BoredPanda

joined 3 months ago
[–] BoredPanda 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

"Both sides" hate each other because the conflict is over a century old by now. Both sides use terrorism against each other too. That does not mean that both sides are in the right. Is the bully who is stealing the lunch money as morally justified to fight the bullied victim, as the bullied victim who is merely trying to stop the bully from stealing their lunch money?

Do you also look at other atrocities throughout history and blame the victim for hating and fighting against their oppressor?

[–] BoredPanda 5 points 3 months ago (6 children)

I have to differ on your last point. I don't think capitalism is necessarily at fault, nor must the working/middle classes be struggling for fascism to emerge. If anything, quite the opposite. It is the better off countries that end up turning fascist. All fascist countries are/were first world countries, in various states of advanced development.

I think it would be more accurate to say that fascism is an extreme form of imperialism, because they are ultimately very similar sentiments. A more powerful group taking advantage in various ways, of a less powerful group. Now you could say, "it's all the same thing", capitalism, imperialism, fascism, it's all the same "hierarchy is the ultimate source of evil dynamic", but it seems to me that this just reduces all these concepts to absurdity.

[–] BoredPanda 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I was thinking of Israel actually. I don't think the comparison between the Nazis and the Soviets is apt. The ideological motivations are quite different. And it's a typical Nazi talking point to point at the Soviets and try to argue that they were worse.

[–] BoredPanda 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Trump is called a fascist not because of his conservative/traditional rhetoric. In fact none of the alt-right are THAT conservative. I mean, Trump himself is a pretty liberal cosmopolitan playboy.

The accusation stems from his lack of respect for democracy, rule of law and his fascist behavior. Trumpism is a fascist cult in all aspects. The movement has no real coherent ideological basis. It's literally a cult of personality surrounding Trump.

[–] BoredPanda 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sigh. One could also make the argument that capitalism is the only reason we have democracy at all. I am not allergic to socialist thinking, but putting all the blame on capitalism for everything is intellectually lazy.

[–] BoredPanda 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

There is no "recent resurgence".

    1. Nazis never went away. Underground Nazi groups, as well as fully fledged Nazi political parties were common throughout post-WWII Europe.
    1. The people fighting the Nazis weren't ideologically much better than them. The Americans were still racist as fuck. The British and the French were imperialist world dominators. All of these allies were involved in their own genocides. The Soviets believed in sacrificing huge swaths of their own people to accomplish "great leaps forward".
    1. Nazism and similiar ideologies are fundamentally based on in-group bias, and that is just something psychological. There will always be people who are more open to others and people who are less open to others.
    1. If you look at recent wars, you will see that even the non-Nazi, "moderate", "liberal", "centrist" political parties can have blood on their hands and be complicit in atrocities very much reminiscent of the evil the Nazis committed.

I think the bottom line is, you have to unlearn a lot of the just-so narratives that you have been taught about the world.

[–] BoredPanda 4 points 3 months ago

I don't hold any ideological leanings and don't mind communists and marxists.

[–] BoredPanda -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That goes beyond capitalism. People are just selfish. The hoarding of wealth was a thing way before capitalism. I think the left sort of shoots itself in the foot by obsessing over capitalism and ignoring the much deeper cause of a lot of societal ills. Being evil is part of human nature, just as much as being benevolent is.

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