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from the what-y'all-love-social-sciences dept.
It's 2017. Why are there still Nazis?
It's a question many observers are asking after hundreds of white supremacists, many displaying swastikas and Confederate battle flags and shouting racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-communist slogans, took to the streets of Charlottesville, Va., this weekend, provoking violence that claimed the life of one counter-protester and resulted in multiple injuries.
The continued existence of people who hold openly white supremacist ideologies more than seven decades after the fall of the Third Reich can be explained, in part, through a social theory developed in the early 1990s. Social dominance theory seeks to explain how hierarchy-enhancing ideologies do not just drive social inequality, but are also a result of it. It suggests that a single personality trait, called social dominance orientation (SDO), strongly predicts a person's political and social views, from foreign policy and criminal justice to civil rights and the environment. What's more, it offers insight into how ideologies such as racism, sexism, and xenophobia tend to arise from the unequal distribution of a society's resources.
"Social dominance theory provides a yardstick for measuring social and political ideologies," says Felicia Pratto, who developed the theory with fellow psychologist Jim Sidanius. "SDO is one way – not the only one – to try to figure out what those ideologies are 'about.'"
You too can take the Social Dominance Orientation quiz to determine your nazi quotient.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:37PM (12 children)
When Trump got elected, I read Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism to see if I could understand the sudden resurgence of right wing populism. I'd recommend it.
It's an insightful work, and tries to get to the root of the fascist mindset itself. Among other things, Reich attributes some of the blame to patriarchal authoritarian families, sexual repression, the ultra-competition of the then lower middle classes (and who *isn't* constantly forced to compete today) which prevented solidarity between workers, an obsession with the ideal forms (and rarely the reality) of honour and duty, and creating the ultimate father figure. Reich believed that repression, especially sexual repression, results in an often masochistic desire for authority. Reich considered fascism to be quite infantile psychologically.
You can see it too - those Charlottesville Neo-Nazis have deep, vengeful repression and desperate authority longing written all over them.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:01PM
According to Hillary, there is no right wing populism: it's all just Bernies'fault.
;(
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Funny) by linkdude64 on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:13PM (2 children)
"Wilhelm Reich"
I do hope you take his writings with a boulder of salt from the Orgone Institute cafeteria.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:21AM (1 child)
Reich's early work is good. He didn't lose it until later in life (the orgone thing, and others as well).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:42AM
Funny that Scientology books aren't burned, as his were. Some of that fascism followed him stateside. There is no escape...
Nazis? Please... dogs marking their territory, primordial as it gets.. but very well dressed back in the day, fashion mavens. They should get some props for that. But today's "casual look" white trash? Pathetic!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:27PM (3 children)
There is no sudden resurgence of right wing populism. There is a sudden surge of the media defining typical left/liberal/moderate viewpoints as "right wing" and pointing to a handful of Nazis, cosplayers, and obvious fed plants who will wave the swastika and confederate flag while saying they also don't like ISIS or illegal immigrants. You don't like ISIS? What, you're not a Nazi, are you?
Trump ran and governs right in the middle of the Democratic Party mainstream so they went into crazyland to find new reasons to oppose him. When labor theories out of Karl Marx's Kapital like Capitalism's Reserve Army of Labour are labeled far-right, the media is the problem.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:58AM
An AC trying to soft sell Trump as a typical Democrat is the most shill like behavior I've seen here in a long time. Even going so far as to invoke Marx in some twisted view!
I agree the media is a problem, but so are astroturfers like yourself. It would be quite sad if you're "legit".
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @03:53AM (1 child)
That part is true WRT "sudden".
...and we should first note that the shift is toward Authoritarianism (the top edge of the political palate). [politicalcompass.org]
The fact that Authoritarians also -happen- to be Capitalists (the Right edge of the political palate) is interesting--but is incidental.
The root comment by gallondr00nk doesn't mention that when a subset of humans get scared, they tend to look for one person (Fuhrer) to save them.
...and in the process, are willing to surrender their civil liberties.
Authoritarians/Capitalists feed on this by making conditions WORSE so that the sheep will (incredibly) flock to those who are causing/exacerbating the badness while those doing the manipulating claim that they will fix everything.
There is a sudden surge of the media defining typical left/liberal/moderate viewpoints as "right wing"
First, the media in your claim is a red herring.
Next, you must be a youngster.
It's nothing "sudden" going on.
Since they got trounced in the 1972 presidential election, Dumbocrats have been becoming more and more Neoliberal (Authoritarian and Capitalist, increasingly liking a police state and becoming ever more anti-worker)
The Dumbocrats don't currently stand for what Democrats stood for in 1964.
It's why they took a pounding in November 2016 and look to take another pounding in 2018 and again in 2020.
.
...and "Liberals" -are- to the Right of Center.
They are contented with Capitalism and think that simply redistributing the wealth of Capitalists will solve everything.
...ignoring the fact that wealth translates to political clout and that Capitalism typically results in Oligarchy.
...and "Moderates" in the USA are halfway between the top-Right corner (Fascism) and the point on the ENTIRE political palate where the axes cross.
Don't make the mistake of thinking they are anywhere near the axes that divide Capitalist Authoritarians from Anti-Capitalist Civil Libertarians.
...and "Leftists" are Anti-Capitalists.
In the USA, most were purged/jailed/deported in the Palmer Raids after WWI or during McCarthyism after WWII.
The remainder were forced underground.
It's extremely rare these days when someone claims to be Anti-Capitalist.
Better words to use to describe the broad camps are "Reactionary" (wanting to go back to an all-White all-male past) and "Progressive" (wanting more equality of wealth and political influence).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by BK on Sunday September 17 2017, @04:42PM
If it was really an all male past, how are we here? I know it's nit-picky, but I learned in school that some non-males were necessary... was i absent on the day they explained how to do it your way?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:41PM (1 child)
If you don't like people turning to stupid answers like authoritarianism (which includes fascism, along with communism, mercantilism, and all the other de facto slave governments), then get your kids out of government schools where authoritarianism is pounded into their soft skulls for the mandated-at-gunpoint twelve years, more or less.
No wonder the government-educated majority look to government solutions to things they don't like. Sure sucks to find out that you're on the wrong end of government authority, otherwise known as government guns, eh? You can help fix that by recognizing that the only legal authority a government like the USA's has is NO MORE than that which is delegated to it by its source, which is no more authority than a single human being has all by himself. (But that also means you don't get to try to point government guns as people you don't like anymore. What will you choose: freedom, or the petard of slavery you seem to find yourself currently hoist by?)
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Monday September 18 2017, @05:09PM
If you think public schools are authoritarian you should see religious private schools. They've basically mastered it. 12 years of Catholic school experience here, some of which was back when nuns and brothers were still allowed to teach.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @09:56AM
Is a short and surprisingly funny book I recommend on this grim subject. Aimed at the common man and freely available at
https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/ [theauthoritarians.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @07:45AM
You read a bunch of bullshit that crawled up its own ass.
Here, let me give you a quick and easy guide to why there are Nazis again. [pastebin.com] This is just a list of cited facts, not some bullshit theory. Come to your own conclusion, even teenagers can see what you pompous fools choose to ignore.