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The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

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Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#141

Post by anigbrowl »

pheldagryph wrote: post #133
anigbrowl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt you're a good hearted person and have not made any assumptions to the contrary, but it does read as if you are chilled by a request for evidence that reason and truth are the best means of combating racial purity ideologies. It would certainly be nice to rely on reason and truth if those strategies are indeed reliable. But the extant question is what if they're not? The historical record suggests that…

You continue to misrepresent my past comments. I will read nothing further from you, save for an apology.

I'm not misrepresenting it, I'm giving you my best understanding of your rather cryptic utterances. It would be a lot easier to understand your point if you would explain it in greater detail.

I realize you think your original comment speaks for itself, but I'm telling you that I'm finding it vague and confusing.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#142

Post by anigbrowl »

gspetr wrote: post #134
alva wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree with you that some people on the wildest fringes do advocate genocide. Note that that pro-genocide advocates tick more diversity quotas than the most liberal arts college. Do I paint all of BLM with the same brush as I do with the small numbers of their group who advocate white genocide? Do I cast all Muslims aside because a small % advocate genocide of Kuffar? Both would be unthinkable in right-on…

> Do I cast all Muslims aside because a small % advocate genocide of Kuffar? I think you did a disservice to the point you were trying to make because with muslims anyone who does not follow Quran to the letter is found lacking. Qur'an (8:39) "Wage war on non-Muslims and kill them until they submit and the only religion is Islam." It is about as genocidal as it gets. I've never heard about anything connected to Natio…

It's worth recalling that Qu'ran is some 1400 years old and a great deal has changed in the world since that sectarian (not genocidal) ideology was proposed.

Nazism as an ideology developed only about a century ago, and should be evaluated in the light of all the historical and other knowledge accumulated during the interval. If you're looking for bold statements of Nazi ambition, you could consider this remark by Goebbels on the New Order concept in 1943 - bluster during a losing war effort, to be sure, but hardly out of line with past expressions of the ideology:

The Führer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Order_(Nazism)

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#143

Post by headonright »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #72
tptacek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that's an orthogonal argument. Pro-life activists believe abortion is murder. Nothing you can say about contraception refutes that argument. The fact that I find the pro-life argument so personally repellant is why I think it's a reasonably good example in discussions like these: it's a system of practical beliefs directly contrary to my own that is held by a great many people. Whatever ethics about speech…

People could have said the same about Nazism. Personally I put the anti-abortionists (who directly cause more abortions) in the same category as the guy who turned up at a pizza parlor with a rifle and many low level Nazis. Confused by propaganda into making the situation worse.

Nazi's killed Jews because they were less than human. KKK killed blacks because they were less than human. Abortionists kill unborn babies because they are less than human. So who is the Nazi?

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#144

Post by fellellor »

gspetr wrote: post #139
tptacek wrote: post #52

This thread is all over the place. Did I read a different article, or misread this one? Here's what I read: Pop culture has a possibly unfortunate habit of co-opting Nazism as an all-purpose source of villains. Because it assumes everyone understands why Nazism is evil, our culture rarely provides any historical context for its Nazi villains. Worse, to heighten drama, our all-purpose villains must be made continuousl…

I think the author fails to make his own point distinct enough: > Right from the start, Wolfenstein's enemies are the brutal instruments of an ideology that liquidates the weakest among us. There were ideologies promoting "Liquidation of the weakest" that FAR predated the Nazism. And those are still considered "cool" today. All Spartan infants were brought before a council of inspectors and examined for physical defe…

I agree with you, partly. I would also mention the Mongols, Alexander the great, the Roman empire and the British empire as similar examples. Only difference between these and the Nazis are the Nazis are the latest in a long line of historical villains, so their atrocities still linger in our memory while the actions of the others are forgotten, by the general population at least.

Perhaps the Nazis just embody a basic human nature, and there is nothing much unique about them. Go far back in history and you are certain to find various groups engaging in similar levels of atrocities.

Given this, then the Nazis are not uniquely evil and everyone is vulnerable to become the perpetrators of such under the right conditions and leadership. So it is worth it, to remind people of how ugly and damaging such a thing is. So in conclusion, to point this out, is not making a mountain of a molehill.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#145

Post by rmc »

bashinator wrote: post #29
gavanwoolery wrote: post #20

I find the constant comparison of present-day US to Nazi Germany a bit disrespectful. Not disrespectful of people in the present day (necessarily), but to those who actually survived Nazi Germany. What would you think, if you were a someone who survived a concentration camp, to have people consistently claim that the modern-day US is anywhere near as bad? I understand that the US is far from perfect, but we are also…

Let's not forget that the Nazi's took power during a time of democracy, with full support of a plurality of the vote. Between that and Trump's overt authoritarianism, it's fair that people will draw analogies between the situations.

Minor nitpick: The nazis never won a majority of the vote, needing to use another party to prop them up, and were not in support of democracy. There were various steps on the way to the Nazi dictorship which all had the veneer of democracy, but were all fake. Sure the majority of the parliament voted for the Enabling Act, but they changed the voting rules, they arrested and detained opposition members, during the vote armed villiganties were in the voting hall.

The nazis didn't sieze power democratically.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#146

Post by rmc »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #36
bashinator wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that the Nazi's took power during a time of democracy, with full support of a plurality of the vote. Between that and Trump's overt authoritarianism, it's fair that people will draw analogies between the situations.

Yes, also important not to confuse correlation and causation IMHO. Even if we fully mirrored the rise of the Nazi party (in the political sense), it would not necessarily imply that we would mirror their actions (genocide, etc). In situations like this, its important to step back and ask - under what circumstances would the US actually cross the same line that the Nazis did? (And I do not mean anecdotal instances - I…

> Even if we fully mirrored the rise of the Nazi party (in the political sense), it would not necessarily imply that we would mirror their actions (genocide, etc).

It's a debate within historians if this is true. Some people contend that racism was so inherent to Nazi ideology that you can't have Nazis who don't commit genocide (if they can), and that the Nazis (and Hitler) always planned to commit genocide. And some claim that the Holocaust sort of evolved, and there was no original plan.

So you can't be certain that you can have nazis without genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intention...

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#147

Post by cpach »

headonright wrote: post #143
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People could have said the same about Nazism. Personally I put the anti-abortionists (who directly cause more abortions) in the same category as the guy who turned up at a pizza parlor with a rifle and many low level Nazis. Confused by propaganda into making the situation worse.

Nazi's killed Jews because they were less than human. KKK killed blacks because they were less than human. Abortionists kill unborn babies because they are less than human. So who is the Nazi?

Please don't create new accounts just for participating in inflamed off-topic discussions.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#148

Post by forgottenpass »

Asooka wrote: post #4

Another salient point that must be made: if we always depict the Nazis as inhuman monsters, as most videogames do, then people learn that true Nazism is perpetrated by those and only those. So when you hear an actual seemingly intelligent human being explaining how racism is totally cool, you automatically don't see that person as a Nazi, because he is a person and not a monster . People may not be able to understand…

People may not be able to understand Prolog programs, but everyone has the instinct that "A=>B !B=>!A".

People do not have an instinct against denying the antecedent. It's a common fallacy. And even when people know about the logical error and can recognize it represented with "P"s and "Q"s, it is also well known that people don't always have the pattern matching skills to notice a similarity in _shape_ of argument when the _topic_ of argument is different.

Edit: I accidentally called denying the antecedent by the name affirming the consequent.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#149

Post by [deleted] »

Mz wrote: post #118
tptacek wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm allowed to hold two thoughts in my head at the same time: that it's important that we do everything within legitimate law to suppress bigotry and racial supremacy, and also that it's important that we defend the basic principles on which our rule of law is built. So: I'm not so concerned about the welfare of the Nazis that are getting punched. What I'm concerned about is that normalizing political violence will h…

I think the basic problem is that people arguing the way you are arguing are basically arguing in a theoretical space. It almost never addresses the practical realities nor tells people how to move the needle in any meaningful way. Arguing about doing it right very often ends up being a form of flak that helps keeps the status quo in place. I'm currently homeless and I try to explain to people why I don't agree with…

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