>>> <digloria at mindspring.com> 04/30/99 08:55AM >>>
charles also said:
> Mass murder just goes with Nazism.
hmm. historically this was true. but there's no NECESSARY connection. for example, some neo-nazi orgs simply want to ship everyone off somewhere else right?
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CB: This is a good aspect of this debate to focus in on. I hope I can articulate clearly my response to this aspect of what you are saying. I do not doubt that there are some neo-Nazis who are revisionist and do not stick to every last detail of the original Nazi program etc. However, my idea is that the historic Nazis constituted such an enormous danger to all of humanity, that even if just one out of ten of the current groups does subscribe to mass murder, we have to sacrifice the "freedom" of the somewhat less complete nazis to celebrate their modified nazism. This is termed a prophylatic (no joking intended) remedy in the law. It occurs in other circumstances where it is understood that the law will "catch" some innocents but the harm of the danger is so great from the non-innocents (in this case the "real" nazis) that it is considered that the price of that sacrifice must be paid. The other proposition I must add is that it is not possible to tell the difference on the surface between the virulent and the benign strains.
The existence of nuclear weaponry ups the danger of nazi virulent types. I know that even the virulent types are very small in number today in the U.S. But , with fascism if you wait until they have a lot of members , it may be too late. Fascism is one thing we can justify nipping in the bud. There is not premature anti-fascism. I say again, nuclear and biological weapons , make this proposition truer than in the 1930's. It just takes one Eric Harris (very intelligent) who is into physics or biology as well as computers. If Timothy McVeigh had been a computer geek, he may have killed many more. McVeigh had Nazi symbols somewhere along the line, but he killed mostly white people.
Also, I think we must consider that the wider use of Nazi symbolism by the benign strains may recruit some individuals who then turn to the virulent strain. For example, maybe Eric Harris learned about Nazism from the more benign types, but then he read up on Hitler ,combined it with his sad and deep anger, and reverted to the old form.
Remember, Nazis talk racism, but they also kill allot of people of all races. This is the inconsistency that is aggravating the debate on Littleton. EVERYBODY, not just Jews and blacks and Hispanics, or communists and Gypsies and gays, got slaughtered by the Nazis, even though it was self-proclaimed racism that seemed to play a big role in riling them up. Nazis of the virulent strain are an unusual threat to ALL of humanity.
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Kelley then says,
in germany, they started out by sterilizing the insane, the mentally disabled, and hardcore criminals of *German* nationality. they were seen as completely useless and contaminating to the purity of the German race/nation. then they started killing them. communists were also locked up as insane. they ratcheted up the terror in an effort to secure greater power economically and politically. in other words, extermination of certain peoples in the interest of purifying a 'race' could be targeted at all manner of possible "groups" singled out for their "impurity"
the point: races are socially constructed, they are historically specific--there is no such thing as biological race. that jewish people were once considered a race, as were aryans, is ample evidence of that.
Charles: My theory of racism agrees that "race" is historically constituted (socially constructed). Professor C. Loring Brace, physical anthropologist at the Univ. of Mich. , was the first one to teach me that race is a false or worthless BIOLOGICAL category. Intelligence, virtue, soulfulness, etc, etc. are not empirically correlated with skin color, hair texture, facial features, the original physical characteristics or phenotypes of "race". However,race is a very scientifically valid political, social and economic category. The fact that it is socially constructed does not make it a "hard" fact. It is not a biologically hard fact (though it misuses physical or phenotypical characteristics), but it is a hard social fact
Since 1968 this has been my understanding of the scientific nature of "race". All I am saying on this thread assumes this. The fact that race is socially constructed does not contradict what I am saying on this thread.
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Kelley again:
your examples of the KKK are precisely my point. I am suggesting that a great number of people are attracted to such groups because they have some insight that capitalist society is fucked up in some way. (alienation) but they don't have access to political struggles and a language through which to grasp the 'true' enemy. resentment of the well-to-do and successful isn't particularly acceptable because the ideology of success is so pervasive and powerful. a more acceptable, allowable and common "vocabulary of motives" is racism. and *that* charles is significant and exactly what i've been saying from day one. that's my guess as to why they did what they did. there's the necessary connection to racism. that's how i tie racism in and connect it to class analysis.
Charles: I agree with this pretty much. I would add that all of the mass bases of fascists historically (Italy, Germany, U.S. kkk) have been tricked by the phony populist element of fascism. Remember, Mussolini was in the Socialist Party before he started the Fascist. He was trained in communicating with workers. Hitler was in a "Workers' " Party ( I just saw on the History Channel) and as we know Nazi is short for National SOCIALIST. In _Mein Kampf_ Hitler says some things that sound anti-capitalist. Phony and demogogic appeals to the just rebelliousness and alienation of workers was CRITICAL to the success of the Nazis. The Communists and Socialist Parties of Germany had 63 % of the vote between them in the election with Hitler. The only way the Nazis could win was with horrendously lying propaganda that they were pro-working class. Fascism was specifically tailored to get the capitalists out of the enormous capitalist crisis in Italy and Germany where the Left was close to taking over by majority vote, not violent overthrow.
So this aspect of the current situation is similar to the original fascist danger in a capitalist crisis.
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tangentially, it's also important to think about the issue of power here, to get theoretical for a bit: genocide is an interesting case insofar as the move toward genocide means that the reviled group has to be defined as completely useless and so disposable. Erik Olin Wright makes this point: enslaved people have a bit more power than those who are the target of genocide. [hegel made the point too, of course....] i bring this up because what disturbs me about these facile characterizations of nazism and fascism are tossed about so easily, and the connection w/ capitlism seems to get lost. capital had an interest in the rise of fascism.
Chas. : On your last point, you will see I agree above.
On the paradox that slaves are not annihilated because their labor is needed, yes. The indigneous peoples of North America had less large scale agriculture and were not used to the slave work the Europeans had in mind. They refused to be enslaved. They were thereby annihilated horribly.
Nonetheless, slavery is probably a world historic crime equivalent to annihilation. Slavery condemns people to a sort of lifelong torture. Take a look at the definition of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. It does not hinge "genocide " on the goal of literally wiping out the entire group. Just doing horrible things from killing to torture of members of a group AS MEMBERS OF A GROUP. ( I have the UN Convention on genocide if you want. It is fairly short).
(((((((((((((((((( Kelley quotes: "It must be the duty of racial hygiene to be attentive to a more severe elimination of morally inferior human beings than is the case today....We should replace all factors responsible for selection in a natural and free life...In prehistoric times of humanity, selection for endurance, heroism, social usefulness, etc. was made solely by hostile outside factors. This role must be assumed by a human organization; otherwise humanity for lack of selective factors, be annihiliated by the degenerative phenomena that accompany domestication."
Konrad Lorenz, 1940 quoted in Jay Lifton's _The Nazi Doctors_ p 134
Chas.: One antidote to this is that VARIABILITY (the opposite of "purity")has been vigorous in natural history. For example, Stephen Jay Gould indicates that the transition from reproduction by cloning to reproduction by sex in the life forms on earth occurred because sexual reproduction increases the variability of offspring over cloning. In "The Pentagon of Life" in _Ever Since Darwin_, Gould says,
"Reproduction propagates a species, and no method is more efficient than the asexual budding and fission (cloning -C.B) employed by prokaryotes. The biological function of sex, on the other hand, is to promote variability by mixing the genes of two (or more) individuals..."
We make the human species more vigorous by preserving variability, because we do not know what future environments will be like and what current characteristics may be FIT in those future environments. Nazi "purification" and "hygiene" narrows our variability and weakens our future chances.
Charles Brown
ôtouch yourself and you will know that i exist.ö ~luce irigaray