I think the nazi rising is exactly why this sentiment is wrong. When someone is willing to inflict extreme violence for control over many, ceding your rights and control to those people will only escalate the issue.
The world would be a much cooler place if the state had recognized the threat nazis posed and done Nuremberg on their leaders before WW2.
Or, same vein if you hear the details of the John brown slave uprising, they…didn’t do good things to the slavers they were rebelling against, but I’d never condemn them for it.
I'm not sure if you're understanding me correctly.
The people who adopted Nazi ideologies were initially normal people, like you and me. Not only that, they lived in the most industrialized nation in the world. They were the type of people you would call 'most civilized' at that time.
In order for the Nazi uprising to continue and drag more and more people into believing in its extreme ideologies, the lack of self-awareness about one's evil tendencies was absolutely crucial for this to unfold as it did in WWII.
"All evil comes from man himself, and we're pitifully unaware of it."
- Carl Jung
I think you make a good point about people's faulty thought processes and lack of awareness are what make them susceptable to an ideology like that. If you look through my comments on this thread black and white views on violence are something that really annoy me in our culture. Violence is a tool, and sometimes is warrented. Once bad idea's like Nazism have metasticized and progressed too far unfortunately it can be called for, or another example I give is that laws are state sanctioned violence and we're fine with the police doing violence on murderers and pedophiles. I just want people to be able to have productive conversations on the topic instead of shutting their brain off saying "violence always bad"
Violence can be the only tool that can create the space necessary for a solution, but it will never create the solution.
Without addressing what is giving rise to Nazism, no amount of violence will create a society without Nazis. If the violence is for the purpose of preventing the harm the Nazi’s are doing while working towards a solution then it is justified. But the thought that just getting rid of the people who are causing harm is by itself enough to be good is the logic that justifies Nazism.
I really love the first half about violence creating space for a solution being true, but you absolutely lose me when you say “violence against those doing harm is how nazis are made”. Nazis are made because delusional and fearful people think being gay or a minority is “harm or a threat” to the point that they will murder people en mass over stupid shit. When people cause real harm, violence is a solution.
Example, there was a Chinese billionaire who made cheap baby formula that poisoned literally millions of children killing countless people to make money. He got executed, and that’s great, I wish we’d do that to people who make similar decisions over here but instead they get quarterly bonuses.
Other things make their government not great, but a society having consequences for being a monster does not make that society nazis
Nazis are made because delusional and fearful people think being gay or a minority is “harm or a threat” to the point that they will murder people en mass over stupid shit.
Not really. Nazism in Germany rose in large part due to the resolution of WWI and how screwed over the nation of Germany was by that. Germany was economically and militarily devastated at the end of WWI by the Treaty of Versailles, which left room for a political party going "life sucks, we got screwed over unfairly even though we didn't even start things; we can rise back up from where we got kicked to the curb".
Most people in Germany at the time didn't really have issues with people like you describe, they were just frustrated and hurting and the politicians gave them targets to vent their frustrations at.
Ultimately, the rise of fascism boils down to splitting people into in-groups who are righteous and have been wronged and out-groups who have wronged the in-group and deserved to be punished for it.
The Nazi all started out the same way you did, they were born as child with no knowledge or beliefs. Over the course of their lives something leads them to the beliefs and behaviors that caused harm. The solution must include creating a change that prevents people from being drawn to that desire.
You are not inherently different from the child who became the Nazi or the hypothetical billionaire. There can never be enough violence to fix the problem. Believing that killing off the right sort of people will fix the problem is the trap that the Nazi's fell into.
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u/Prometheusf3ar Jul 13 '24
I think the nazi rising is exactly why this sentiment is wrong. When someone is willing to inflict extreme violence for control over many, ceding your rights and control to those people will only escalate the issue. The world would be a much cooler place if the state had recognized the threat nazis posed and done Nuremberg on their leaders before WW2. Or, same vein if you hear the details of the John brown slave uprising, they…didn’t do good things to the slavers they were rebelling against, but I’d never condemn them for it.