LWDT V: Completing the Five Thread Plan

[Ostroeuropa]

Not particularly, and that's the kind of talk that makes it difficult to actually address the issue and understand the environment that leads normal people into supporting genocide.

Y e a h. If we call people who support genocide evil, normal people might drive into supporting genocide too.
That's the point about supporting genocide. It automatically makes you evil.
The Germans in the ww2 may not have all been evil, but the nazis? they were evil precisely because they were nazis.

This is the kind of thing that makes people less guarded about racism because nobody thinks of themselves as evil. To reduce the behavior of the nazis to "evil" is ignoring the reasons and environment and so on that led to them acting that way.

Evil is not a useful concept.

[Liriena]

Following this kind of discussion being started, media all of a sudden, FOR SOME REASON, lurched into portraying Nazis and the far-right as cartoonish villains with no depth of character or human qualities that no longer examined closely the reasons this happened, instead portraying them simply as bad people and that no further investigation or discussion was necessary.

Ah, yes, Spielberg and Brooks turned Nazis into laughable cartoonish villains as part of a ploy to erase the involvement of American industrialists in the rise of fascism.

[Cekoviu]

Just thought i'd drop in to criticize the dehumanization of the far-right and nazis and stuff and remind those who think this is fine of the reasons this trend began in culture.

Following WW2 the banality and normality of Nazis and their human characteristics was the focus for a time, up until about the 60s when criticisms of western involvement became more prevalent in cultural pieces, raising questions like;

"Where is the responsibility of the American Industrialists who helped Hitler to rebuild his army and profited from that rebuilding?"

Following this kind of discussion being started, media all of a sudden, FOR SOME REASON, lurched into portraying Nazis and the far-right as cartoonish villains with no depth of character or human qualities that no longer examined closely the reasons this happened, instead portraying them simply as bad people and that no further investigation or discussion was necessary.

That the modern progressive left supports that trend in large part is an insight into just how much of their discourse is polluted by lack of skepticism and inquiry, and ultimately serves the interests of capitalism consistently with their discourse on social issues.

I mean, tbf, the Nazis were fucking evil.

[Ostroeuropa]

Following this kind of discussion being started, media all of a sudden, FOR SOME REASON, lurched into portraying Nazis and the far-right as cartoonish villains with no depth of character or human qualities that no longer examined closely the reasons this happened, instead portraying them simply as bad people and that no further investigation or discussion was necessary.

Ah, yes, Spielberg and Brooks turned Nazis into laughable cartoonish villains as part of a ploy to erase the involvement of American industrialists in the rise of fascism.

Brooks mocked the nazis propoganda methods and made them laughable and cartoonish in a different way that poked fun at them, it wasn't a matter of simply portraying them as flatly evil. He also portrays them as human, just bumbling and incompetent, as opposed to, MWaHAhHahHAhAhaha.

he pokes fun at the incoherence of their ideology and how its comical upon inspection, and doesn't portray the ideology as a desire to do evil.

[Great Minarchistan]

i dont think that changing the economic system will change the human impulse for more power even if it means you need to fuck everyone else to setup your personal "old stone building"

I never specified the economic system. I am a libertarian communist, not a Marxist-Leninist. The economic system is only one aspect of the capitalist world-system. The entire system needs to be replaced, not only the economy (as generally understood).

the principle still stands, your system's problem lies in human nature which is immutable

[Liriena]

Evil is not a useful concept.

I think it's a perfectly useful and accurate concept in many cases, particularly when directed at people in positions of power who act maliciously or showing no regard for the negative consequences of their actions on others.

Kissinger, for example, is evil. Maybe he loves his grandkids, maybe he's a good husband, but that hardly balances out a career built on mass death.

[Liriena]

He also portrays them as human, just bumbling and incompetent

IIRC, you are not too fond of this method either.

[Ostroeuropa]

Evil is not a useful concept.

I think it's a perfectly useful and accurate concept in many cases, particularly when directed at people in positions of power who act maliciously or showing no regard for the negative consequences of their actions on others.

Kissinger, for example, is evil. Maybe he loves his grandkids, maybe he's a good husband, but that hardly balances out a career built on mass death.

It's lazy and avoids pointing out the interests involved and implies that the motives for these actions are simply that the person enjoys them and so on, something only true in edge cases where mental illness is involved and evil is once again not a useful term.

[Liriena]

I never specified the economic system. I am a libertarian communist, not a Marxist-Leninist. The economic system is only one aspect of the capitalist world-system. The entire system needs to be replaced, not only the economy (as generally understood).

the principle still stands, your system's problem lies in human nature which is immutable

The "human nature" meme? Ewww.

[Ostroeuropa]

He also portrays them as human, just bumbling and incompetent

IIRC, you are not too fond of this method either.

No, i'm fine with Nazis being portrayed as incoherent, bumbling, and incompetent. I'm irritated at the "nazis were efficient" meme, and it's apt to point out the ridiculous aspects of the ideology cause inefficiency that is comical. Yes Ministeresque lampooning of idiotic decisions like appointing three people of equal rank with radically different views to run a ministry in some masturbatory worship of conflict and so on is fine.

[Liriena]

I think it's a perfectly useful and accurate concept in many cases, particularly when directed at people in positions of power who act maliciously or showing no regard for the negative consequences of their actions on others.

Kissinger, for example, is evil. Maybe he loves his grandkids, maybe he's a good husband, but that hardly balances out a career built on mass death.

It's lazy and avoids pointing out the interests involved and implies that the motives for these actions are simply that the person enjoys them and so on, something only true in edge cases where mental illness is involved and evil is once again not a useful term.

Acknowledging the interests involved does not preclude us also describing the related actions and attitudes as evil. Understanding the historical processes that lead to terrible things doesn't automatically prohibit making a moral judgement on those things.

[Cekoviu]

the principle still stands, your system's problem lies in human nature which is immutable

The "human nature" meme? Ewww.

I would say that because we're so adaptable in our early years, capitalism and competition is solidified into our minds as a good thing and it's very hard to break out of that mindset. There's nothing in human nature that explicitly makes communism impossible, but that developmental curve makes it extraordinarily difficult to convert people to the totally different way of thinking advocated by communism, especially in hyper-individualistic countries like the US. If our early societies had been less hierarchical, perhaps the vicious cycle wouldn't have originated.

[Ostroeuropa]

I think the term evil carries certain implications due to its common usages in media and society that are unhelpful when discussing real humans. I'm fine with calling it unethical and a myriad of other terms. For one thing, usage of evil casts those opposing the group as good in most circumstances and this is not justified in many circumstances, and the mentality causes exceptionalism that leads to problems that we've seen both writ large with foreign policy and american exceptionalism, and on a smaller scale with progressive abuses of people and the inquisition style attitude to root out "evil" which is difficult or dangerous to criticize due to them pointing to their enemy that they are ostensibly fighting and noting they are the "bad guys.".

More nuanced terms and accurate descriptions make it harder to have this happen.
If you call a group evil then that's a way of avoiding specific criticism that is much easier to point out hypocrisy on.

If you're fighting evil then you can dismiss criticism and question the motives of the person criticizing you.
If you're fighting say, discrimination on the basis of skin color, then it becomes apt to note when people are doing that on both sides.

[Cekoviu]

[Libertarian Communist Planets]

Following this kind of discussion being started, media all of a sudden, FOR SOME REASON, lurched into portraying Nazis and the far-right as cartoonish villains with no depth of character or human qualities that no longer examined closely the reasons this happened, instead portraying them simply as bad people and that no further investigation or discussion was necessary.

Evil exists, to some degree, in all of us. There are no perfect people. However, it is sometimes useful to study people who have let their evil inclinations dominate their better angels.

[West Leas Oros]

Not particularly, and that's the kind of talk that makes it difficult to actually address the issue and understand the environment that leads normal people into supporting genocide.

Y e a h. If we call people who support genocide evil, normal people might drive into supporting genocide too.
That's the point about supporting genocide. It automatically makes you evil.
The Germans in the ww2 may not have all been evil, but the nazis? they were evil precisely because they were nazis.

Isn’t that circular reasoning? The nazis were evil because they are nazis? Doesn’t properly explain WHY nazis are evil. The nazis were evil because they killed people, and a whole lot of people, and turned mass murder into an industry.

[Pilarcraft]

Y e a h. If we call people who support genocide evil, normal people might drive into supporting genocide too.
That's the point about supporting genocide. It automatically makes you evil.
The Germans in the ww2 may not have all been evil, but the nazis? they were evil precisely because they were nazis.

Isn’t that circular reasoning? The nazis were evil because they are nazis? Doesn’t properly explain WHY nazis are evil. The nazis were evil because they killed people, and a whole lot of people, and turned mass murder into an industry.

The reason Nazis are evil is because Nazism is evil. Yeah
But the reason Nazism is evil isn't because Nazis are evil. It's because, as you said, they turned genocide into an industry and their ideology was built on mass murder of populations and taking their land as their own.
That's why it's not a circular logic.

[The Serbian Empire]

Y e a h. If we call people who support genocide evil, normal people might drive into supporting genocide too.
That's the point about supporting genocide. It automatically makes you evil.
The Germans in the ww2 may not have all been evil, but the nazis? they were evil precisely because they were nazis.

Isn’t that circular reasoning? The nazis were evil because they are nazis? Doesn’t properly explain WHY nazis are evil. The nazis were evil because they killed people, and a whole lot of people, and turned mass murder into an industry.

And they killed people because of anti-Semitism and religious views opposing gypsies and LGBT people. Without motive, the Nazis would have never gotten power or killed. It's not like they're Brenda Spencer who killed just because "I don't like Mondays".

[Libertarian Communist Planets]

Here is a paragraph I just added, as a guy from a Jewish background, to one of my essays:

In summation, evil exists, to one degree or another, in all of us. Abominations, globally, are plentiful, too vast to name. As we observe in each day’s news, the world is dominated by considerable malice. Perfect people can be found only in imaginative works of fiction. However, it can sometimes be valuable to study entities who have allowed their evil inclinations dominate their better angels. In a sense, when we do so, we are staring at a looking–glass. More accurately, we are gazing into a crooked mirror. It reveals to us what we can all become, each of us, if caution is thrown to the wind. Yet, modern Israel is a stark example of how failing a severe test, in this case the Holocaust, can lead to hatred without a conscience or a sense of justice.

[Great Minarchistan]

>Libertarian Communist Planets
>Same flag as of DCF
>Same signature
>Both are Jewish

who are you and what do you want

[Torrocca]

>Libertarian Communist Planets
>Same flag as of DCF
>Same signature
>Both are Jewish

who are you and what do you want

Probably just easy identification to show he's posting with a puppet.

[United Muscovite Nations]

>Libertarian Communist Planets
>Same flag as of DCF
>Same signature
>Both are Jewish

who are you and what do you want

I don't know what's so hard about understanding this.

[Torrocca]

>Libertarian Communist Planets
>Same flag as of DCF
>Same signature
>Both are Jewish

who are you and what do you want

I don't know what's so hard about understanding this.

Libertarianism ruined another one's understanding of things. Such a shame :^)

[Libertarian Communist Planets]

>Libertarian Communist Planets
>Same flag as of DCF
>Same signature
>Both are Jewish

who are you and what do you want

Huh? Who are you, and what do you want?

[Libertarian Communist Planets]

Libertarianism ruined another one's understanding of things. Such a shame :^)

Not sure if the poster is objecting to the fact that my parents were Jewish, that I am a libertarian Marxist, or both.