I’m just showing these comments I saw earlier, which were interesting. Since it is true, that we’ve been hearing that “Russia is cornered”, since the invasion started. I personally just want this shit to end.
These comments are relating to an article from this week.
I wonder if we will ever know what truly happens on the ground (i.e. when it comes to casualties and many other things)
Not the person above but dehumanizing enemies is unnecessary unless your essential message is hate and genocide. Fascists aren’t monsters from another dimension, they are regular-ass people. That’s part of what makes it so fucked up. My leftism is bound up with humanism and I don’t want to lose my humanity in order to save humanity.
Edit: misgender corrected
I understand your viewpoint and there’s nothing wrong with that humane approach, but I’d be a hypocrite if I pretended that spoke to me, it honestly doesn’t
I’m genuinely not interested in humanizing fascists, the various plans people like that have for people like me prevents me from taking a proposition like that seriously
Fascists in power and in the streets might as well be “monsters from another dimension” for the effect they have on my life and the people I care about, I can’t afford to subscribe to any philosophy that could potentially diminish that crucial recognition
I think we agree on the important part, fascists have to be taken seriously. I don’t endorse kid gloves in dealing with fascists. I just feel that calling them maggots is thought-terminating, it is a crude imitation of the fascists’ own language, it does not actually do anything except to encourage fascist-like thought patterns even if nominally leftist. Fascists provide enough material to prove themselves vile; we don’t need to hand them any possible claim of victimization on the basis of “free speech” or whatever usual nonsense works to get liberals to defend them since after all, through liberal eyes, all ideology is sacred, only action can be immoral.
In general, it is a choice and definite strategy to dehumanize people. There is no dichotomy of humanize or dehumanize. They continuously dehumanize themselves through their ideology, it is sufficient to point to the ideology and let it speak for itself.
I’m sorry but that’s basically a dedux of respectability politics, I’m really not interested in even accepting a debate framework like that because it’s fundamentally a pre-compromised position, since your opponent will always define what is and isn’t respectable, hence your worry of “we don’t need to hand them any possible claim of victimization”
Fascists also did not invent the concept of political insults or caricatures, and my use of insults sends a signal to lurking fash in this online space (and they are lurking) the same way a baseball bat in the hands of a bartender sends a signal to any fash scouting for potential friendly gathering locations
And most importantly dehumanization of enemies alone is not the basis of fascist language, instead it’s the racialization of enemies thru class collaboration that defines the fascist lexicon
If I wanted to “imitate” fascist language, I’d be using racial slurs instead of just a figurative comparison to insects
This is a really good point. I shouldn’t have put so much emphasis on perception in the last comment.
Racialization is a more succinct term for what I don’t want. While calling fascists maggots is not strictly a form of racialization (I don’t think it is logically possible for an oppressor to be racialized), again it uses similar thought patterns, reduction of humans to some essential identity, on which basis to exterminate that race/group. I don’t think this is a way of thought that should be encouraged. Fascists should be fought as the horrible people they are, not as caricatures, because that actually dilutes the reality of fascism. The idea more and more takes hold that fascist ideology is a result of a flawed brain, and not a problem with humanity more generally.
no, it quite literally doesn’t. fascists can renounce their beliefs and all of my ire falls away. I cannot renounce being trans or brown – these are actually essential qualities. ideologies are not essential.
Fascists as humans can renounce their beliefs. As maggots they cannot.
I’m not sure how to read this but bad faith and my only response is what I already said.
It is not bad faith to refuse to use hateful language. I don’t want to be hateful, and using terminology and manners of speech of the people who I oppose doesn’t sit right with me. And on a practical level I don’t think it helps the leftist cause in any way, more likely hurts it.
The fact you recognize that fascists could renounce their beliefs, to me implies you don’t truly view them as maggots, which is what I meant above.