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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On November 27 2013 14:02 sam!zdat wrote:
it's not? what kind of marxist explanation do you want...
i mean you could read Adorno and Horkheimer "Dialectic of Enlightenment" and a number of pieces from Zizek where he theorizes antisemitism... I would also suggest Arendt on the "origins of totalitarianism" and Polanyi "the great transformation" in which he presents a (dated) analysis of the monetary underpinnings of ww2...
basically i would understand nazism and fascism more generally as an attempt to have modernization without modernity... remember that nazism was always first and foremost an anti-communist politics...
I was expecting something more based in class analysis. What you gave was the orthodox version taught in history books, not that it's incorrect.
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well, the question when a crisis comes is just whether you can mobilize the proletariat for some sort of radical emancipatory politics or whether they will be mobilized by fascism instead. the nazis were competing with the KPD for who would win the working class...
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On November 27 2013 14:15 sam!zdat wrote:
well, the question when a crisis comes is just whether you can mobilize the proletariat for some sort of radical emancipatory politics or whether they will be mobilized by fascism instead. the nazis were competing with the KPD for who would win the working class...
Yes, yes. That is the obvious. What were you going to say here:
On November 26 2013 13:02 sam!zdat wrote:
edit: no no no I am not going to talk about this
On November 26 2013 13:12 sam!zdat wrote:
I have a lot to say but right now I am on mushrooms and i do NOT want to talk about nazis
but yeah this is a kind of thing that the western marxist tradition (and just western intellectuals in general) has spilled a lot of ink thinking about. I recommend a book called "Ordinary Men" by somebody or other
you can't just write a phenomenon like this off some essentialized moral weakness, that is an obvious dead end, but we will have to talk about this some other time
And specifically as it pertained to this and subsequent comments:
On November 26 2013 09:42 MoltkeWarding wrote:
The legalistic epoch of Western Civilization appeared sometime during the apex of the Modern Age in the 18th century, reached its zenith during the Victorian Era and suffered a long and steady erosion since the shattering of the long peace in 1914. That today ethical legalism is being deconstructed by all kinds of "realists" is hardly insightful or revolutionary.
In 1914 Bethmann Hollweg's denunciation of the Treaty of London as a "scrap of paper" was shocking to the civilised world, precisely because it represented the violation of an ethical custom which, whatever shortcomings it may appear to possess today, was a positive constructive identity upon which a standard for civilised behaviour had been based for over a century.
And this is why Kwark as usual is completely wrong in his interpretation of the ethical significance of "Nazi Germany" in the 20th century: the Germans were merely the first to recognise the validity of his own principles: neither in 1914 and 1933 did they feel that they owed loyalty to outdated treaties, or an unpopular democratic constitution, or an illegitimate republic. Nor did it have anything to do with the "quality of the people"; the German middle-classes were the best-educated and most idealistic people in the world. That they were so exacerbated, rather than relieved the problem. During the first half of the 20th century, the German claim to moral supremacy over the "mercantile" English was based on an ethical self-conception, that German values of Bildung and Kultur were superior to shallow English values (well summarised by Biff's citation.) The Germans were the first to realise the supremacy of individual self-cultivation over petty legalism, and history will speak to its fate. For millions of Germans, the coming of Hitler represented a kind of liberation from a poisonous bourgeois order, from outdated modes of social duties and engagements which no longer seemed relevant for the modern world.
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i was just going to try to argue with the idea that any kind of moral assessment of individuals or groups of individuals is particularly relevant or interesting for an understanding of phenomena like fascism
edit: I think moltke is basically right but I'm not sure what's at stake in this argument
edit: @below sorry you are ban bait for me
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Nazi Germany was more Socialist than anything. If you're looking for the prototypical Fascist country you have to look at Mussolini's Italy, indeed, he is the modern father of Fascism, not Hitler. As for the idea that in a crisis your only choices are Communism or Fascism..I mean really.
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Canada11378 Posts
Dunno. Socialism? Certainly not of the anti-private property sort. Maybe corporatism?
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On November 27 2013 10:22 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2013 08:37 KwarK wrote:On November 27 2013 08:30 IgnE wrote:On November 27 2013 08:21 KwarK wrote:On November 27 2013 08:18 IgnE wrote:On November 27 2013 08:13 KwarK wrote:On November 27 2013 08:03 IgnE wrote:On November 27 2013 07:48 Acrofales wrote:On November 27 2013 07:06 MoltkeWarding wrote:On November 27 2013 06:02 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
You are such a garbage poster. Nothing you say has any meaning. You don't even quote the things you elude to, you never bother to frame an argument or show what you mean. You just lay on layer after layer of utter absurdity, claiming people feel more isolated than ever in the age of facebook and mass communication, that people feel more bored when they have the internet at their disposal if a hundred tv channels wasn't enough. It's just bullshit. Yes, some people feel isolated and adrift but that is not a modern condition, that is the human condition and the reason why our society has created the connectivity and content that it has. For every lonely person writing a blog about their life now there was a lonely guy a hundred years ago feeling the same way but with nobody reading his diary. Just total nonsense, like every other post you make. Actually, up to about three centuries back we do have some useful gauges of how ordinary people lived, and the relative vexations they experienced in their common lives in contrast to our own, because of the advance of the novel as a modern literary genre. We know that people used to fall in love differently, and make love differently as well. We know that their perception of time and the effects of the seasons upon their humours differed. We have a rich canvas upon which to play out our investigations. But as I have learned from our fellow Kwark, there is no need for any of that. We know exactly what a governess in Belle Epoque Rouen was like, without reading, and almost without thinking: they were exactly like us except they didn't play video games or take daily showers or use flush toilets. I am going to summarise this in a Kwark-thesis, so that everyone can understand: Boredom existed in 1913 as well as in 2013. The causes and manifestations of each however are not comparable, and therefore no qualitative equivalence can be established. The problem as we face it must be judged on its own gravity. Anyway, this is a very strange outburst from Kwark, since it does not relate to anything I have actually said. What matters though is not what he is saying but the attitude with which he says it. I believe Kwark feels that I am that prude in the bar who keeps blocking him when he is just trying to score. He doesn't see that I am trying to save him from scoring with a very ugly hag. Except that using Jane Austin as a reference for how people lived in the 18th century is about as useful as taking 50 shades of grey as an accurate representation of modern society. Boring people leading boring everyday lives didn't get written about then, just as they don't get written about now (although for some reason they do get televised in reality shows). And boring people leading boring everyday lives are the VAST majority of people. While I don't have the statistical evidence to back it up, and am still unsure about whether the average lower class citizen of Rwanda is better off now than he was 100 years ago, I am willing to take the evidence given by mcc and Johnny (which is actual data, rather than anecdotal evidence based on ficticious novels) and say that all around the world, the standard of living has improved. He's not talking about the standard of living. He's talking about the anomie and disillusionment of a modern world. He is making a valid point. Kwark's argument is borderline ridiculous, as he seems to be unaware of the widespread socio-structural changes that have occurred with the advent of modernity. Yes, people have 200 friends on facebook, but they also have fewer roots in the community in which they live and work. The nuclear family, a tiny, anomalous conception of family which had already replaced a larger conception of family beginning after WW2, is itself increasingly fragmented. People increasingly have to uproot themselves from their friends and communities multiple times in their life in order to go where employers are hiring. And traditional forms of social solidarity have been dissolved in place of commoditization of social transactions. And you assume that this is new? And that there weren't issues with the world that it replaced? Here's something else that's not new, romanticisation of the rural idyll. It's a myth. You think people born farmers who were always going to be farmers didn't feel disillusioned with having a life of toil without any real choice or meaning? You think they didn't get lonely seeing the same small group of people all day every day? And that's before we even address the fact that the uprooting of people was far more severe, permanent and widespread two hundred years ago than it is today. I can drive across the country in a few hours to see a friend who moved away for work, or pick up the phone, or read his facebook updates and yet you look back to a time of mass migration to the cities from the country with no place to return to (booming population and more efficient farming, surplus people forced to leave the countryside) to make your point? It's total nonsense. Here's my thesis. Disillusionment, boredom and loneliness are part of the human condition. That's why things that kill our time, hold our interest and make us feel connected to others are so attractive to us and why we spend so much of our surplus productivity on them. We've gotten much better at it, we've created technological marvels that do it. We have never had it as good as this and if you think otherwise then you need to take off those rear facing rose tinted lenses. I don't think anyone yearns to go back to the 18th century. But it's total nonsense to say that we have it the best it can be. I don't think today is some Platonic ideal but it's the best we've come up with, certainly better than everything that came before it. Try spending a week without the internet, tv or radio, without reading anything but a handful of books you've read a dozen times before, without using a phone, and without talking to anyone who doesn't live within walking distance. That's how people used to live. It was shit. It was so shit we invented all those things to get away from it. There is a reason alcoholism was rampant, why England used to have a pub on every street and why drinking was the main form of leisure activity, it's because alcohol was the first big breakthrough humanity made in making life less shit. But surely you realize that no one is saying that the internet, books, or phones are the cause of modern anomie? Edit: and neither are they a panacea Moltke is implying that things used to be great and now aren't. He doesn't really argue because actually making a point is too hard, he just makes vague smug remarks about humours but with a general tone of "things aren't what they used to be". But he was suggesting, in his own worthless way, that people feel more isolated now than they did back then which is truly remarkable claim to make given the technological changes. + Show Spoiler +I'm sidetracking this a little, mostly because I was enjoying the discussion.  Moltke makes points all the time. I don't actually think its hard to understand what his point is, and you don't seem to have a hard time with it either - you just stated a very simplified version of it. Now, he is definitely prone to elevate his thoughts through references, like the mention of rerum novarum some pages back, and to be honest I usually find that very annoying because an argument should be able to stand on its own feet rather than gain validity due to authority. Somehow it's different with moltke though, because he makes it an artform, and it's just plain beautiful to behold. And the language comments? He writes beautiful prose and I'm intrigued by reading it, and it's weird to me to see guys like farvecola, who also writes beautifully and with very complex language, criticize moltke's beautiful and complex language. But anyway, I love the interconnectivity of this era I happened to be born in. For me, coming from a middle-class family in the midst of Norway, to be able to share my thoughts and ideas with people from all around the world, for me to be able to siphon unto the accumulated wealth of human knowledge through moving my fingertips, for me to be able to travel mostly anywhere I want to any culture I want, or even enjoy fruits of many other cultures right outside my doorstep, represents an absolutely amazing development and it makes me feel like I won the lottery at birth - by time and location alone. That's me. However, this doesn't mean that detachment isn't a serious- or even growing "cause of unhappiness" in today's society. For one, kids nowadays often struggle with feeling of accomplishment and mastery - despite the fact that positive pedagogical theories are more widespread (and correctly so) - simply because they're not competing on a local playground anymore, but against every wonderkid on youtube. You're a smart, capable guy able to articulate yourself in a clear, concise manner, who is actually able to attain some feeling of accomplishment on a global stage, both in games and on a forum of this nature - but this is not the case for the vast majority of people. Local communities losing significance, and they absolutely have, is for many a bad experience. I recently read that 6 out of 10 Norwegian teenagers genuinely worry about not getting enough likes on their social media interactions, and worse, people who fuck up royally actually become global celebrities due to their fuckups. Now, where moltke's account of the past is lacking is where he essentially ignores the enormous prevalence of real, actual poverty, illiteracy, starvation, deadly and deliberating disease, generations lost to war.. But he's already incredibly verbose, surely we must not force him to argue both sides of the discussion? And you, in opposition to him, make the same mistake imo, by ignoring that many of today's young genuinely do feel isolated in a way that would have been foreign to them 100 or more years ago. One big historical change which has happened over the past couple centuries is the "evolution of personal horizons", to phrase myself in a way that requires explanation. Basically, before, people assumed that life would continue to be how life is. Now, we expect life to continuously evolve into something better. It's more rare for life to evolve to something better, even in today's improved society, than it was for life to stay the same, in days of yore. This disillusionment which most people end up feeling at some points of their lives, some people continuously, is a great cause of actual unhappiness in people. I still think we're vastly better off, but we don't have to pretend that nothing has been lost.
I'll admit that I poked at his language mostly because I felt that he was attacking the point of this thread. After a bit of clarification, I take much less issue with what he's saying, and that's not entirely because it ruffles KwarK's feathers so 
I've been holding off on commenting substantively mostly due to the fact that I agree with a lot of what both KwarK and Moltke said but am very hesitant to suggest that there's even a point in looking for a "correct" answer when it comes to how we are to compare today to yesterday. There is certainly value in looking here and looking there, but, at the risk of fitting nicely alongside the narrative of xDaunt's favorite South Park episode, I find the value in moralizing the path of humanity to be little to none. What I mean by that is that the lessons taught by a historic look at the emergence of labor unions, the popularization of philosophy during the Enlightenment, or even the rise and fall of Nazi Germany ought not fool us into thinking that neat labels like "good" or "evil" are appropriate in accurately describing these events in a manner that bears fruit on a tree by any other name than ideology.
To expound on that, let's consider the notion of "self-awareness in society", or the ability for an individual to effectively zoom out on themselves with the human world in the background. This ability, trait, or whatever one wants to call it is shaped by the time and place in which it occurs, so much so that attempting to superimpose objective measures over top how a historic figure might have experienced their world is almost always folly. It is along these lines that it really does not make sense to label the population of Nazi Germany evil at large; doing so provides convenience but little else insofar as actually understanding how millions of people became ok with (or even proud of) being part of a nation that held the world at ransom. Similarly, it is very easy for the "clean" and "free" minds of contemporary armchair historicism to entirely misunderstand what it is to live in fear of God; while it might seem tempting to equate the religious fundamentalism of today with the status quo of yesteryear, this would be going about the project all wrong.
Sam mentioned that Nazi's "wanted modernization without modernity" and I think this ties in very interestingly with the topic at hand, that being the problem of historicity and how we are to regard the past. Part of what fueled the fascism of Nazi Germany was what amounted to a misappropriation of the ideas of then controversial historians like Oswald Spengler. Nazi theorists found themselves in need of a history of the German people that operated alongside the ideas of racial purity, societal destiny, and a manifest collective will to power. Luckily for them, the philosophical underpinnings of German Nationalism had already been well in place since the days of Fichte, and the economic/societal fallout that resulted after Germany's defeat in WW1 left the German population incredibly vulnerable to the ideological histories that would go on to form the backbone of Nazism. Men like Johann Plenge would equate the defeat of WW1 Germany to the practical ending of the era of Revolution, using it as reason to suggest that the experiment started by the Americans and then the French had come to a disastrous end. In its stead, Plenge suggested that the celebration of the individual that formed the backbone of Enlightenment thought be turned on its head, for how else might Germany have fallen to inferior peoples then to have first fallen victim to their poisoned ideology. Tradition, order, conformity, and above all else, duty, were to supplant the flawed ideas of Rousseau and Paine if Germany was to stand on its own two feet in the modern world. While I am not saying that shorthanded nods towards the "evil" of Nazism are the same thing as Nazi revisionist history, I think it is fairly plain to see that both perspectives rely on similar methodologies in terms of using contemporary lenses to look at history.
Naturally, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it is along these lines that caricatures of "evil" begin to fall away, replaced by the understanding that the vast majority of the German population circa 1938 really did not look so different from any of us, rather that the world around them most certainly did.
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On November 27 2013 12:41 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2013 12:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yea. In Norway we had an assassination attempt towards William Nygaard after he published Rushdie, there's Rushdie himself, and there's Theo van Gogh and danish journalists following the cartoons. I'm by no means apologizing for these fatwas/attacks, they are by no means justified.. But they are on an entirely different level from 9/11, or london/madrid bombings, and they are targeted towards individuals. I guess with denmark it kinda became targeted towards any danish people, but honestly that's an anomaly, and there haven't been any real terrorist attacks against denmark. I'm not too familiar with reasonings behind attacks in india/indonesia, but I'm fairly certain they had little to do with "reduced india(nesian) presence in the middle east", (do correct me if I'm wrong) but that was why I specified western anyway. London, madrid, 9/11 were all direct retaliations towards "neo-imperialist" politics, exactly the type of politics xDaunt advocates.
You could argue that 9/11 every now and then is worth it (to allow yourself to continue being world dictator) and be consistent, but any realist approach to global politics actually needs to take possible retaliations into account, as according to the realist perspective, terrorist attacks aimed to weaken the opposition are not amoral, and terrorists are rationally acting from a struggle to attain relative power.
I'm not saying that you can ignore realism when you're an actor on the global political stage, but to argue that this is an ideal.. Suffice to say I greatly disagree with that. I don't know what you mean by "arguing that this is an ideal," but definitely don't construe my arguments regarding how foreign politics work as an argument that this how it should work ideally. I'm just being a realist. Again, let me pose this question to you: Even assuming that the US is at fault for its poor relations with the Muslim world and the resulting creation of terrorists, what do we about it now to make the terrorists go away? EDIT: Just to be clear, my solution is to eliminate and replace regimes (and not necessarily through military action) that harbor terrorists and kill off those terrorists that we can get to. To the extent that we can leave successful democracies in our wake, great, but it should be clear that that won't be universally possible in the Muslim world.
Newsflash, it doesn't work that way.
There is a reason that things in the world are the way they are-- a region has a certain dominant religious/ political/ ideological system because of every single thing that has happened there or that was related to there since the beginning of time. This skirts towards the entire universe being basically preordained and perfect knowledge = perfect predictions, but that's a little too philosophical for this discussion.
Remember when every single great empire tried to impose its culture on conquered/ colonized/ allied areas? This isn't Civilization IV, so it didn't work. Basic psychology states that forcing someone to do something may get the result initially, but if you don't manage to align their underlying values with your directives, they will only obey as far as you watch them. Then as soon as you turn away, they will do their best to undermine you. Force, whether military or otherwise, is rarely effective over any meaningful period of time.
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On November 27 2013 15:41 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2013 12:41 xDaunt wrote:On November 27 2013 12:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yea. In Norway we had an assassination attempt towards William Nygaard after he published Rushdie, there's Rushdie himself, and there's Theo van Gogh and danish journalists following the cartoons. I'm by no means apologizing for these fatwas/attacks, they are by no means justified.. But they are on an entirely different level from 9/11, or london/madrid bombings, and they are targeted towards individuals. I guess with denmark it kinda became targeted towards any danish people, but honestly that's an anomaly, and there haven't been any real terrorist attacks against denmark. I'm not too familiar with reasonings behind attacks in india/indonesia, but I'm fairly certain they had little to do with "reduced india(nesian) presence in the middle east", (do correct me if I'm wrong) but that was why I specified western anyway. London, madrid, 9/11 were all direct retaliations towards "neo-imperialist" politics, exactly the type of politics xDaunt advocates.
You could argue that 9/11 every now and then is worth it (to allow yourself to continue being world dictator) and be consistent, but any realist approach to global politics actually needs to take possible retaliations into account, as according to the realist perspective, terrorist attacks aimed to weaken the opposition are not amoral, and terrorists are rationally acting from a struggle to attain relative power.
I'm not saying that you can ignore realism when you're an actor on the global political stage, but to argue that this is an ideal.. Suffice to say I greatly disagree with that. I don't know what you mean by "arguing that this is an ideal," but definitely don't construe my arguments regarding how foreign politics work as an argument that this how it should work ideally. I'm just being a realist. Again, let me pose this question to you: Even assuming that the US is at fault for its poor relations with the Muslim world and the resulting creation of terrorists, what do we about it now to make the terrorists go away? EDIT: Just to be clear, my solution is to eliminate and replace regimes (and not necessarily through military action) that harbor terrorists and kill off those terrorists that we can get to. To the extent that we can leave successful democracies in our wake, great, but it should be clear that that won't be universally possible in the Muslim world. Newsflash, it doesn't work that way. There is a reason that things in the world are the way they are-- a region has a certain dominant religious/ political/ ideological system because of every single thing that has happened there or that was related to there since the beginning of time. This skirts towards the entire universe being basically preordained and perfect knowledge = perfect predictions, but that's a little too philosophical for this discussion. Remember when every single great empire tried to impose its culture on conquered/ colonized/ allied areas? This isn't Civilization IV, so it didn't work. Basic psychology states that forcing someone to do something may get the result initially, but if you don't manage to align their underlying values with your directives, they will only obey as far as you watch them. Then as soon as you turn away, they will do their best to undermine you. Force, whether military or otherwise, is rarely effective over any meaningful period of time.
Yeah, it does work that way. There are countless examples of "force" being successfully used to dominate others militarily, culturally, and economically over sustained periods of time. The eventual failure of those empires wasn't a result of the use of force. To the contrary, it was the result of other factors preventing a continued and sufficient use force to maintain the empire, leaving a void in power that others could exploit.
Back to the matter at hand regarding what to do about the terrorists, I'm not pretending that my solution is either perfect or without significant cost. There are obvious limitations. However, my question posed remains unanswered. What is the alternative?
Some people around here are very quick to assign blame to the US for causing this mess, but when it comes to actually proposing a solution, those same voices fall tellingly silent. Clearly, "be nice to the terrorists" isn't an option. Perhaps the difficulty in pointing out a solution suggests that the issue of who is to blame isn't quite as clear cut as some would presume?
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On November 27 2013 16:06 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2013 15:41 ticklishmusic wrote:On November 27 2013 12:41 xDaunt wrote:On November 27 2013 12:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yea. In Norway we had an assassination attempt towards William Nygaard after he published Rushdie, there's Rushdie himself, and there's Theo van Gogh and danish journalists following the cartoons. I'm by no means apologizing for these fatwas/attacks, they are by no means justified.. But they are on an entirely different level from 9/11, or london/madrid bombings, and they are targeted towards individuals. I guess with denmark it kinda became targeted towards any danish people, but honestly that's an anomaly, and there haven't been any real terrorist attacks against denmark. I'm not too familiar with reasonings behind attacks in india/indonesia, but I'm fairly certain they had little to do with "reduced india(nesian) presence in the middle east", (do correct me if I'm wrong) but that was why I specified western anyway. London, madrid, 9/11 were all direct retaliations towards "neo-imperialist" politics, exactly the type of politics xDaunt advocates.
You could argue that 9/11 every now and then is worth it (to allow yourself to continue being world dictator) and be consistent, but any realist approach to global politics actually needs to take possible retaliations into account, as according to the realist perspective, terrorist attacks aimed to weaken the opposition are not amoral, and terrorists are rationally acting from a struggle to attain relative power.
I'm not saying that you can ignore realism when you're an actor on the global political stage, but to argue that this is an ideal.. Suffice to say I greatly disagree with that. I don't know what you mean by "arguing that this is an ideal," but definitely don't construe my arguments regarding how foreign politics work as an argument that this how it should work ideally. I'm just being a realist. Again, let me pose this question to you: Even assuming that the US is at fault for its poor relations with the Muslim world and the resulting creation of terrorists, what do we about it now to make the terrorists go away? EDIT: Just to be clear, my solution is to eliminate and replace regimes (and not necessarily through military action) that harbor terrorists and kill off those terrorists that we can get to. To the extent that we can leave successful democracies in our wake, great, but it should be clear that that won't be universally possible in the Muslim world. Newsflash, it doesn't work that way. There is a reason that things in the world are the way they are-- a region has a certain dominant religious/ political/ ideological system because of every single thing that has happened there or that was related to there since the beginning of time. This skirts towards the entire universe being basically preordained and perfect knowledge = perfect predictions, but that's a little too philosophical for this discussion. Remember when every single great empire tried to impose its culture on conquered/ colonized/ allied areas? This isn't Civilization IV, so it didn't work. Basic psychology states that forcing someone to do something may get the result initially, but if you don't manage to align their underlying values with your directives, they will only obey as far as you watch them. Then as soon as you turn away, they will do their best to undermine you. Force, whether military or otherwise, is rarely effective over any meaningful period of time. Yeah, it does work that way. There are countless examples of "force" being successfully used to dominate others militarily, culturally, and economically over sustained periods of time. The eventual failure of those empires wasn't a result of the use of force. To the contrary, it was the result of other factors preventing a continued and sufficient use force to maintain the empire, leaving a void in power that others could exploit. Back to the matter at hand regarding what to do about the terrorists, I'm not pretending that my solution is either perfect or without significant cost. There are obvious limitations. However, my question posed remains unanswered. What is the alternative? Some people around here are very quick to assign blame to the US for causing this mess, but when it comes to actually proposing a solution, those same voices fall tellingly silent. Clearly, "be nice to the terrorists" isn't an option. Perhaps the difficulty in pointing out a solution suggests that the issue of who is to blame isn't quite as clear cut as some would presume?
I'm not convinced this is an either/or question - surely it's possible to do more than one thing at once? To put it more bluntly, stop doing things that tend to motivate people into committing terrorism, while simultaneously defending yourself against terrorists you've already created. I don't think messing with admittedly weaker countries halfway around the world (notably lacking in extended strike capability) is the only solution here.
Plus, I think you have a tendency to equate "people pissed off at us" with "terrorists". I would agree that "treating terrorists nicer" is a lost cause, because many people in that camp are too far gone. However, I would also argue that our definition of "terrorist" is far too broad, and we miss out on many opportunities that way. (as many have pointed out in this thread alone, telling Iran to go fuck itself after a chance for reconciliation following 9/11 was definitely a blunder)
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On November 27 2013 14:15 sam!zdat wrote:
well, the question when a crisis comes is just whether you can mobilize the proletariat for some sort of radical emancipatory politics or whether they will be mobilized by fascism instead. the nazis were competing with the KPD for who would win the working class...
You'll find others suggesting that the soviet communist party purposefully betrayed their german allies. In Communist policy, spurring a fight between the free nations and the kind of axis fascism is a great asset to communism.
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meh that sounds ridiculous to me, the whole problem for the bolsheviks was that they needed the industrial infrastructure in germany - that's what the entire "socialism in one country" debate was about, because according to the theory the bolsheviks were working with they needed to pass through a stage of bourgeois capitalism and then pass to socialism, but the bourgeoisie was undeveloped for historical reasons in russia and and so it was "unable to play its historical role" as they would have seen it.
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Dunno. Socialism? Certainly not of the anti-private property sort. Maybe corporatism?
The German Workers' Party had a more overtly socialist component, but to say that National Socialism drifted away from Socialism and into the arms of Nationalism is to draw a false dichotomy: Hitler believed that the synthesis of the two was essential for a successful revitalisation of German society. The socialist element never disappeared from the Nazi agenda.
The Nazis were not socialist in the sense of sponsoring class struggle, but in the sense of obviating class particularism in Germany. In this, the Nazis were more or less successful, and the amalgamated middle-class which emerged in West Germany after the war had its original impetus in Nazi social policy.
Consider only the programmes of the KaF or the Arbeitsdienst: with one hand elevating the prestige of manual labour, on the other hand massively subsidising the individualisation of the working class through the promotion of leisure, consumerism and personal cultivation. Although the Nazis aimed to eliminate class differences, it was not in obedience to a broad egalitarian principle. The breakdown of traditional society was to pave way for meritocracy. National Socialism was a form of socialism which was exceptional among the breeds of socialism in its enthusiasm for the individual. Or rather, enthusiasm for the heroic individual celebrated above ordinary men by virtue his courage, talent and skill. The egalitarian element of it was the Nazi held no prejudice against the background out of which such individuals may arise. In the most Nazified branch of the German armed forces, the Waffen-SS, men from proletarian backgrounds rose to become generals, something which would not have been possible in the traditional German army.
These are merely some facets of modernism in Germany, there are many other examples one can suggest: technology, media, relaxed sexual attitudes, anti-smoking campaigns, etc. On the whole, I concur with Rainer Zitelmann's view that Nazism was a self-consciously modernising movement. That argument has been extremely controversial with the Fischer-Wehler mould, but I do not think the capital point has ever been convincingly refuted. Common stereotypes reinforcing the reactionary thesis such as their agrarian ideas, or their alleged encouragement of traditional family structures largely stand on extremely weak evidence.
You'll find others suggesting that the soviet communist party purposefully betrayed their german allies. In Communist policy, spurring a fight between the free nations and the kind of axis fascism is a great asset to communism.
It is more than a mere "suggestion." However, the Moscow puppeteer theory advanced by Suvorov is nonsense. It relies upon radical interpretations of circumstantial evidence, and is an excellent object lesson in teaching the historian's need to maintain a sense of proportionality in the interpretation of his sources.
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"a career open to talents"
it really seems like from what you say that nazism is just a german bonapartism in some ways
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On November 27 2013 12:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2013 12:06 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 27 2013 11:49 xDaunt wrote:On November 27 2013 11:47 Tula wrote:On November 27 2013 11:33 xDaunt wrote:On November 27 2013 11:13 HunterX11 wrote:
You do realize both the U.S. and Iran are both signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, right? Also in the space of just a few posts, you've forgotten about 9/11 again already! Simply choosing to bully everyone you can, always, because "it's really the simple" has consequences. On November 27 2013 11:22 Gorsameth wrote:
And that attitude is why 2 planes flew into a couple of towers.
And people wonder why a large part of the world hates America's world politics. As for 9/11 and other attacks against the US, do you really think that the terrorists will stop because we suddenly start trying to be nice to Muslim countries? The root mistake that both of you are making is presuming that other nations and peoples think and act with your liberal, western sensibilities. Newsflash: They don't. History has shown this repeatedly. Newsflash pissing people off "because you can" has led to quite a few acts of terrorism in the past. Frankly your being idiotic, and from some of the previous discussions you've taken part in, I'd assume that you know you are actually being idiotic here. The root mistake that you are making is that YOU think that other nations do not act rational. Their motivation might be different and they might base their decision on very different cultural backgrounds, but within that framework they usually act rational as well. You (as in the USA) have spent 30 years making an enemy of the Iran. Maybe you were correct, maybe you were wrong hindsight is as always 20/20, but what one can say without a doubt is that most of the enemies you are trying to fight were created by exactly that ham fisted approach you are currently advocating. The time when the US could dictate international policy without China and Russia adding their 10 Cents has passed. With Iran at least appearing to be willing to compromise you had absolutely no choice but to meet them halfway. Any pure blockade by the US would only play into the hands of your true adversaries. Frankly Iran is and always has been a minor concern compared to Russia and China (or even North Korea). Hey, genius. Explain this: what is more rational than pursuing one's self-interest? realizing that your self-interest isn't different from others. we all want the world to be a better place. This isn't always true, which is a critical point to understand. Maybe we'll get there some day when the rest of world adopts liberal, western sensitivities. I doubt that it will be during any of our lifetimes.
I'm not a liberal though. Not everybody against imperialism is liberal.
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In that aspect of it, I suppose a parallel can be drawn, although there is a controversy in Napoleonic historiography too, over whether Consulship and Empire was the continuation of, or retreat from the Grand Revolution.
However, I think the parallel breaks down in the evaluation their trajectories: The Nazis found their way into power with the cooperation of the German conservatives, to whom they made various concessions. Some of these were never removed. Yet in private, Hitler made no secret of his contempt for the old guard, and his intention of removing the last vestiges of their influence after the war.
Bonaparte by contrast found his way into power through the doors opened by the anarchy following the Revolution, but as he consolidated his power in France, he tended increasingly towards legitimism, to the extent of bringing back many of the aristocratic exiles to merge with his new elite. In the end, Bonaparte attempted to effect a synthesis between legitimism and the New Order, whereas Hitler never expressed any such desire to "moderate" his movement by amalgamating it with traditionalist forces.
So the early Bonaparte would have fit the role of a hero in Nazi conception. It goes without saying that Hitler respected the Jacobin leaders of the 1st Republic, and he admired Napoleon.
P.S. He also, contrary to popular belief, had greater respect for the German communists than he had for the German bourgeois parties, but that is another debate.
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On November 27 2013 16:44 sam!zdat wrote:
meh that sounds ridiculous to me, the whole problem for the bolsheviks was that they needed the industrial infrastructure in germany - that's what the entire "socialism in one country" debate was about, because according to the theory the bolsheviks were working with they needed to pass through a stage of bourgeois capitalism and then pass to socialism, but the bourgeoisie was undeveloped for historical reasons in russia and and so it was "unable to play its historical role" as they would have seen it.
A weakening of the opponents of international communism was a stalinist goal, so the alliance between the russian communists and germany only made sense to set one against the other (see my previous post). I am indebted to the American communist Chambers for some of the analysis there. It was more of a Stalinist bolshevik policy after his extermination of ideological opponents, so if you think communism in the abstract had a goal there, you could legitimately say it did not. But since the ways the USSR used naziism to its own communist ends is very far afield from US Politics, I'll have to end it here.
The Supreme Court is going to take up aspects of Obamacare again. Can businesses offer non-contraceptive health insurance plans? Legally, you can't even offer a plan than includes contraceptives with a co-pay--they must be free to the person covered. IUD's can cost $500-$1000, and the prevention of implantation of a fertilized egg, it is argued, violate the plaintiff's religious beliefs. One case the lower cotes voted in favor of the plaintiffs, the other voted against. Here's one source on the matter,
The Supreme Court will have to confront several questions: Can these businesses hold religious beliefs; does the health care provision significantly infringe on those beliefs and, even if the answer to the first two questions is "yes," does the government still have a sufficient interest in guaranteeing women who work for the companies access to contraception?
source
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United States43281 Posts
On November 27 2013 15:41 ticklishmusic wrote:
Remember when every single great empire tried to impose its culture on conquered/ colonized/ allied areas? This isn't Civilization IV, so it didn't work. Basic psychology states that forcing someone to do something may get the result initially, but if you don't manage to align their underlying values with your directives, they will only obey as far as you watch them. Then as soon as you turn away, they will do their best to undermine you. Force, whether military or otherwise, is rarely effective over any meaningful period of time.
Oddly genocide in a conquered area does, historically speaking, work out way better for everyone involved and cause far less hardship. You don't see much conflict between Americans trying to be American and the native Americans because the native Americans were utterly crushed. Same deal in Australia etc. Had the Arabs won in 1947 and killed every settler then the Middle East would be far more stable and prosperous than it is now. Where one side headed off the inevitable conflict of interest by obliterating the other you end up with more happy people, more peace and prosperity, than you would otherwise. The classic example for tolerance is the Ottoman Empire, which was content to allow local traditions, languages, religions and so forth to survive under its rule as long as they didn't rebel and taxes were paid. When they fell they left behind the Balkans whereas a homogenous state, even one born of genocide, would have been far better for humanity as a whole. Northern Ireland works as another example (although genocide was attempted but not with any real plan for total implementation). It's also worth noting that the grandchildren of the people who originally owned the land are born no more righteous than the grandchildren of the invaders. By killing everyone you're robbing their grandchildren of a chance to be born but at the same time you're creating a chance for life for your own where none previously existed.
Basically history shows a lot of examples of working conquests by different cultural groups and genocide, when done totally, probably improves the quality of lives of the people involved after a generation by removing the conflict of interest. Hegemonic control without the genocide of people who don't think like you leaves both sides a bitter pill to be passed on to their children while genocide leaves you with twice as many children, all feeling pretty good, and them with none.
One of history's sad realities.
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You read it here first! Genocide as the route to peace and prosperity!
Basques and Catalans getting in the way of the glorious modern Spanish nation? Just wipe them out! Bosnian Serbs stopping the revival of the Balkan Caliphat? Put a bullet in them! Kopts in the middle east? Kill them all! Do the same for the Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Jews and other minorities! Make the world more peaceful today and go shoot a local minority!
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On November 27 2013 23:01 Acrofales wrote:
You read it here first! Genocide as the route to peace and prosperity!
Basques and Catalans getting in the way of the glorious modern Spanish nation? Just wipe them out! Bosnian Serbs stopping the revival of the Balkan Caliphat? Put a bullet in them! Kopts in the middle east? Kill them all! Do the same for the Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Jews and other minorities! Make the world more peaceful today and go shoot a local minority!
Say what you want but Kwark has a point. Genocide is a terrible thing but it works, the 2 are not mutually exclusive.
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EPT
