english-speaking sources, so I’ve never been really sure of the correct translation. This might just have completly screwed up the meaning of my comment. As for the rest I don’t oppose the idea that nazis are more right than left, I just say they incorporate enough ideas of the left-wing, both cultural and economic to be called a blend of the two sides.
Nazis took nothing from the left wing other than some rhetoric they used to gain popular support from the working class. Their politics were more inspired by European colonialism than anything else. Lebensraum is basically just manifest destiny applied to Europe.
Nazis are right wing in a European political context, that is not really a discussion in academia. This has nothing to do with current American politics, this is established history.
The only people claiming that they are left wing are right wing fascists who tries to distance themselves from the term (while doing everything in their power to emulate them), and that is done by both European and American fascists.
It was totally leftist…which is why small business owners backed them and other conservative parties formed government with them.
Did you miss an \s?
I thought the sarcasm was obvious enough to not need that. 🙂
I got it, but in our current age with what’s going on we need to be clear unfortunately. We will not accept fascist/Nazi views and should do everything possible to remove them from society. Tolerance of intolerance (specifically in the context of this post) does not fly. Those views are not welcome in modern society. They should never be welcome in any society. This isn’t for you SeaJ. It’s for anyone who could even contemplate that ideology. If you sympathize with Nazi ideology you are not welcome here and “here” is Earth. Go subjugate Pluto and get off my planet!
Also, they called themselves National Socialists. After all, would a government ever lie?
It was rightwing and fascist… How do you come to the conclusion it had something to do with communism?
Read the first part of my comment and then read after the ellipsis. It was sarcasm. 🙂
Clearly a left wing party is not going to be supported by business owners and conservative parties.
People these days really are sheltered if they can’t detect sarcasm without it being specifically called out…
How do these people function in their daily lives? Do they have service dogs or something who bark every time someone makes a joke?
At first I thought lemmygrad was a satirical instance making fun of communist talking points by exaggerating them…
So yeah, sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.
~70% of communication is nonverbal. Body language and tone of voice convey that you intend something opposite of the literal words you’re using. When you throw the nonverbal aspect out the window for an entirely verbal exchange, especially online where everybody is a stranger and potentially something akin to but not necessarily a Nazi, it’s pretty difficult to ascertain whether you’re dealing with somebody who is broadcasting silly thoughts to satirically display the stupidity and absurdity of supporting fascism or an actual supporter of fascism who is actually stupid and absurd. Without using italics or “/s” we can’t know for sure because there are almost certainly some dipshits who believe whatever you say sarcastically without a shred of self awareness.
But yeah, I think the comment you’re talking about was pretty obviously meant to be sarcasm. It could only be misunderstood by people who don’t know what those words mean lol.
Maybe but that’s also kinda the main point of this post init?
Fascism is not a political ideology, it is a system of oppression to the dry, where a person or a chosen elite dictates the rules for the rest of the population, eliminating personal rights and discrepancies, this is what is defined as dictatorship. It is irrelevant which political label is put on. Communism under these conditions is not communism, nor would a real democracy be, in both, by definition sovereignty resides in the population and never in a small elite or a single person. In the western world we have the illusion of living in a democracy, but this is an illusion, since it is not the people who dictate the rules, but the interests of capital for the benefit of a few. This is why a capitalist system always promotes fascism and fights and maligns communism, democracy and human rights…
How would a true democracy differ from the one we’re living in now? What is a country like Norway or Germany then if not a democracy?
Depends who you ask. If you ask a Marxist, they’ll tell you that in an electoral system where elections are largely determined by who has the most money in order to reach the most ears, is not really a democracy.
A democracy would be a system that gives you the right to actually and directly influence specific policy through voting (e.g. through referrenda), and direct control over representatives (e.g. ability to recall them if they are not doing their jobs).
In Norway and Germany (to use your examples) people might enjoy a lot of personal freedoms and a high standard of living, but both domestic and foreign policy is still functionally determined by corporations and the rich elite.
The economic system of capitalism makes it so governments realistically care more about the interests of business, rather than the interests of the citizens. And that’s an oligarchy. It’s just that some countries are better able to pacify their populace because they happen to have the resources to do so. But we still see that in Norway and Germany (and any other traditionally-regarded “good democracy”) the social welfare systems, that make them such appealing examples, are systematically diminished and destroyed. I do not think it’s the citizens who demand that.
All this, without getting into the fact that we spend 1/3 of our lives in a feudal-like or dictatorial system we call “job”, where we hardly have the power to influence how it operates.
I don’t really have anything to add, but I wanted you to know that you gently yet succinctly described the uncomfortable truth that America is borderline brainwashed into fervently defending capitalism to the point that most Americans can’t even fathom a functional system other than capitalism. The first time it clicked for me was from reading a comment very similar to yours a few years ago. You might not get much feedback, but I’m sure your comments will help educate people. Cheers!
Thank you :)
A true democracy would have more than one hegemon dictator in the world, like USA/NATO/SWIFT exists today.
Modern-day fascists are desperate to distance themselves from the nazis, despite the fact that the nazis are literally their idols.
Wait, do people really care if Nazis were left or right-wing?
Their leader was a racist mass murderer with superiority complex, who cares about his political views?
Let’s say they were left-wing… Does that make the left wing Nazis? Mmm no. If a dictator is right-wing, does that make the right-wing dictators? No.
Do people understand these are two unrelated things? Imagine seeing a dog owner cheating on his wife and assuming all dog owners are cheaters.
People who know that his political views included “we should use the state to enforce racism” and “mass murder is ok.”
Let me clarify. To be crystal clear, we’re talking about “left” and right on the political compass. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the most well known one. Overall, “left” and “right” are bizarre terminologies with aqueous meanings deeply embedded in history.
You are technically correct if you are talking about the political compass. we call “authoritarian left” “Stalinism” and we call “libertarian right” “anarcho-capitalism” or just “libertarianism” in the US.
The problem is that all philosophy founding “leftist ideology” has consistently been “libertarian left”, focusing on collapsing hierarchies, dividing power into many hands, and dismantling power structures (such as currency). Anarchism is basically the prime example.
With Marx’s communism, his end game is a system without any government, where people simply exchange services and collaborate to create only what they want or need (not to endlessly proliferate waste for profit). Even his “dictatorship of the proletariat”, one of the stepping stones to communism, is a democratic system. It is called a “dictatorship” because it revokes the voting rights of the rich.
To boot, the ideologies which exist in the “authoritarian left” and “libertarian right” are full of contradictions and mental gymnastics. They all swear they’re communist but make no attempts to actually disseminate power, or gear towards a more democratic system, directly going against Marx’s ideals.
Because of this, pretty much every leftist agrees that the “authoritarian left” are not leftist, because they directly betray the philosophy which founds leftist beliefs.
SO to conclude, there is literally no world where someone can genuinely believe the various philosophies within leftism while at the same time starting a campaign alienating minorities, appealing to the general population with populism and returning the state to a former glory, and embarking on a Nazi take-over. This is why Nazism and leftism are completely incompatible, and why literally no Authoritarian can be considered a leftist.
Thats not the point, youre twisting the order. Every nazi is right-wing, by definition. Not every right-winger is a nazi and thats not what people are saying. A big part of nazi ideology is overlapping with general right-wing ideologies, they are separate but not unrelated at all.
You don’t understand. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t care about it. Do you care if the North Korean dictator is left-wing? No? Good, you shouldn’t. The same way you shouldn’t care if Nazis were right-wing.
Kim Jong-Un is right wing. So were Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Xi, and Che Guevara. In fact, they were all moderate Republicans whose ideas are 100% in line with the current Republican Party platform. There’s no daylight at all between any of them and Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Before you respond, remember that you don’t care what their politics are because it doesn’t matter.
Dafuq, North Korea is left wing. OK, so was the Soviet Union also right wing when they marginalized minorities through Russification?
“if it is bad, it is right-wing”.
And yes, my whole point is that the fact North Korea has a left-wing dictatorship doesn’t mean that all left-wing parties will become dictatorships. You finally got my point, damn, it took you so long.
Now it matters. Now you care.
North Korea is 100% a right wing country, right wing policies and a dictator. You can’t argue with that fact.
Stalin claimed his government was left wing and Marx based but it was revealed that he was right leaning, a dictator and instilled right wing policies.
https://www.salon.com/2021/08/14/republicans-claim-to-fear-left-wing-authoritarianism--but-theres-no-such-thing/
Ah ok, as I said, “everything that is left wing is good and paradise. Everything right wing is pure evil”.
In a left-wing state the state always holds the power… So once that state becomes corrupted and uses that power to keep all workers equally poor, then it is suddenly right wing? Show me what were the capitalist principles in the Soviet Union? Was there a free market, private incentive, private property, competition, minimal state intervention, entrepreneurship, individual rights and freedoms? NOOO THERE WEREN’T. It wasn’t a right-wing state.
You guys are insane. Lemmy became an echo chamber for your delusions. It’s really sad to see people this radicalized.
A dictator is a dictator, who the fuck cares if they are right or left wing? A racist is a racist. A murderer is a murderer. They can be found in any side of the political spectrum, but you’re too biased to believe the left can be corrupted… You are too blinded by what is right and what is left and are totally unable to see there can be combinations of ideologies.
You say dictators are right wing because they don’t follow some left-wing principles? Then I could argue that all dictators are left-wing because by definition the right strives to minimize government controls, and a dictatorship is authoritarian, which goes against right-wing policies… But I’m done arguing. This is my last Lemmy comment. You are so blinded by the left vs right argument you can’t see beyond that. This degree of fanatism can’t be healthy, I don’t want to become radicalized like you people. This self imposed blindness is sad and pathetic. Good bye.
I’d argue that you should very much care about the political alignment of extremist leaders, because it show you where an ideology can ultimately lead to if left unchecked. As the poster above said, it doesn’t mean that all right-wing people are nazis, but knowing the nazis were right-wing shows you where a right-wing government can end up if the wrong set of conditions happen to come along. This is important information, as you can spot the warning signs as they appear and (hopefully) nip it in the bud before it gets to that point.
You could literally replace all this with “left wing” and use “communism” incorrectly instead of fascism (which isn’t just dictatorship, it was also a set of economic and societal philosophies invented by the fascisti of Italy) because at the end of the day, both sides of the political aisle have the same tendency to go extremist authoritarian when allowed.
There has been no non-authoritarian state of existence of humans inside any civilisation. None. Liberals/centrists playing this bullshit trope of feudalism or anarchism or some dreamy impossible organisation of society with literally zero hierarchy, is impossible. Direct democracy works at best on a scale of a small village. If we go by Dunbar’s number, no bigger than a group of 148 people can have direct relations.
They are behaving like Nazis regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing. Nazi behavior can happen in the left or the right. As I already said, discrimination, murder, superiority complex, racism and exploration has also happened in left-wing systems.
Of course bad things happen at the extremes of both sides, but I’m going to have to object to “regardless of if the Nazis were right-wing or left-wing.” I don’t think there’s really room to equivocate on that - nazism is right-wing.
It is. Just like fascism, these are terms associated with the right-wing. But that’s not my point… My point is that whatever affiliation the right or left had in the past does not necessarily represent the current affiliations. The fact that the US right-wing is turning to white supremacy is unrelated to Nazis being right wing. That is just a reflection of their systemic racism.
What I’m saying is that it is irrelevant if Republicans are trying to associate the left with Nazis, because even if such association existed, it is not a valid argument to say that the left today is ruled by Nazis, or that the right can’t behave like Nazis. That’s just a fallacy, the same fallacy that they use to point out that voting left will turn us into North Korea or an authoritarian left-wing dictatorship.
I can’t believe people aren’t getting this. It’s like they don’t understand I’m actually pro-left with this argument, somehow they think I’m protecting Nazis and Republicans because I’m not shouting “REPUBLICANS BAD!”
Going back and pointing out how Nazis were right-wing is something that will bite the left in the ass because there are plenty of examples of the left turning into shit too. So instead of comparing with past examples, just analyze their current positions. Is the right currently behaving like Nazis? Yes. Do you need WWII Nazis to be right wing for this to be a fact? No. So even if they convince people that Nazis were left wing, how does that disprove that RIGHT NOW they are the racists and white supremacists?
I’m just saying, don’t play their games.
I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse. You’re right in that by itself trying to define the nazi party of the past in terms of present day left/right ideology is reductivist, and unproductive in discourse. But you’re ignoring two important facts in the present day right/left dynamic. First that literal modern day nazis have shown a distinct preference for right wing ideaology. Second is that fascism as an ideology is a chameleon that latches onto present day conflict to unite people through oppression of a weak other, which is the basis for present day right wing policy. As such the comparison becomes apt because the fascists of the past are a model for the fascists of the present.
OK, by that same logic the left-wing dictators and collapsed systems of the past are a model for the present. So is the right justified to push fear with those past examples to show how bad the left is?
Do you see that’s just the same flawed logic they use to scare people away from the left?
Yeah, you’re a troll.
The caveat is that being a “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” is a very right-wing thing. It wouldn’t be possible to fit that mold and be leftist because it’s entirely incompatible with leftist ideology.
So you’re saying that racism and mass murder did not exist under communist China?
What about Russification in the Soviet Union? Minorities were marginalized.
Why would it be a problem if the Nazis were actually left-wing? You’re not realizing you’re actually a victim of a fallacy. And even more concerning, you’re trying to use the same fallacy to attack back. It’s just flawed logic all over the place.
As I understand it the keystone between left and right is that:
The left belief is that all people are created equal and should have equal authority to point out wrong doing. The right belief is that people should be in a hierarchy with people at the top exerting control downward.
I think they are actually just saying if you really believe everyone is equal you can’t pick a group to target for mass murder. But if you are at the top of a pyramid tge people below you naturally look expendable.
At least that is my reading of this debate.
And my point was that even in the left, murder, discrimination and racism can exist.
People just choose to think their position is ideal and the opposition is flawed. This type of brainwashing is disgusting.
Correct, and my point was that they can’t. If you view everyone as equal you can’t make yourself a dictator. You can lie to yourself about your value, most people do for better or worse. But if everyone is equal you can’t decide to boost one group over another. Or if you do decide that is better and you deserve to be in charge, then your views have shifted right. That is my understanding of left vs right in it’s most basic form.
Yeha, tell that to the North Korean God, Kim, who rises above everyone while keeping everyone else equal.
“I don’t like nazis”
“YEAH? Whatabout Commies?! Huh? HUH?”
What? I’m just saying that being racist or a murderer is totally unrelated to political views. Those can happen in both the left and right.
Guys, you’re smarter than this. For real.
The conversation is about nazis. You keep trying to talk about communists.
I said it doesn’t matter if the Nazis were right wing or left wing, what matters is that they were criminals. Then that person said that mass murder and racism is only aligned with the right, so I showed him/her that that is wrong, murder and racism can also happen on the left.
The point being that just because in the past there were rotten apples in the left/right, it doesn’t mean that being in the left/right makes you a rotten apple.
Hilarious how people who know exactly one “racist mass murderer with a superiority complex” assume that it is a right-wing thing. Try humanities most famous left-winger ever.
Im not saying that nazis and right-wing are unrelated, but you picked exactly those characteristics in Hitler that actually arent related to political views at all.
State enforced racism and industrialized government implemented mass murder are central to nazis’ political views.
Who, exactly?
Did you just seriously say that there has never been a left wing racist mass murderer with a superiority complex?
There hasn’t been.
Certainly been a few waving the flag of socialism/communism that have lead to those consequences.
Like who?
Pol Pot should be a uncontroversial pick.
It’s not uncommon for fascists to adopt socialist rhetoric to try and gain mass appeal. However that falls away under the lightest scrutiny of their actions and ideology. “National Socialism” is the most obvious example. I’d include Pol Pot in that bucket as well.
The USSR under Stalin and PRC under Mao are a bit different. The government in either case made decisions that led to unnecessary death, but there’s no evidence to suggest any of their missteps were motivated by racial animus.
Mao’s Great Leap Forward was him trying to push Communist ideology onto nature. He had one hammer in his tool box and tried using it on everything.
deleted by creator
First they came for the Communists …
Honestly, I think fascism can manifest from both leftist and right wing points of view. Like a lot of fascists organizations started as workers organizations who gathered together for better working conditions, compensation, and security, and down the line were convinced that racial minorities, jews, and immigrants were the cause of their problems.
A lot of the formally left wing people turned fascist I’ve known started from the point of view of capitalism, globalization, and wealth inequality being the causes of their problems, and overtime were convinced that this meant immigrants, erasure of their culture (white/American/Christian) and evil cabals of jews/queer people/atheists/satanists/etc.
Basically if you rally behind strongmen, aim for religious/cultural/racial dominion, and aim for the elimination of a certain group of people as a means of achieving your goals, you might be a fascists, and the path towards that can start from anywhere.
edit: yeah, I think going to delete this post soon. Many people seem to have taken this post as an opportunity to point the finger and rip at each other, as well as construe any negative action as “fascism” when the whole point of my post was to be introspective. Seems like a lot of people simply read the first sentence and decided to go to town instead.
Fascism is Capitalism’s self defense mechanism during intense crisis. It does appropriate “left” sounding phraseology, but under fascism the labor movement, and all other independent class movements, are completely subordinated under a singular national interest. All independent movements which refuse to subordinate are crushed. The labor organizations which turn fascist are the ones succumb, or are forced to subordinate, to class collaboration. That is why any genuine socialist movement must be inherently internationalist and anti- class collaboration and must never give up these principles at any cost.
Read Amadeo Bordiga’s report on fascism during Mussolini’s rise
Fascism absolutely is both left and right. Fascism is defined as “extremely authoritarian, intolerant, or oppressive ideas or behaviour”.
Let’s have a look at the current “left”. Pro-censorship of any and all opinions that they don’t agree with. Trying to make laws that outlaw things they disagree with. Encouraging riots and harassment and violence against people they disagree with. Blame white people for all the problems in the world.
Thats…fascism.
And once again we come around to the fact, that the basic understanding of nazis has been dumbed-down, to basically “bad”.
Fascism as defined by Merriam-Webster says
The emphasis on race and economic / social regimentation are the major break from the left.
That doesn’t match the “right” either though.
That’s literally the whole American “MAGA” movement. They want Trump or someone like him as an absolute dictator and have no problem taking rights away from people.
No one is asking for trump to be a dictator lol
Right. All the thousands of “god emperor” and “president for life” memes really make me confident in that…
Not to mention also the “helicopter ride” memes which were popular for a while. Face it. The right loves strongman populist authoritarians just as much as the tankies do.
Literally never seen any of those. Guess I don’t hang around in enough “far right” places.
(We’re all gonna get super downvoted anyway)
I’m not sure where you got your definition of fascism, but I think the more formal definitions of it would say otherwise. But! Your definition, I think, is more in-line with how we use that word in the modern times. So, I’ll stick with it.
I think the left side fascism is lot harder to spot whereas the right side fascism is very obvious.
The extreme rights literally go around waving the nazi flag. They’re obvious fascists.
The extreme left has a different approach to fascism. They’re like, “Oh what you say is offensive, and it’s not nice. You need to be nicer and say these things. You’re hurting people’s feelings.” But by doing that, they’re effectively taking away speech and enforcing their world views on others. They’re just as intolerant of opposing views and will happily snuff them out. The cancel culture that has become the main weapon of the extreme left is most certainly fascism.
I also don’t believe extreme left are for being actually nice, they only want to push their specific agendas in a fascistic manner since they happily ignore other marginalized population and will even make fun of them. They are not nice people. For example a straight white man (which I am not) could be struggling to live for any reason. Could be illness, could be abused, anything really. But just because he is in the category of the straight white man, they’ll just insult him and how he deserves what happened to him, all the while ignoring everything else about him. He isn’t the oppressor, he isn’t the one who did wrong. Does it matter? No. That’s prejudice. And no one will defend those people, because if you do, you’re also not a nice person and must be cancelled. Guess which group does defend them? The extreme right. I wonder which side he’ll pick then.
Edit: Grammar
Yeah, I definitely felt the same. As a bona fide straight white male, I felt pushed to the right by the left, despite also being against prejudice, being pro-lgbt, supportive of minorities, and for preserving culture (that last one is actually very anti-left if you consider history). But I have learned that the things we hear are almost exclusively the extremists on one side opposing the extremists on the other side, and both feed each other. Everyone seems to forget there is a nice moderate just-left-of-centre position where people pay for healthcare with their taxes and aren’t royally fucked by corporations.
That meme that musk posted ages back where the left keep pushing further and further left, to the point where they claim that people that were moderate left and haven’t changed their position at all are now far right, is spot on.
Can anyone explain how fascism as defined above could apply to the right extreme? Apart from the Nazis? Its really descriptive of the far left. Although oppressing non-cis/het relations is stereotypically right
EDIT: kind of important, fascism was auto-corrected to racism, corrected now
@luthis @Whirlybird, Racism, xeno- and homophobia have nothing to do with political orientation, but with personal aversions, fears and problems. They tend to be people, either indoctrinated by religion or looking for a strong leader because they lack their own ideas or initiatives. For this reason they are aligned in their vast majority with the fascist ideology and to a very lesser extent in the leftist sphere.
I actually meant fascism but auto correct incorrected my comment
Racism and leftism go together like water and oil. There is nothing egalitarian about racism.
Yeah, actually I mean fascism but auto correct ruined it
@Whirlybird @Roundcat, Fascism is not a political system, but a system of oppression, in which a minority or a single person decides the rules for the rest, it doesn’t matter if it is called dictatorship, democracy or communism, which in these circumstances is always a mere label. In real communism and real democracy, it is always the vast majority that dictates the rules, not the other way around. This is why capitalism always favors fascism, it is money that dictates the rules, not people.
Fascism is a lot more intricate than that. There are tenets within fascist ideology that are entirely incompatible with leftism.
Totalitarianism and fascism are not the same thing.
Also, none of the things you mentioned were explicitly leftist even. Hell, not really even implicitly leftist.
Because people who can’t make their own discussions need an authority to follow. In the US, they turn to fox news, AM radio, or manosphere podcasts. Most of them have serious daddy issues.
In the US, the “opposite” side turns to CNN/BBC, toxic feminist Instagrammers and virtue signalling YouTubers. I cannot agree with that either.
There is a lot of adulteration in “leftism”, just as there are some correct things about “rightism”. I am no centrist, but I would rather take one step back from leftism, and be 10 steps away from rightism, than swing fully in any direction. I think contextual rationale, and not necessary a “centrist” 50-50 both sides bullshit, is the correct path to take. Forging your own path as a mindhacker with no like minded company is the hardest thing.
What do you really want to say? You’re trying very hard to say both sides are wrong without being labeled as a centrist.
“Toxic left wing” pundits haven’t gotten their followers to storm the capital building or fly a plane into an irs biulding. If you’re really mad someone has opinions on video games, install a 3rd party channel blocker for firefox. The things the toxic femists/pick-me types are up to pale in comparison to the manosphere are up to.
I cannot agree to just treating and branding men’s spaces like that. Manosphere may be doing a bad job, but its not all redpillers and Tateists. I hate this attack on and absolutist “shit on men constantly” trope in society. Its almost like the very thing feminists become they swear to destroy. Society and life is more complex than “shit on men and worship women”.
When feminists say “all men bad” “kill all men” “men are dogs” “men are b***hes” “masculinity is fragile” and so on, the ignorance of men being oppressed throughout history is really telling, and the same
strong“fragile” men have built this world. Putting the bourgeois royalties’ doings on “men” exclusively is incredibly fascistic of feminists, and is the reason why I have taken one step back from leftism, while maintaining 10 steps distance from rightism.If you want to know how leftist I am, I have been a 1 year long dedicated member of Lemmygrad.
Manosphere is a very specific thing. They’re the Andrew Tate types. If it’s a legitimate form of mental health or self care thing, it isn’t Manosphere. Hell, if it’s mental health, it’s rarely branded as male orientated because it’s genderless advice.
You’re creating this weird narrative in your head. The feminists you have a problem with are a minority who are only visible because they’re gaming the algorithm. They have no effect on your daily life.
Most feminists and women brand men’s safe spaces as redpill, right wing, part of manosphere, horrible and so on. They absolutely have an effect on me, the way random transphobes have an effect on the existence of transgender people. Men are not treated like equal humans with compassion, just because 0.1% rich ultracapitalists or harassers or rapists have subjugated women in society. There is no desire for equity or equality, but gender superiority. Plenty women who distance themselves from feminist movement agree with this today.
Manosphere is a very vague term in itself, even though it started as simply redpillers and Tateists. Wikipedia defines it as a “collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.[1] Communities within the manosphere include men’s rights activists,[2] incels (involuntary celibates),[3] Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW),[4] pick-up artists (PUA),[5] and fathers’ rights groups.[6]”
Its true that manosphere has misogyny, and that it has issues, but it provides an alternate point of view and is NOT all Tateists, even if there does exist misogyny, the same way misandry and vitriolic hatred for men exists in female safe spaces, which are abundant today. The world is not all black and white, and just as men treat women like a pair of breasts and a vagina, women treat men with the well known small dick hand gesture and other verbal slangs for degradingly equating us with penis. Women are more compassionate than men, and they have chosen to keep it all to themselves with their sisterhood. Men have no brotherhood today.
Every feminist I have met, no matter radical, communist or liberal, has always degraded and blamed all men, and downplayed issues with women while screaming “all men _____” the moment anything happens. And literally anything you say against this makes you a redpiller, woman hater, incel or any of the buzzwords they decide to cancel you with. I have a lot of grievances with it, and it affects all men, which includes me, so I will find solace in places that support men instead of supporting agendas aimed to hate men. Men have unheard grievances, and if feminists think they will win the battle against half the planet, their movement deserves to crash and doom. Feminism by the day is behaving less like a leftist movement for equality for both sexes, and more like a woman supremacist movement with right wing shades.
Strawman aside, anyone who thinks national socialism has anything to do with socialism needs to seriously educate themselves on Nazi ideology. Socialism to Hitler was nothing more than a buzzword he used to boost approval rates and votes quickly
As soon as they came into power, the Nazis did a complete 180° and swept every single promise they had made under the rug, kicking out or straight up murdering anyone, even in their own party (e.g. Sturmabteilung), who may have genuinely believed the party’s socialist façade.
Their socialist agenda was not the only falsehood the Nazis pushed though (surprising, I know!). The only three things the Nazis actually believed in were:
The kind of people who think the Nazis were socialists know neither what socialism is nor what Nazism is.
I mean, their “proof” is that Socialist is in the name. From there on out, they apparently missed everything that happened post-1934
Ask them if they think North Korea is a democracy
By that same logic, guinea pigs are pigs.
Unfortunately in the west we are heavily indoctrinated against socialism. Or even knowing what socialism is. While at the same time heavily apologist to groups and parties closely aligned to the Nazis and the fascists. A large group of Republican legislators and their wealthy friends wanted a fascist overthrow around the same time Hitler attempted his first coup. They were never punished nor was the party ever admonished or reformed. To this day the descendants of people likely involved are still in power.
Socialism is when Democrats do things. Especially when they give things to people who aren’t me. Doubly especially if they aren’t white.
That’s socialism. And Naziism.
(/s since Poe struck other people here already)
Sounds like we need to rebrand the original word “socialism” to something without the Nazi continuation. I’m thinking humanism (I’m worried that might turn into complete disrespect for any non-human form of life) or human dignitarian. I’d love to hear better versions than what I just came up with on the fly.
Lol good call on the /s especially in lieu of the seed of this thread. It’s pretty frightening just how willing so many are to go along with groupthink. And realistically espouse just that.
In the west means America? Bc I know for a fact that me, and many of my European brothers and sisters, are well aware of the tenets of socialism, and that our various socdem governments are little more than capitalists in sheep’s clothing. Also, fascism is not treated kindly here. Though tbf, also not harshly enough.
Especially in America definitely. Things are a little better in Europe. But are degrading heavily at a steady pace. But yes West generally means US sphere of influence. Because Europe and much of that is generally in what’s considered globally the east in a physical sense.
It is pretty terrifying though. How few people understand that while Hitler had his beer hall putsch. Republicans here were plotting their own. And we’re never punished or had any repercussions for it. They just got called out and temporarily shamed into behaving. But quickly went right back to fascist plotting. The extra sad bit being that our far left party here is actually well right of center. And generally pretty willing to work with fascist Republicans on many things.
The western world definitely includes Europe dude
I didn’t say it didn’t.
I’m not gonna say you did, my reading comprehension might be off, but I got the impression that you implied Europe is part of the east, which is obviously silly. Also, the maps why use here does not even places us in the east, in a physical sense, but smack dab in the middle. I guess the takeaway should be, it all comes down to perspective… Also, I appreciate your comment, my friend.
Eastern hemisphere. Western sphere of influence. But yeah. We’re on the same page. I’m definitely open to being wrong though. I realized quite a while back just how indoctrinated and miseducated we Americans are. And constantly finding more to undo. Gotta keep an open mind and all.
Unless they didn’t pay attention they were taught it here in the U.S.
No one should be able to make a logical leap from the way people refer to hitler in the U.S. to anything attempting at equality or socialistic.
There are 2 seperate terms that are taught here that could confuse people though. State and Australia. Using the term state for a U.S. state like Utah or New York is somehow different than using the term state to define Germany or Pakistan. (Generally we are taught just to call them countries)
Australia on the other hand is taught to be a Country, and a Continent. Other places teach it under the name Oceania I believe which could confuse people. Saying New Zealand is in Australia would be both right and wrong. It is a part of the Australian continent, not a part of the country.
I’ve never heard of the continent Australia is on being called Australia. I’ve always heard and been taught that it’s Oceania here in Canada. Do people actually call it all Australia?
Socialism is very much not covered. In general it is just equated to ML communism and nothing more. No one is educated about true libertarians. Or what anarchism actually is or other forms of communism or anything like that. Maybe that’s different now back in the '80s no and before that hell no. I sincerely hope things are better now. But I can only go by what I personally experience.
I think it was more that in the early days of the Nazi party they did accept socialists. It was more of a big tent party because they needed to attract members. Hitler was never a fan of socialism and as he gained power he purged the socialists from the party.
When a small but dedicated group of vocal people started unironically and emphatically believing the planet was a pancake, I lost a significant portion of my lingering reserves of hope for the future of mankind.
Extremist politics and all the associated mindsets have long since jumped a row of sharks in my mind by comparison.
From my limited understanding, it mostly seems like misattribution of all the very obvious chaos and uncertainty about “grand” events like climate change, economical strife, etc.
It’s less that someone holds pancake planet as their sole belief but more a web of interconnected beliefs that would explain the true cause of these nebulous events if they were true.
Not that it makes the outcome any better that people choose a more palatable ideological narrative over reality but there is a part of me that recognizes ignorance would be more blissful.
They decided that the financial success of a certain group of people can be fully attributed to these people exploiting the rest of the populace, and therefore the world will only benefit if they get rid of these people.
Yup. Doesn’t sound like anything modern day leftists and socialists would say.
It’s an argument made in bad faith and/or ignorance caused by same.
I think they mostly believe the way that some people on the left treat black people is worse than dislike from typical racists. They call it the bigotry of low expectations. Actually acting as if black people are lesser and unable to do the things white people are expected to do. It’s true there are people like that but it’s prevalence is questionable.
For clarification it’s because they don’t believe in the fact that systematic rasicim exsits or anything like that so in their world black people all end up in the worst places to live due to choice and ignorance rather being a byproduct of a system ment to bring any person of color down
I think they might be talking about stuff like “it’s wrong to expect black people to be on time for meetings” which was a quote I heard from someone who I believe meant well. There is a reasonable argument on both sides of that probably, but it left a bad taste in my mouth
Jesus wept, is it a trope that black people are late? I’ve never heard that before, extremely bizarre.
Yeah. It’s not circumstances due to active oppression, but the assumption that black people cannot operate in a white man’s world at the same level so they need all kinds of accomodations. Like I said, I don’t know the prevalence but is absolutely a real thing and worth calling out.
I think he means more the way some white knights will belittle minorities in the process of trying to defend them. Using arguments about them being oppressed because of basic societal expectations that the particular white knight assumes they’re not capable of.
You’ll know it when you see it, it’s really strange to hear.
warning this whole comment is USA-centric point of view, sorry entire rest of the world
I think you guys are talking about liberals tendency to infantilize. https://lawliberty.org/infantilizing-minority-students/
Both liberals and conservatives are basically servants of capitalism first, and derive their beliefs from rationalizing the state of the world that capitalism has created.
Conservatives believe that capitalism is the ‘natural state’ - so nothing needs to be done about the unequal outcomes.
Liberals believe that the unequal outcomes are unfair, but rather than attacking the source (capitalism), they try to solve it by ‘babying’ those they see as victims of the system, which doesn’t really help.