h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just a few points:

1) re: saturnine's phrasing that anti-nazi is a prejudice. I agree. It's not a bad predjudice, but it is one all the same.

2)someone asked who said "I disagree with what you say but will defend to your death the right to say it". It was the French philosopher Voltaire.

3) in regard to the stupidity of racists- and I'll be starring out any potentially offensive words here- I had an Afro-Carrobean girlfriend, and once, in a bar, she got jostled by a big white skinhead who claled her a "P**i Bitch". She responded "You're obviously even more stupid than most racists. I'm a n****r, and I find it quite humourous that someone who can't tell the difference is so convinced of his own superiority". the guy just looked shocked and stormed off muttering under his breath.

Being anti-nazi isn't really pre-judging though is it? It is clear what a nazi is, and what they stand for. There is enough information to make an informed judgement. Being anti-nazi is a reaction against those viewpoints, more so then against any individuals. Being anti-black, or whatever, is an irrational prejudice aimed at individuals and groups of people. The two are not the same.

Ste

It's certainly discrimination and hypocritical if it's not a prejudice...

I can see how it's discriminatory, discrimination in itself is not a bad thing, it's only bad when based upon prejudice. I can't see how it's hypocritical though...

You CAN or you CAN'T??

Let's read my last sentence again shall we? 'Can't'.

Sorry, wasn't sure whether it was a typo.

It is obviously a hypocritical attitude. More so in relation to the behaviour of the Anti-Nazi League...the violence and censorship they bestow on people (like the members of the BNP) mirrors the behaviour that they themselves are against. And yes, I know you can be anti-nazi and not want to beat them up/censor them...but I've never seen anyone take a real objective look at that topic or come up with any other attitude than utter disgust and hypocrisy.

Oh, I am gonna get mauled for that one.

*hard hats at the ready*

k

Looks like being anti-anti-nazi is prejudiced though, huh?

Aren't anti-nazis pacifist? The ones I know (including myself, even though I don't subscribe to any group in particular, I would suggest most people are anti-nazi) are certainly not. I would disagree with people who would want to censor others, but that isn't a group-wide policy, just a view of the more fervent members. It's hard to look at nazism with anything other than disgust.

Ste

Pacifists? Nah, not really. Full of s**t maybe. It's all to easy to condemn something that has been demonised. Different story to look at something objectively (and risk being called a Nazi sympathiser, facist, like I do ). I agree, it *is* hard to look at it with anything but disgust...but then if you do, you just end up subscribing to the same fate that the people of Germany did - you believe what they tell you and do as you're told...

So then Sat, how do *you* look at nazism objectively? Is it possible?

I think the difference between being anti-nazi and, for example, racist, is that nazism constitutes a set of political beliefs and being anti-nazi amounts to finding the political beliefs of nazis abhorrent, rather than hating individual nazis. For example, the BNP is a political group with a largely racist viewpoint (although, surprisingly, they do have some rather socialist views on economics) so it makes sense for someone who is anti-nazi to be anti-BNP.

Being anti-nazi is not prejudiced because either an individual subscribes to a nazi ideology in which case our pre-formed views of their political beliefs are accurate, or they do not.

To make the distinction clear - I am anti-Conservative (in the sense that I am against the Conservative ideology), but not anti-my grandparents (who are staunch Conservative voters).

It's incredibly possible. You just read the history books. Look at how Germany recovered from the Depression, and then how Hitlers techniques were used by other governments to save people from starving to death. Roosevelt (I think thats the right president) took his idea of Public Labour and got unemployed people buiding the roads that stretch across the US to this day. Then you have the clever use of psychological manipulation - the colours, parades, organisations - that Hitler used to keep morale up. Now in itself, that wasn't a bad thing. What taints all this is the underlying censorship and extermination of *undesirables*, that, by the way, Stalin also had in his Russia.

It's all a matter of dissecting it off and seeing what relates to the rest of the world. All methods, good and evil, exist outside the Nazi regime both before and after the war. What people can't shake out of their minds though, is the sheer number of people killed, the propoganda that still runs through society to this day...and the underlying knowledge that not only did people conform to that great level...but our governments sat back and let it all happen. Newsflash - IT WAS REPORTED IN THE NEWSPAPERS *before* the war began that Hitler was sterilising/exterminating his people. It was buried by the media and the governments. We knew, and we did nothing. So maybe that's why Hitler is more demonised.

Then again, I could be a buffoon.

And the last *more* in the last sentence should have been deleted.

"It's incredibly possible. You just read the history books."

Oops. So, are history books objective then?

Probably not. But there is such a thing as *reading between the lines*!

What, objectively?