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> These sorts of people are notorious for being unable to recognize that Nazi-ism was an ideology of the hard left, an ideology that the academic classes are ex

> These sorts of people are notorious for being unable to recognize that Nazi-ism was an ideology of the hard left, an ideology that the academic classes are extremely susceptible to. There is pretty substantial disagreement amongst historians and political scientists (see Kershaw, The Nazi dictatorship: problems and perspectives of interpretation, which unfortunately I don’t have to hand.) This dispute predates 1968. Many bog standard liberals or centre-right types, insofar as such classifications apply to historians, subscribed to the Nazism as totalitarianism thesis (whilst, crudely, a Marxist view was that it was an outgrowth of the contradictions of bourgeois liberal capitalism). The view that it was hard-left was pretty fringe in the 50s and is still fringe now. There are several good reasons for this—amongst which is the fact that Nazism was an essentially illiterate tradition, in the sense that it had no meaningful intellectuals, whereas Marxism is an extremely literate family of ideologies—in fact, arguably at the expense of a proper connexion to actual reality. So the notion that there is even a substantial body of Nazi intellectual output with the same importance as, say, Lenin had to Soviet life, seems rather misconceived. (This of course is subject to the caveat that Marxists are very argumentative people and one can probably on nearly any given question find Marxist authors who disagree; Nazism, by contrast, barely developed a canon of authors, and had little theoretical unity or basis, so whilst there were substantial contradictions in utterances there were relatively few in practice, which is all we really have—and indeed on that metric there was quite substantial diversity amongst the various Marxist states—even Maoism and Stalinism differed in their choice of revolutionary class, for example, and then if we take Pol Pot, Tito, Juche before the constitutional revisions about a decade ago, and so on, there is even more diversity.) To consider your argument— > in their own analyses of their enemies they were inseparable from the Soviets they were fighting This seems to elide the obvious places where they would be different, viz., the sort of society they wanted to build. Now, you might subscribe to the, shall we say, totalitarianism thesis of liberal and liberal-conservative historiography—and that’s perfectly respectable as a view!—but one ought to at least discuss this to a certain extent. > even after the defeat of the Nazis and the fall of the USSR, in the western world this type of racist leftism was not wiped out as commonly assumed but merely retreated to its stronghold in academia It’s really not obvious whether you’re referring to bog standard social democrats who primarily focus on class or randos on Twitter who advocate the extermination of whites. Whatever it is, the latter clearly have far less institutional power within the left than advocates of the total extermination of their racial enemies did under the Nazis. > The exact sort of people who are obsessed with equating Nazis and conservative white men are also the sort of people who write glowing reviews of Nazi propaganda magazines Perhaps the author is indeed this sort of person, but in that case you could probably try finding something to cite. I have no doubt that such people exist, but it is rather lazy to sneer at, let’s say, at least a third of the political spectrum (on a crude left-centre-right trichotomy) on the basis of one article.

thu2111 5y ago
I agree with a lot of what you write so voted you up. Yes, historians and political scientists i.e. academics have a hard time accepting what the Nazis truly were, that's my core thesis ;) Nazi-ism certainly has fewer books at its core than communism, however, I don't think this is any substantial difference for two reasons: 1. It does have substantial written material laying out its ideology, namely, Mein Kampf and other books and pamphlets written by Nazis. The idea that these books are less intellectual than Marxist literature is an idea propagated primarily by, well, academic types. There's no substantial difference in terms of the robustness of their core ideas or longevity of their insights. 2. The obvious reason the Nazis wrote fewer books is simply that they didn't need to: they seized power far quicker than Lenin did, and they had the benefit of access to modern technology like radio. Hitler did on the other hand produce prolific quantities of speeches laying out the 'intellectual' basis of the ideology, which is what you'd expect for someone who was around nearly a century later. After all, Stalin was no great writer either. The communists produced the bulk of their output before they seized power. This seems to elide the obvious places where they would be different, viz., the sort of society they wanted to build What sort of society did they want to build, exactly? Strip away the decades of academic obfuscation and you find Nazi-ism and communism are nearly indistinguishable. They both were totalitarian ideologies in which all power was concentrated in a dictator. They both built concentration camps at scale. They both claimed to speak for the working classes, they had the intention to dominate the world (until the USSR realised it didn't have the strength to do so and the COMINTERN became less relevant). Soviet society looked a lot like life would have looked in the third Reich had it conquered all of Europe and then been unable to go further. Whatever it is, the latter clearly have far less institutional power within the left than advocates of the total extermination of their racial enemies did under the Nazis I hope you are right, but how sure are you? Randos on Twitter certainly seem to wield institutional power and far more than the middle-of-the-road social democrats, whose views are increasingly irrelevant. Obviously if you compare anything going on in contemporary society to the Nazis on the brink of defeat, the comparison will seem extreme and unhelpful. The reason these discussions matter is that if the world is to successfully avoid a repeat of 20th century history then it's not enough to say, "oops, these people are acting just like the Nazis in 1943" because by then it's far, far too late. The only hope is to say, "this looks suspiciously like the Nazis in 1933". And in that regard "randos on Twitter" do look extremely concerning. Perhaps the author is indeed this sort of person, but in that case you could probably try finding something to cite. This is an excellent point. Whilst we may have strong stereotypes about such people and the whole package of beliefs they usually subscribe to, is it true in this specific case? I took a quick look at the author's Twitter account. Here [1] she claims she invented a new pronoun. There's plenty of anti-capitalist tweeting, of course. In August 2020 she retweeted a defense of trying to kill cops with Molotov cocktails [2]. In June 2020 she was retweeting her support for the removal of Woodrow Wilson's name from some university college [3]. She retweeted a claim that "White innocence makes a delicious story, and none of its beneficiaries wants to hear about how that particular sausage gets made". It takes a dig at "British nationalist myth making" for extra pop [4]. I guess I could go on, but do I really need to? The author is an utterly bog standard New York liberal who praises BLM, hates capitalism and thinks Britain is "collapsing under the weight of racism". She is a walking stereotype and as such it's no surprise at all she finds herself sympathising with the propaganda of the most racist government in history. [1] https://twitter.com/sarasara_sck/status/1380348332560822277 https://twitter.com/sarasara_sck/status/1380348332560822277 [2] https://twitter.com/allisongeroi/status/1291378034616999944 https://twitter.com/allisongeroi/status/1291378034616999944 [3] https://twitter.com/imaniperry/status/1276920110402461698 https://twitter.com/imaniperry/status/1276920110402461698 [4] https://twitter.com/Longreads/status/1275205428675317761 https://twitter.com/Longreads/status/1275205428675317761

thu2111 5y ago

I agree with a lot of what you write so voted you up. Yes, historians and political scientists i.e. academics have a hard time accepting what the Nazis truly were, that's my core thesis ;) Nazi-ism certainly has fewer books at its core than communism, however, I don't think this is any substantial difference for two reasons: 1. It does have substantial written material laying out its ideology, namely, Mein Kampf and other books and pamphlets written by Nazis. The idea that these books are less intellectual than Marxist literature is an idea propagated primarily by, well, academic types. There's no substantial difference in terms of the robustness of their core ideas or longevity of their insights. 2. The obvious reason the Nazis wrote fewer books is simply that they didn't need to: they seized power far quicker than Lenin did, and they had the benefit of access to modern technology like radio. Hitler did on the other hand produce prolific quantities of speeches laying out the 'intellectual' basis of the ideology, which is what you'd expect for someone who was around nearly a century later. After all, Stalin was no great writer either. The communists produced the bulk of their output before they seized power. This seems to elide the obvious places where they would be different, viz., the sort of society they wanted to build What sort of society did they want to build, exactly? Strip away the decades of academic obfuscation and you find Nazi-ism and communism are nearly indistinguishable. They both were totalitarian ideologies in which all power was concentrated in a dictator. They both built concentration camps at scale. They both claimed to speak for the working classes, they had the intention to dominate the world (until the USSR realised it didn't have the strength to do so and the COMINTERN became less relevant). Soviet society looked a lot like life would have looked in the third Reich had it conquered all of Europe and then been unable to go further. Whatever it is, the latter clearly have far less institutional power within the left than advocates of the total extermination of their racial enemies did under the Nazis I hope you are right, but how sure are you? Randos on Twitter certainly seem to wield institutional power and far more than the middle-of-the-road social democrats, whose views are increasingly irrelevant. Obviously if you compare anything going on in contemporary society to the Nazis on the brink of defeat, the comparison will seem extreme and unhelpful. The reason these discussions matter is that if the world is to successfully avoid a repeat of 20th century history then it's not enough to say, "oops, these people are acting just like the Nazis in 1943" because by then it's far, far too late. The only hope is to say, "this looks suspiciously like the Nazis in 1933". And in that regard "randos on Twitter" do look extremely concerning. Perhaps the author is indeed this sort of person, but in that case you could probably try finding something to cite. This is an excellent point. Whilst we may have strong stereotypes about such people and the whole package of beliefs they usually subscribe to, is it true in this specific case? I took a quick look at the author's Twitter account. Here [1] she claims she invented a new pronoun. There's plenty of anti-capitalist tweeting, of course. In August 2020 she retweeted a defense of trying to kill cops with Molotov cocktails [2]. In June 2020 she was retweeting her support for the removal of Woodrow Wilson's name from some university college [3]. She retweeted a claim that "White innocence makes a delicious story, and none of its beneficiaries wants to hear about how that particular sausage gets made". It takes a dig at "British nationalist myth making" for extra pop [4]. I guess I could go on, but do I really need to? The author is an utterly bog standard New York liberal who praises BLM, hates capitalism and thinks Britain is "collapsing under the weight of racism". She is a walking stereotype and as such it's no surprise at all she finds herself sympathising with the propaganda of the most racist government in history. [1] https://twitter.com/sarasara_sck/status/1380348332560822277 https://twitter.com/sarasara_sck/status/1380348332560822277 [2] https://twitter.com/allisongeroi/status/1291378034616999944 https://twitter.com/allisongeroi/status/1291378034616999944 [3] https://twitter.com/imaniperry/status/1276920110402461698 https://twitter.com/imaniperry/status/1276920110402461698 [4] https://twitter.com/Longreads/status/1275205428675317761 https://twitter.com/Longreads/status/1275205428675317761