Offensive Symbols

[New Owca]

Far and away, the most offensive symbol in modern western culture is the Nazi Hakenkreuz, or Swastika. It symbolises one of the cruellest dictatorships in modern history, responsible for at least 14 million deaths. However, Nazi Germany was not the only dictatorship of the 20th century. The USSR under Stalin, for example, is estimated to have killed between 9 and 50 million. The Khmer Rouge killed 21% of Cambodia's total population. Franco's "White Terror" has a kill count between 200,000 and 400,000. All these dictatorships had ideologies and symbols, but none of them has gathered quite as much attention as the Hakenkruez. Why is this?

Why do you think the Swastika stands head and shoulders above other murderous symbols? Why are symbols like the hammer and sickle or red star, symbols of communism, not seen in the same negative light as the Swastika? Why are other symbols of fascism, like the Italian Falange or the Greek Labrys, not well known whilst almost everyone recognizes the symbol of the Nazis? Does the Swastika represent fascism as a whole, or merely the Nazi's unique form of fascism? And at what point does a symbol become associated with the murderous regimes that use them?

[Internationalist Bastard]

Thousands of genocides have happened, but the holocaust is the most known and remembered
Hence the symbol of the Nazis is seen far more offensive than others
That said, I’m a Buddhist and want my shit back

[Risottia]

And hereby I declare NS Summer to have begun.

[Bombadil]

US involvement and films.. if there were war Oscars it would look like..

WW2 - Best use of baddies
Vietnam - Best soundtrack
Cold War - Most unrealistic use of kids saving America
WW1 - Best poetry

[Vassenor]

So we're doing the "why are we vilifying the Nazis and not the communists" shtick again?

Brace yourselves. NSG Summer is coming.

[Cannot think of a name]

So we're doing the "why are we vilifying the Nazis and not the communists" shtick again?

Brace yourselves. NSG Summer is coming.

It's like seeing the first summer flowers bloom.

Except the smell is way worse.

[Hirota]

<shakes head> Too many lazy people in here, far more interested in disingenuous straw-manning than honest discussion.

Far and away, the most offensive symbol in modern western culture is the Nazi Hakenkreuz, or Swastika. It symbolises one of the cruellest dictatorships in modern history, responsible for at least 14 million deaths. However, Nazi Germany was not the only dictatorship of the 20th century. The USSR under Stalin, for example, is estimated to have killed between 9 and 50 million. The Khmer Rouge killed 21% of Cambodia's total population. Franco's "White Terror" has a kill count between 200,000 and 400,000. All these dictatorships had ideologies and symbols, but none of them has gathered quite as much attention as the Hakenkruez. Why is this?

Why do you think the Swastika stands head and shoulders above other murderous symbols? Why are symbols like the hammer and sickle or red star, symbols of communism, not seen in the same negative light as the Swastika? Why are other symbols of fascism, like the Italian Falange or the Greek Labrys, not well known whilst almost everyone recognizes the symbol of the Nazis? Does the Swastika represent fascism as a whole, or merely the Nazi's unique form of fascism? And at what point does a symbol become associated with the murderous regimes that use them?

I'd submit that you answered your own question regarding why people in the west think of the Holocaust more than other genocides.

In "modern western culture" it is almost inevitably going to consider the events of Nazi Germany most offensive because it's fair to say Germany is a "western culture" and one that at the time did clearly reprehensible things. You point out the obviously horrific actions in Cambodia - I'd submit that it's resaonable that if they had to choose, the Khmer Rogue are first in the minds of people in that area rather than the events that took place in the 1940's over 9000 km away.

We could probably answer the question if we had access to some Ukrainians. When you ask the average Ukrainian of genocide, do they think first of the holocaust (which did reach their country, albeit less than other nations), or Holomdor? The answer would imply which had more immediacy in their minds.

And yes, I know not everyone considers Holomdor a genocide, the point isn't about if NSG collectively thinks it was or wasn't, but rather the average Ukranian.

I suspect that it's difficult to prove one way or the other, but it's a working theory.

As for the whole nature of symbols and what they mean to different people...thats almost a different discussion. A word or image (such as the Swastika) is symbolic when it takes on an attribute more than its obvious and immediate meaning. The problem with symbols is that what is implied can vary. Look at the debate surrounding the confederate flag. To some it's a symbol of history, to others it's a symbol of racism. Neither (and yet both) are entirely true.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I dare say it has to do with a world war being fought due to the genocide, among other things. The ideology behind Nazism was despicable and it attempted at shaping an entire continent.

I'm not saying the other dictators were angels compared to Hitler. They all marked the history of their countries in negative ways. But Nazism was in a category all its own.

[Conserative Morality]

Turns out that turning mass murder into an industry strikes people as a little more distasteful.

[Imperializt Russia]

All the other regimes you listed killed people for being "enemies of the state" and political opponents. Disgusting, unquestionably so, but impossibly far removed from the systematic, industrialised slaughter of the Nazis who used racist pseudoscience to artificially categorise people into what amounted to "human" and "non-human" races and have them killed because they believed in the inferiority of these races.

And, just to make it clear, it's not the raw bodycount that makes the Nazis so despised. As I said, it is the motivations they used to justify them.

[Purpelia]

All the other regimes you listed killed people for being "enemies of the state" and political opponents. Disgusting, unquestionably so, but impossibly far removed from the systematic, industrialised slaughter of the Nazis who used racist pseudoscience to artificially categorise people into what amounted to "human" and "non-human" races and have them killed because they believed in the inferiority of these races.

And, just to make it clear, it's not the raw bodycount that makes the Nazis so despised. As I said, it is the motivations they used to justify them.

But how is that really meaningfully different than the other? Do the corpses really care about the rational of their murder? What about the graving families? Do they care? Should they care?

Human history is a history of nasty shit. Hitler just did the most recent nasty shit that was big and dramatic enough to leave a mark. The one and only real practical reason why the Nazis are so reviled today is because every other example of really nasty shit done to fellow man either happened far away (Belgian Congo, Boer War concentration camps), was done haphazardly (native americans), was done by the "good guys" so we have to shut up or happened so long ago it's really hard to care.

Give it a century or two and people will be talking bout the Nazis much in the same tone we talk about the Mongols sacking every city that won't surrender or Alexander burning Persepolis.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

And hereby I declare NS Summer to have begun.

Normal summer also just started.

[A m e n r i a]

Actually, the hammer and sickle is viewed worse than a swastika. You can wave a nazi flag and people would just look at you weird. Wave a USSR flag, and you'll hear "Communist!" "Atheist!" And other stuff getting yelled at to you from the populace. You might even get arrested. Like you said, the swastika is offensive in western culture. It's not like that in my home country.

[Democratic Exodian Territories]

Actually, the hammer and sickle is viewed worse than a swastika. You can wave a nazi flag and people would just look at you weird. Wave a USSR flag, and you'll hear "Communist!" "Atheist!" And other stuff getting yelled at to you from the populace. You might even get arrested. Like you said, the swastika is offensive in western culture. It's not like that in my home country.

Wish it was like that here. The US used to be the most anti-communist country in the world, (and they did take it too far many times), but the social response is an absolute pushover.

Wave a hammer and sickle and people won’t give a shit. Some will even applaud you. Wave a swastika, and people will practically conspire to kill you within 2 seconds of them seeing you.



It’s even displayed with me. Despite me having a hate for communists/marxists just as much as national socialists/fascists, if not more than the latter, I have quite less of response to the hammer and sickle to the swastika as the former has been memed to the extreme. The latter is having a similar effect with the delicious edgy memes I indulge myself in, but still not as much as the mass of Russian-themed jokes that appear so frequently. (The fascist axe has a slight response, but overall meh, why should I care.)

On the other hand, perhaps the most triggering symbol I respond to other than the swastika is the ISIS flag. It’s universally recognized in most countries, both East and West, as a symbol of hatred, so it makes perfect sense.

[A m e n r i a]

Actually, the hammer and sickle is viewed worse than a swastika. You can wave a nazi flag and people would just look at you weird. Wave a USSR flag, and you'll hear "Communist!" "Atheist!" And other stuff getting yelled at to you from the populace. You might even get arrested. Like you said, the swastika is offensive in western culture. It's not like that in my home country.

Wish it was like that here. The US used to be the most anti-communist country in the world, (and they did take it too far many times), but the social response is an absolute pushover.

Wave a hammer and sickle and people won’t give a shit. Some will even applaud you. Wave a swastika, and people will practically conspire to kill you within 2 seconds of them seeing you.

So you prefer fascism to commumism, and you're American? That's an interesting perspective. Though with the American and Chinese rivalry, I'm not that surprised that an American would oppose communism.

[Dylar]

And hereby I declare NS Summer to have begun.

Normal summer also just started.

I thought normal summer officially begins on the summer solstice on June 21.

[Democratic Exodian Territories]

Wish it was like that here. The US used to be the most anti-communist country in the world, (and they did take it too far many times), but the social response is an absolute pushover.

Wave a hammer and sickle and people won’t give a shit. Some will even applaud you. Wave a swastika, and people will practically conspire to kill you within 2 seconds of them seeing you.

So you prefer fascism to commumism, and you're American? That's an interesting perspective. Though with the American and Chinese rivalry, I'm not that surprised that an American would oppose communism.

I support democracy above all else. Fascism is usually ethno-nationalist and I’m not white nor do I support racism, but communism takes away “muh free market”, as one might remark.

I hate both ideologies equally, but symbols are weird when dealing with such ideologies with the presence of memes.

[True Alimeria]

White Supremacist symbols look ugly af.

[Firaxin]

White Supremacist symbols look ugly af.

I dunno, they're not that bad looking. Before you accuse me, no I don't support them.

[Old Tyrannia]

All the other regimes you listed killed people for being "enemies of the state" and political opponents. Disgusting, unquestionably so, but impossibly far removed from the systematic, industrialised slaughter of the Nazis who used racist pseudoscience to artificially categorise people into what amounted to "human" and "non-human" races and have them killed because they believed in the inferiority of these races.

I think your broader point is partially valid, but you're simply wrong here. One of the regimes listed in the OP is the Khmer Rouge, who most certainly did engage in the systematic slaughter of people based on race and other factors besides political opposition to the regime. They actually killed people for wearing glasses, because glasses were seen as "bourgeois." They also attempted to exterminate all non-Khmer ethnic groups within Cambodia. The notoriety attached to the symbolism of the Nazis is not just because they were particularly evil.

So we're doing the "why are we vilifying the Nazis and not the communists" shtick again?

Brace yourselves. NSG Summer is coming.

If the OP were a right-winger out to engage in a petty political points-scoring competition, would they have mentioned Franco's Spain alongside the Khmer Rouge and the USSR under Stalin? I know that being offended by things is basically the raison d'être of much of the modern left, but you're really stretching here.

I think there are a number of factors contributing to the ill reputation of the Hakenkreuz. The nature of the Holocaust is certainly relevant- it's the largest scale attempt to exterminate a given population in modern history, and was unusual for the systematic and industrialised fashion in which it was carried out, as Imperializt Russia noted. The genocide served no practical ends; the extermination of those the Nazis deemed "inferior" was an end in and of itself, and resources that could have been put to use on the front line were actually redirected into carrying out the genocide. There's little doubt that the Nazi regime represents one of the most flagrant examples of humanity's capacity for evil in the history of the world, but it was not quite a unique event. In my opinion the particular reputation of the Nazis and their symbolism in the western world has as much to do with the way in that the Second World War has been mythologised by succeeding generations, as it does with the Nazis simply being outstandingly awful. For many nations in the western world today, the war is an integral part of their national myth, and it also forms the basis and supporting founding myth for the modern international order. The Nazis are as close to a thing as a secular representation of absolute evil as exists in modern culture.

Another difference between the way Nazi Germany and, say, the USSR or even Imperial Japan is viewed today is that the latter two states were around for a lot longer than Hitler's regime. The Nazis governed Germany for twelve years, and their most notable actions in those years were starting the single bloodiest conflict in world history and attempting to exterminate millions of people on the basis of their ancestry, religious beliefs, sexualities and disabilities being incompatible with the Nazi ideal. It's not suprising that Nazi symbolism should be associated closely with those actions. On the other hand, the USSR was around for almost a century and in that time was known for more than just Stalin's purges. Much of the Soviet symbolism is also associated with the broader communist and socialist movement, which predated the Russian Revolution and was more universal than German National Socialism. So the association between, say, the hammer and sickle and Soviet atrocities is not so strong as the association between the Hakenkreuz and the atrocities of the Nazis. Likewise with the Imperial Japanese war flag, the "Rising Sun Flag," which has a long history in Japan and is still used in a modified form by the Japanese military today. Attitudes may be somewhat different in those nations more directly affected by the aforementioned states, of course- e.g. Eastern European nations occupied by the Soviets during the Cold War and East Asian nations invaded by the Japanese in the Second World War and preceeding conflicts.

[Vassenor]

White Supremacist symbols look ugly af.

I dunno, they're not that bad looking. Before you accuse me, no I don't support them.

Probably because most of them are co-opted and bastardised from other ideologies and stuff.

[Sovaal]

I think what makes the Holocaust be head above other genicides is 1: the fact that the Western world, of which most in here are from, was directly affected by it, and 2: just how ‘industualised’, for lack of a better term, it was. So as such the Swastika holds special connotations in Western society.

[Democratic Exodian Territories]

White Supremacist symbols look ugly af.

The Celtic Cross alone is far from a hateful symbol, being a symbol meant to be holy and Christian.

But when one of those pointy hood-wearing freaks tarnishes it, it’s now gone down the drain.

[Dylar]

White Supremacist symbols look ugly af.

The Celtic Cross alone is far from a hateful symbol, being a symbol meant to be holy and Christian.

But when one of those pointy hood-wearing freaks tarnishes it, it’s now gone down the drain.

The hoods and cloaks that the KKK wear weren't actually created by the KKK. They're a Catholic vestment. Though, you won't see clergy wear it much. Probably because the KKK tarnished that too...

[Hirota]

The Celtic Cross alone is far from a hateful symbol, being a symbol meant to be holy and Christian.

But when one of those pointy hood-wearing freaks tarnishes it, it’s now gone down the drain.

The hoods and cloaks that the KKK wear weren't actually created by the KKK. They're a Catholic vestment. Though, you won't see clergy wear it much. Probably because the KKK tarnished that too...

Indeed, I think it's only in current use by the Capirote in Spain.

Indeed the BBC has an article talking about the differences in symbolism specifically talking about the hoods and cloaks.