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Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#21

Post by morehnnonsense »

Argorak wrote: post #15
russellallen wrote: post #3

Conning people doesn't seem like a good way to get your message through to them.

Actually, it does work. I was working in a similar group (locally and much smaller) for some time. You can reach everyone with clever and impressive actions for a simple reason: they are impressive and resonate so much that even the "enemy" has to admit that they were impressed. You won't turn anyone, but you make sure that they know someone to turn to once they do. Its an offer to talk. Considering that exiting the…

You are welcomed to go fuck yourself.

Your pseudo-tolerance is transparent.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#23

Post by erikb »

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China is even the cool new thing, that young people follow (because it is against the depressing government, which many young Chinese don't like at all). Tell me about how you understand "right-wing" in non-German countries, please!

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#24

Post by count »

erikb wrote: post #23

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China…

You are correct with respect to the USA - right wing here is traditionally just 'conservative'. Recently that's started being tinged around 'religious' as well. Definitely not 'skinhead racist'.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#25

Post by borism »

erikb wrote: post #23

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China…

Extreme right-wing is understood the same pretty much everywhere except maybe extreme right-wing itself.

Now here in Estonia and I venture a guess in pretty much all of liberal democratic countries (and most notably USA) right-wing IS actually associated if not equal with extreme right-wing, since there actually is no left-wing.

So when Obama or our centrist parties are labelled "communist" by teabaggers and such, you actually begin to understand that something is terribly out of balance with democratic systems of ours.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#26

Post by hvs »

borism wrote: post #25
erikb wrote: post #23

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China…

Extreme right-wing is understood the same pretty much everywhere except maybe extreme right-wing itself. Now here in Estonia and I venture a guess in pretty much all of liberal democratic countries (and most notably USA) right-wing IS actually associated if not equal with extreme right-wing, since there actually is no left-wing. So when Obama or our centrist parties are labelled "communist" by teabaggers and such, yo…

To make a statement like "the right-wing IS actually equal with the extreme right-wing" is to invalidate your entire argument and show that you can't differentiate people that you disagree with.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#27

Post by charlieok »

erikb wrote: post #23

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China…

I'd guess the definition of "right-wing" slides along with the definition of "moderate" or "center" (and also "left-wing") in any particular place.

If the US is in general more right-leaning than Germany, then "right-wing" should also be farther right in the US than in Germany, yes?

It seems careless to compress political opinions into a single dimension stretching from "communist" on the extreme left to "fascist" on the extreme right.

I'm guessing this simplification holds up as well as it does because of a tendency for people's beliefs to cluster according to the weights they put on a few basic ideas of morality (and perhaps more fundamentally, whether they consider those ideas to be moral issues or not).

Jonathan Haidt gave an interesting TED talk about this ( http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.ht... ). He named five 'types' of morality: Harm, Fairness, Ingroup, Authority, and Purity. His thesis was that people on the left tend to value Harm and Fairness far above the other three, while on the right people tend to value all five roughly equally.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#28

Post by hvs »

erikb wrote: post #23

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China…

I can understand Germany's aversion to anything "right-wing", but since they have even more recently dealt with the extreme left of Communism, I'm curious as to how you label your more centrist parties.

You are correct that right-wing generally means "conservative" in the U.S., but it can also just mean "fiscally conservative" since libertarians in the U.S. are often painted as "right-wing" even though they are socially-liberal/fiscally-conservative. For the most part, though, right-wing means fiscally and socially conservative.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#29

Post by CWuestefeld »

hvs wrote: post #26
borism wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extreme right-wing is understood the same pretty much everywhere except maybe extreme right-wing itself. Now here in Estonia and I venture a guess in pretty much all of liberal democratic countries (and most notably USA) right-wing IS actually associated if not equal with extreme right-wing, since there actually is no left-wing. So when Obama or our centrist parties are labelled "communist" by teabaggers and such, yo…

To make a statement like "the right-wing IS actually equal with the extreme right-wing" is to invalidate your entire argument and show that you can't differentiate people that you disagree with.

I'm surprised you didn't also cite his claim that "there actually is no left-wing" in America, and the implication in "Obama or our centrist parties" that the American left is really just the natural order of things.

All-in-all, the post you reacted to is a remarkable example of political blinders. Although I'm just guessing, it seems to be exactly what pundits are talking about when they refer to the Internet "echo chamber".

I can have a productive conversation with someone who disagrees with me, but understands the philosophies on which my ideas are based. Talking with someone who believes that there are no other legitimate philosophies is just wasting air.

Re: Trojan T-shirt targets German right-wing rock fans

#30

Post by cchurch »

count wrote: post #24
erikb wrote: post #23

I'm a German and I wonder if the word "right-wing" is understood in the same way by US Americans as it is understood by us. Because of our past, we treat everything coming from the "right" as being totally wrong and stupid (which might be good or not). But I think in other countries, with another historical background, right-wing might mean just conservative, not skinhead racist. As far as I know, right-wing in China…

You are correct with respect to the USA - right wing here is traditionally just 'conservative'. Recently that's started being tinged around 'religious' as well. Definitely not 'skinhead racist'.

As someone who could easily be described as "right-wing" in the USA, I'm curious how Germany would describe someone who is for limited-government, individual liberties, and reduced entitlement spending?

Or, also in the scope of "American right-wing," how would Germany describe someone who injects Christian morality into their politics?

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