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posted by mrpg on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:10PM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:56PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:56PM (#569152)

    Socialists (Nazis) or Communists(AntiFA) what is the difference? They only disagree on the means not the outcome. Those two groups have been fighting since the 1930s. The democrats have let a rat into their midst and think it their savior of the declared devil Trump.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:24PM (#569171)

    Dear crazy person, please get back on your meds. You are giving the US a bad rep.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:27AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:27AM (#569229)

    The German Nazis were Fascists i.e. VERY Capitalist and VERY Authoritarian.
    (The upper right corner of the political palate.)
    Graphic [1] [politicalcompass.org]

    "Communists" (do note the quotation marks) Stalin, Mao, Lenin were VERY Anti-Capitalist and VERY Authoritarian.
    (The upper left edge of the political palate.)

    Socialists ("Marxists" on the chart) are VERY Anti-Capitalist and VERY Anti-Authoritarian.
    (The lower left edge of the political palate.)

    As such, your characterization of the Nazis couldn't possibly be more ignorant and WRONG.

    [1] I will quibble with some of the other dots e.g how far Left they place Bernie Sanders.
    I also don't think they put Hitler far enough to the Right.

    .
    The Neo-Nazis/Neo-Confederates are definitely Reactionary Authoritarian White Supremacists but my bet is that they don't give any thought to the economic system under which they toil.

    While the Antifa bunch is clearly Anti-Authoritarian and in particular anti-racist, I don't see evidence that, as a group, they are especially Anti-Capitalist.

    Seems to me that Antifa is willing to meet Reactionary aggression with physical force, taking Cable Street et al. [google.com] to the next level.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @05:58AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @05:58AM (#569292)

      > [1] I will quibble with some of the other dots e.g how far Left they place Bernie Sanders.

      Since that light-years long link is what generates the chart, you can just change the parameters to add, remove, or modify dots. Here's one [politicalcompass.org] where I moved Sanders and Hitler rightwise.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @07:09AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @07:09AM (#569305)

        True, but you cheated.
        The numbers in the original weren't just plucked out of the air.
        They were derived from applying the actions of those folks to the site's questionnaire.

        My gripe is with the questionnaire.
        I've also said before that in order for someone to be placed Left of the vertical axis, he has to be about the collective ownership of the means of production by The Workers.
        That's not Bernie--no matter what terms he likes to use to describe himself.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday September 17 2017, @09:33AM (1 child)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday September 17 2017, @09:33AM (#569328) Homepage
          I'd say that if someone was speaking in absolutes such as that, then he should be nuzzled up ver close to the very left margin of the chart. How could things be any more left than that? The coudn't, therefore that is the extremum of the left axis.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @07:21PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @07:21PM (#569465)

            I'm not seeing where we disagree.
            ...unless "he" is Bernie.

            The farthest "Left" that Bernie goes is advocating tax breaks for ESOPs.
            ...which isn't anything like Italy's very successful Marcora Law. [google.com]

            N.B. An Employee Stock Ownership Plan is still Capitalism: 1 share==1 vote; not 1 worker==1 vote.
            ...though, to their credit, the ESOP that Publix supermarkets has is very good about -only- employees being able to own its stock.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]