I met a couple self-proclaimed Marxists in a bar after working a soup kitchen here in Buffalo yesterday eve. One of these lads says, ‘Soup kitchens aren’t going to kickstart the revolution’.
Are these pricks allergic to praxis, or what?
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They probably want a huge starving proletariat who will be desperate to rise up and overthrow the capitalist class to usher in a new age of equality and fraternity.
Maybe the soup wasn’t very good?
The soup will improve after the revolution, when we’re using the bones of capitalists for broth.
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How much more specific do you want to go, and how relevant do you think those aspects of Nazism you focus on are what really matters to neo-Nazis?
The problem with such an incredibly broad definition is that traditonally, most Europeans have then been nazis not many years ago. Globalisation is fairly new. The belief that ones ethnic group should dominate is ingrained in most European countries and has only recently been cast aside in Western Europe and northern Europe (still not in the East), because simply, European countries began as Ethnic Nation States.
Simply speaking, you must differentiate between racists and nazis. Racists can become nazis and can easier than most be persuaded by nazi rethoric and ideas, but a racist is hardly a nazi.
The problem then of course, is that there are many types of racism. Previously, we counted only Biological Racism as proper racism. It is still, and will always be, the “worst”, but we also have cultural (which can be at times very innocent, based as it is on prejudice) and structural racism etc.
The type of racist who would easier than most lean towards nazi ideas, would typically be the biological racist obviously. The cultural racist, the man or woman who is convinced that their own culture (based on ethnicity remember) is superior, can still act in ways that are hurtful to those who is not of his/her tribe, but will generally be inclined to be far less extreme and it will vary a lot as to how culturally racist they actually are. But typically, this kind of racist thinks there are too many immigrants and is very afraid of their culture. These people are not necesarilly malevolent.
And I could go on for ages.
For me, it makes little sense to lump in all racists with nazis. Being a believer in nazism also means that you believe in incredibly drastic and inhumane solutions to what you percive is the problem of the other. So yes, it matters. A lot.
Addendum:
If I were to use your definition of nazi, we would have to call Poland a nazi state, Hungary, essentially all of eastern Europe, the Balkans and much, much more. And then we have Asia and Africa. My God, there are many etnich conflicts there too. Nazis everywhere, all over the globe.
Asians and Africans would probably be then more nazi than Europeans in 2025, if we used your incredibly broad definition. Those two continents are full of ethnic hate and thoughts of ethnic superiority. It is not as if racism is a Western phenonamon; at all. It is ancient and tribal.
No, nazism combines biological racism (and cultural, wants to make it very, very structural) with a hyper militaristic world view and outlook (fascism). It is deeply in it’s essence, imperialistic and irredentist. It is all about social cohesion and very cold hearted and agressive methods for removing the Other inside the Nation State as well as wanting to in time, expand it at the cost of others.
From an outsider’s perspective, weren’t they? Why else were the Nazis and their fellow fascists so popular across so many countries in Europe?
I suppose you mean in the modern era, since I don’t think there was much about ethnicity that defined the medieval era, was there? More so which rulers one was loyal to.
I actually have no problem with that. Does Poland have a hypermilitaristic world view and outlook? If so, then Nazi. Does Hungary? If so, then Nazi. If I understand correctly, the Japanese regime in World War 2 fits that description too.
It really isn’t a bridge too far to suggest that most politically-involved racists have a strong streak of authoritarianism in them that suggests characteristics of fascism, so Nazi. The only parts that seem to be more optional would be the imperialistic irredentist sentiments, but that’s also quite a common feature, especially in the nationalistic sentiments expressed by many of such political movements.
Nazism largely inspired itself from Fascism. But there are also clear differences: nazis were antisemitic for instance, and defined the “purity” of their identity in opposition to “impure” races, like for instance the Jewish one.
All of this was absolute gash, but it helped them define their narrative.
They also went after all mentally affected people, and after nomad populations. We always talk about the 6 millions Jews who were killed by them, but one million nomads were killed as well, and roughly 70k mentally affected people were killed in specialized killing centres.
Mussolini’s fascism on the other hand had also a hypermilitaristic outlook, and a cult leader approach. But it hadn’t the same obsession about racial purity, and as far as I’m aware, didn’t systematically kill people because they were part of a racial minority.
So, I wouldn’t put the words fascism and nazism in the same hat. In my book, most far right movements in the US and Europe are closer to the word fascism than nazism, which is already appaling enough.
Is Luigi Mangioni in the same league as Auguste Vaillant, or Santa Caserio, or Michele Angiolillo, or Leon Czolgosz?