I'd suggest you actually read and understand my comment. The DEI people are the ones reusing National Socialist methods and tropes...right down to the race essentialist labels and tactics. They also target educators quite effectively. Many like to forget National Socialism had strong proponents within the German university system (as did…
I'd suggest you actually read and understand my comment. The DEI people are the ones reusing National Socialist methods and tropes...right down to the race essentialist labels and tactics. They also target educators quite effectively. Many like to forget National Socialism had strong proponents within the German university system (as did its precursors in the more pan-German nationalist movements). In fact, many of the mid- and upper-level leaders in the SD were professors and lawyers (many of whom were considered quite successful academically). Methods migrate, as do the targets of those methods.
This is a really good point. All hate groups share a persecution complex, victimhood mentality and complete self-assurance in their groups' own moral superiority. In this sense both the far left and far right are exactly the same, but the far left is doing even more to solidify in-group thinking and racialize our identities. I could just as easily imagine pogroms under the left as the right. Both groups are equally dangerous. Just look at The Terror of the French Revolution.
And that's why I like to stress that many of the tactics and methods being used by what's loosely considered the left these days are lifted from the National Socialist playbook almost verbatim. They also share the same obsession with race and identify as being immutable and easily generalized/stereotyped. And if you want left-wing pogroms, you don't need to look much further than Cambodia, China, or Stalin's USSR. Power-mad zealots all tend to be quite similar regardless of their ideological trappings.
That's a good point. How could I forget about the Pol Pot regime? I do think that socialism itself is not to blame, but rather the ignorant, militant interpretation of Marxism that inspired "critical theory." Inspired is the key word, because aside from vaguely Marxist-sounding terminology, CRT/CT has nothing in common with real socialism, nor does DEI. They just imitate some of the rhetoric to lend their own bunk arguments some badly-needed credibility. As DEI activists themselves are fond of pointing out, "equity" has nothing in common with equality. Rather than "leveling the playing field" (which is what I felt and hoped for back when I identified as a liberal), theirs is a robber baron mentality that's much more oriented towards vengeance, segregation and retaliation than "social justice." If anyone on the left still actually believed in equality, justice, democratic processes, or bridging differences, I would still be a liberal, but its devolved into pure narcissism and power grabs. They decided to become what they claimed to hate.
I don't think most of it has much of anything to do with socialism, honestly. I use the more formal name for the Nazi party so people don't skip over it when they see it. Interestingly, there was a faction of the NSDAP (the Berlin or Strasser faction) that had more socialist trappings than Hitler's Munich faction. But at the end of the day they were race essentialist robber barons as you say (just look at Robert Ley for one example). Payback for wrongs real and imagined was as much a part of the NSDAP's DNA as it is their more modern ideological fellow travelers.
I totally understand what you're saying, as well as the shorthand. And while Nazi analogies are often overused in this day and age, your analysis is spot on, sadly. The only real difference between National Socialism and DEI is who the perceived victims and villains are. The Nazis also has a victim/persecution complex at the heart of their mythology. They were the only group more obsessed with race than the DEI movement, and you're right, the victimhood mentality is just a façade for grabbing power and enacting revenge fantasies. It has nothing at all to do with creating concord between people, or even righting past wrongs.
Exactly. The similarities are very disturbing. But too many people are buying the whole "it's Marxism" line without actually bothering to look and what's being said and, perhaps more importantly, how it's being said.
I'd suggest you actually read and understand my comment. The DEI people are the ones reusing National Socialist methods and tropes...right down to the race essentialist labels and tactics. They also target educators quite effectively. Many like to forget National Socialism had strong proponents within the German university system (as did its precursors in the more pan-German nationalist movements). In fact, many of the mid- and upper-level leaders in the SD were professors and lawyers (many of whom were considered quite successful academically). Methods migrate, as do the targets of those methods.
This is a really good point. All hate groups share a persecution complex, victimhood mentality and complete self-assurance in their groups' own moral superiority. In this sense both the far left and far right are exactly the same, but the far left is doing even more to solidify in-group thinking and racialize our identities. I could just as easily imagine pogroms under the left as the right. Both groups are equally dangerous. Just look at The Terror of the French Revolution.
And that's why I like to stress that many of the tactics and methods being used by what's loosely considered the left these days are lifted from the National Socialist playbook almost verbatim. They also share the same obsession with race and identify as being immutable and easily generalized/stereotyped. And if you want left-wing pogroms, you don't need to look much further than Cambodia, China, or Stalin's USSR. Power-mad zealots all tend to be quite similar regardless of their ideological trappings.
That's a good point. How could I forget about the Pol Pot regime? I do think that socialism itself is not to blame, but rather the ignorant, militant interpretation of Marxism that inspired "critical theory." Inspired is the key word, because aside from vaguely Marxist-sounding terminology, CRT/CT has nothing in common with real socialism, nor does DEI. They just imitate some of the rhetoric to lend their own bunk arguments some badly-needed credibility. As DEI activists themselves are fond of pointing out, "equity" has nothing in common with equality. Rather than "leveling the playing field" (which is what I felt and hoped for back when I identified as a liberal), theirs is a robber baron mentality that's much more oriented towards vengeance, segregation and retaliation than "social justice." If anyone on the left still actually believed in equality, justice, democratic processes, or bridging differences, I would still be a liberal, but its devolved into pure narcissism and power grabs. They decided to become what they claimed to hate.
I don't think most of it has much of anything to do with socialism, honestly. I use the more formal name for the Nazi party so people don't skip over it when they see it. Interestingly, there was a faction of the NSDAP (the Berlin or Strasser faction) that had more socialist trappings than Hitler's Munich faction. But at the end of the day they were race essentialist robber barons as you say (just look at Robert Ley for one example). Payback for wrongs real and imagined was as much a part of the NSDAP's DNA as it is their more modern ideological fellow travelers.
I totally understand what you're saying, as well as the shorthand. And while Nazi analogies are often overused in this day and age, your analysis is spot on, sadly. The only real difference between National Socialism and DEI is who the perceived victims and villains are. The Nazis also has a victim/persecution complex at the heart of their mythology. They were the only group more obsessed with race than the DEI movement, and you're right, the victimhood mentality is just a façade for grabbing power and enacting revenge fantasies. It has nothing at all to do with creating concord between people, or even righting past wrongs.
Exactly. The similarities are very disturbing. But too many people are buying the whole "it's Marxism" line without actually bothering to look and what's being said and, perhaps more importantly, how it's being said.