At 9:14 AM -0700 7/9/09, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> > Well, because they were authoritarian, socially conservative,
>> nationalist, cultural conservatives (in intent, though there program
>> was in fact radical), and strong believers in social order and social
>> hierarchy, all things strongly associated with the right.
>
>Except that they weren't socially or culturally conservative in any
>respect except that homophobia and antisemitism were part of their
>official ideology.
Homophobic, not just anti-semitic but
opposed to all foreign influence, and contriving
to brand most cultural innovation (in art,
politics, literature etc) as jewish or foreign,
deeply committed to a radical political program,
but a radical political program in support of a
very conservative nationalist idea of a return to
a idealised view of traditional German culture.
>They clearly were a proletarian leveler movement
>out to overthrow the social order and eliminate the elites.
Well, they did overthrow the bits of the
social hierarchy that didn't agree with them, and
replace it with one that did, but in order to
preserve what they saw as a traditional social
order under threat.
It certainly wasn't a proletarian
leveller movement. The Führerprinzep was core to
Nazism, and dictated that society at large should
have a strong military style hierarchy with most
civic leaders being appointed not elected, and
the supreme leader responsible to no one. So,
pretty much the exact opposite of a proletarian
leveller movement, I'd think.
Nazism was all about hierarchies -
racial, religious, cultural, with Aryans at the
top and Jews at the bottom. Nazism was
fanatically opposed to Bolshevism, the great
ideological movement of the early 20th century
that was actually based in proletarian levelling.
>More
>recent forms of fascism have dropped the homophobia and antisemitism.
Anti-semitism remains deeply
unfashionable even in fascist movement, but has
been replaced by a general fear of the immigrant
and foreigner. Homophobia remains pretty popular
in fascist circles, however.
> > The idea that capitalist economics is central to right wing
>> ideolog is a more recent, and less central, idea than linking the
>> right wing with social conservatism. The original Right Wing (in the
>> French assembly) were monarchists and feudalists.
>> So, the Nazis, who above all believed in a strong state that
>> maintained social order and cultural conservatism, are a classic
>> example of a right wing party, even though they believed in state
>> control over industry.
>
>There you go again. Your only evidence that they valued maintaining
>the social order is that the right wing of the French assembly did and
>both movements are called 'right wing.'
No, my evidence is based on an actual
passing familiarity with Nazism. The Nazis
certainly upset the existing social hierarchy,
but they did so because they believed the
existing social hierarchy needed to become
stronger (more united, disciplined, in short more
Nazi) to defend what it saw as the traditional
values of the German people. So, they wanted to
replace the social hierarchy, but to defend what
they saw as the traditional social order of
Germany.
> > It is also notable that the Nazis saw themselves as strongly
>> and intrinsically anti-communist, and banned unions, and in general
>> shared virtually nothing with socialism except the idea of state
>> intervention in the economy.
>
>And the idea of a proletarian revolution against the elite.
They wanted to remove the elite that
didn't agree with them, and replace them with an
elite that agreed with them. That isn't
anti-elitism, its just a coup.
It is true that the German Workers Party
origins of the Nazis had a lot of proletarian,
worker based policies in the 1920s. It is also
notable that once Hitler became leader, and began
making it clear what was the basis of Nazism, he
neither acted on these principles, or made much
public comment in their support, and both acted
on, and spoke heavily in defense of, the
principles of national unity under a strong
hierarchical system.
> Nazism
>didn't quarrel with the stated goals of Communism.
Hitler was obsessed with opposing the
stated goals of communism. One of the prevailing
unifying aspects of fascism is obsessive
opposition to Communism.
>They saw Communism
>as a ruse to co-opt the proletarian revolution and maintain the
>privileged position of the Jews.
True, but
> >
>> Radical isn't the opposite of reactionary. Progressive is the
>> opposite of reactionary. Radical refers to the desired speed and
>> extent of political change, rather than its goal. You can have both
>> the right and left wing radicals. So the fact that the fascists were
>> radicals is irrelevant, radical here refers to the intended speed of
>> political change, not its direction.
>
>In a thread that is about dictionary definitions, it is not legitimate
>to try to redefine words even if the redefinition is arguably useful.
And here was I thinking it was a thread
about how relying on dictionary definitions and
literal interpretations of words in political
debate was foolish.
If you think that anyone who talks about
the 'radical right' is just using the word
wrongly because radical implies leftist, well,
I'm going to have to agree to disagree.
> > In a very broad sense, radical means left and right wing
>> means conservative in US political discourse because the US has a
>> prevailing political discourse that is far to the right. In Russian
>> political discourse, Right means Communist (because the Communists
>> believe in state control, and conservatism).
>
>No it doesn't. Communists are the "left" in Russian history and the
>Bolsheviks are "left" of the Mensheviks.
Only in the civil war.
In the Cold war, the 'Left' in Russian
politics was Trotsky and the Trotskyists, and the
Right was Bukharin who represented the peasantry
and Communist opposition to capitalist
restoration (until, obviously, Stalin (originally
centrist) killed them, then Stalin was by default
the Right). The idea that there are Left and
Right wings to Communism makes no sense if you
see politics only in the naive American sense
that it must all be about state control of
property, but plenty of sense if you think it is
about the authoritarian power of the state and
tolerance of minority dissent.
In the modern era, Russian politics is
complicated, because there are an awful lot of
parties, but those with ties to the old
Bolsheviks tend to also be nationalist, socially
conservative, resistant to Western liberalism,
and even (in defiance of the old Communist
atheist position) more likely to support the very
conservative Russian Orthodox church.
I was talking about modern when I said
the Communists represent the 'right' (the
socialists and liberals represent the left).
> >
>>
>>>
>>> Please correct me if I'm wrong but all I'm able to understand of your
>>> position is:
>>> Fascist = bad guy
>>> Socialist = good guy
>>
>> That is because you are looking at politics only through the
>> issue of economics, whereas liberty of individuals is the core issue.
>
>The dictionary in question defines "socialist" in economic terms. You
>want to redefine it solely to avoid the obvious conclusion that
>"National Socialism" is a type of "Socialism"
No, our argument is that you have to
actually look at what the Nazis actually DID,
rather than what they called themselves. To keep
harping back to dictionaries is to continue
arguing that names are more important than
history, which seems to me to be a pretty
pointlessly silly attitude to take to political
discussion.
Perhaps the idea that parties names might
be, you know, a lie, is easier for me to swallow
because the Australian conservative party is
called the Liberal Party.
> >
>> The idea of Right and Left is intrinsically limiting. You
>> need to think at least in two dimensions to get anywhere, and in more
>> than that to really understand it. The domination of systems like the
>> US, UK, and Australia by two party systems tends to make it seem as
>> if there are two sides, but it never actually leads to a very
>> satisfying explanation.
>
>This is a weak version of the point that I was trying to make.
>Mailer's observation that the dynamics of conflict tend to reduce the
>myriad opinions that people hold down to two sides is clearly correct.
>For historical reasons we tend to call one of these sides the "right"
>and the other the "left". We could as easily use 'heads' and 'tails'
>or 'up' and 'down'. The mistake is to assume there must be some
>commonality between all the movements labeled 'right' or 'left'. This
>leads to errors like ascribing characteristics of the French
>Monarchists to the Nazis merely because both were parties of the
>'right'.
No, my point is exacty that there is some
commonality in the way we use the terms Left and
Right. We are in agreement that this may poorly
represent the positions of the parties
themselves. The Nazis themselves are a good
example - they included in their ideology some
ideas that we consider to be left, but remain a
classic example of what it means to be Right wing.
The terms are loose, shorthand, terms,
and certainly their meaning depends on (as you'd
expect) context. But that doesn't mean that they
are entirely arbitrary, or that we can just swap
them arbitrarily.
> In this
> > conception, the Nazis are a rare example of a fundamentally
>> conservative ideology that reaches out towards socialism rather than
>> liberalism, but still remains fundamentally conservative rather than
>> sharing any of the non-economic goals of socialism.
>
>You have conceded that their program was radical and yet you somehow
>argue that they are "fundamentally conservative". I'm simply at a loss
>to understand how you are not contradicting yourself.
Because, straightforwardly, 'radical'
refers to the methods and speed of the desired
change, conservative refers to its effect on the
social order.
The Nazis hated immigrants and foreign
ideas. They hated minority viewpoints. They hated
modern ideas other than their own. They
constantly harked back to a traditional,
historic, view of German culture as an ideal.
Conservative? In that sense, sure.
Interesting, former Australian prime
minister John Howard referred to himself as a
'radical conservative', and he meant it in
exactly this sense - that he had a depply
conservative sense of what was a desirable social
order, but was willing to upset political
institutions in order to achieve it. On occasion
I've referred to my own politics as 'conservative
radical' in the same spirit.
Cheers
David
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