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[Man in Space]

I have a question...

I had relatives in Europe, specifically Ukraine, who were most likely murdered by Nazi collaborators (I do not know this for a fact -- what I do know is that my great-grandfather who was most closely related to them lost contact with them in the course of WW2, and my parents discovered decades later that the village where they lived was razed and all the people in it murdered by Nazi collaborators because the Nazis thought they were too sympathetic to the Soviets).

Thing is, it feels very weird saying that they were most likely 'murdered in the Holocaust', since they weren't Jews, or Roma, or Sinti, or homosexuals, or disabled people, or like. They were ethnic Poles, and they weren't murdered because of their ethnicity per se.

So what is your guys' thoughts on this? Should the term 'Holocaust' be limited to just Jews, or just Jews, Roma, and Sinti, or Jews, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, and disabled people, or like who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, as it commonly is, or should a broader meaning referring to everyone murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators regardless of what category they may have fallen into be adopted (and when more specific meanings are desired one should use terms such as the 'Shoah' or the 'Porajmos')?

My Babcia was an ethnic Pole who was thrown into a camp by the Nazis. I consider her a Holocaust survivor and have referred to her as such with no issue or objection from my interlocutors. (She passed before COVID hit and would be stricken with terror when the doctors came in in their white coats because she would regress and she thought they were Nazis coming to take her away again.)

[Torco]

i'm not saying anyone else should use my terms, but i am right when i say nazis are fascists, though of course a concrete brand of fascists, and one that was especially heinous. but all these people are clearly drinking from the same historical influences, say many of the same things, collaborate internationally and have done so for almost a century, and vary mostly in the details. if the ustase had had the amount of military and geopolitical power the nazis did they would have likely done their own similarly-sized genocide, or tried. same goes for other fascists.

and just focusing on NSDAP members exculpates by obscuring various perpetrators of the various fascist genocides of the age: the shoah specifically, by which i mean the genociding of the jews, was not just carried out by card-carrying members of the NSDAP: croat, hungarian, french, norwegian, neerlandish, lithuanian, polish, bulgarian, spanish and belgian fascists all helped (others too), often with the same bloodthirst as Nazis(tm). it's a less comfortable view, but a truer one, that nazism and fascism aren't isolated, incidental phenomena that once happened in two (2) countries: they are a structural problem that keeps popping up again and again all over space and time, and in history categories are not just markers for the magnitude of heinousness.

pardon my far left take here but i think genocide isn't less evil if the targeted group is one of non-involuntary membership: to exterminate all the communists, or all the zoroastrians, or all the muslims, or all those who insist on speaking spanish, is not less bad.

[Travis B.]

i'm not saying anyone else should use my terms, but i am right when i say nazis are fascists, though of course a concrete brand of fascists, and one that was especially heinous. but all these people are clearly drinking from the same historical influences, say many of the same things, collaborate internationally and have done so for almost a century, and vary mostly in the details. if the ustase had had the amount of military and geopolitical power the nazis did they would have likely done their own similarly-sized genocide, or tried. same goes for other fascists.

and just focusing on NSDAP members exculpates by obscuring various perpetrators of the various fascist genocides of the age: the shoah specifically, by which i mean the genociding of the jews, was not just carried out by card-carrying members of the NSDAP: croat, hungarian, french, norwegian, neerlandish, lithuanian, polish, bulgarian, spanish and belgian fascists all helped, often with the same bloodthirst as Nazis(tm). it's a less comfortable view, but a truer one, that nazism and fascism aren't isolated, incidental phenomena that once happened in two (2) countries: they are a structural problem that keeps popping up again and again all over space and time, and in history categories are not just markers for the magnitude of heinousness.

The proper way to refer to the people who weren't Nazis per se who helped the Nazis commit their crimes is as Nazi collaborators -- this is accurate and in no way exculpates them. As for groups like the Ustaše which had their own genocidal agendas independent of that of the Nazis, I think the best way to refer to them is as what they specifically, were -- in this case Ustaše.

The problem with simply dumping these people under the heading of 'fascist' is that there are genuine modern-day fascists such as Trump who are not nearly as bloodthirsty (despite the ICE shooting people) as these people were, so throwing them in with Trump and company dilutes their crimes. Even when one considers the original Italian Fascists, they weren't as genocidal as many of these groups were, so referring to them in one breath with the Italian Fascists still negates what they did to an extent.

[Travis B.]

I have a question...

I had relatives in Europe, specifically Ukraine, who were most likely murdered by Nazi collaborators (I do not know this for a fact -- what I do know is that my great-grandfather who was most closely related to them lost contact with them in the course of WW2, and my parents discovered decades later that the village where they lived was razed and all the people in it murdered by Nazi collaborators because the Nazis thought they were too sympathetic to the Soviets).

Thing is, it feels very weird saying that they were most likely 'murdered in the Holocaust', since they weren't Jews, or Roma, or Sinti, or homosexuals, or disabled people, or like. They were ethnic Poles, and they weren't murdered because of their ethnicity per se.

So what is your guys' thoughts on this? Should the term 'Holocaust' be limited to just Jews, or just Jews, Roma, and Sinti, or Jews, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, and disabled people, or like who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, as it commonly is, or should a broader meaning referring to everyone murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators regardless of what category they may have fallen into be adopted (and when more specific meanings are desired one should use terms such as the 'Shoah' or the 'Porajmos')?

My Babcia was an ethnic Pole who was thrown into a camp by the Nazis. I consider her a Holocaust survivor and have referred to her as such with no issue or objection from my interlocutors. (She passed before COVID hit and would be stricken with terror when the doctors came in in their white coats because she would regress and she thought they were Nazis coming to take her away again.)

I have no objection at all to you considering her a Holocaust survivor -- I would have done the same if she were my grandmother.

I honestly don't quite know why I have trouble considering my own relatives who were probably murdered at the behest of the Nazis Holocaust victims. If they had been sent to camps I would have less trouble considering them as such, which really makes no sense whatsoever.

[Torco]

that is indeed a regrettable side effect of calling all fascists fascists, but the good part of doing so is that it highlights important things, such as the obvious ideological similarities, the fact that they all collaborated, collaborate and will collaborate with other fascists, and so on and so on. trumpists would and do cheer for concentration camps, even if no furnaces have been lit inside of them... yet.

I honestly don't quite know why I have trouble considering my own relatives who were probably murdered at the behest of the Nazis Holocaust victims. If they had been sent to camps I would have less trouble considering them as such, which really makes no sense whatsoever.

agreed! i think that the fact that in popular culture etcetera there's such a focus on the camps and the jews sort of sidelines the other victims of the nazis, Nazis, fascists, Fascists, collaborators and other bastards of the time. often good, decent people speak as if it was only the jews, forgetting the romas, the gays, the communists, the handicapped and so on and so on.

[Travis B.]

that is indeed a regrettable side effect of calling all fascists fascists, but the good part of doing so is that it highlights important things, such as the obvious ideological similarities, the fact that they all collaborated, collaborate and will collaborate with other fascists, and so on and so on. trumpists would and do cheer for concentration camps, even if no furnaces have been lit inside of them... yet.

It is true that the Trumpists are cheerfully in favor of concentration camps (in the proper sense of the term, not the common, narrower, incorrect 'Nazi death camp' sense of the term) -- but being in favor of concentration camps does not necessarily equate being in favor of mass murder per se.

I honestly don't quite know why I have trouble considering my own relatives who were probably murdered at the behest of the Nazis Holocaust victims. If they had been sent to camps I would have less trouble considering them as such, which really makes no sense whatsoever.

agreed! i think that the fact that in popular culture etcetera there's such a focus on the camps and the jews sort of sidelines the other victims of the nazis, Nazis, fascists, Fascists, collaborators and other bastards of the time. often good, decent people speak as if it was only the jews, forgetting the romas, the gays, the communists, the handicapped and so on and so on.

Yes. It is unfortunate that too many people equate the Holocaust with the Shoah alone, in the process effectively negating things such as the murder of about half of the Roma/Sinti population of Europe and so on. That in itself is a good argument for why a broader definition of the term 'Holocaust' should be adopted.

[Torco]

that is indeed a regrettable side effect of calling all fascists fascists, but the good part of doing so is that it highlights important things, such as the obvious ideological similarities, the fact that they all collaborated, collaborate and will collaborate with other fascists, and so on and so on. trumpists would and do cheer for concentration camps, even if no furnaces have been lit inside of them... yet.

It is true that the Trumpists are cheerfully in favor of concentration camps (in the proper sense of the term, not the common, narrower, incorrect 'Nazi death camp' sense of the term) -- but being in favor of concentration camps does not necessarily equate being in favor of mass murder per se.

sure, in the way being pro privatization does not necessarily mean being in favor of oppression of sexual minorities, and yet these things so often go hand in hand.

I honestly don't quite know why I have trouble considering my own relatives who were probably murdered at the behest of the Nazis Holocaust victims. If they had been sent to camps I would have less trouble considering them as such, which really makes no sense whatsoever.

agreed! i think that the fact that in popular culture etcetera there's such a focus on the camps and the jews sort of sidelines the other victims of the nazis, Nazis, fascists, Fascists, collaborators and other bastards of the time. often good, decent people speak as if it was only the jews, forgetting the romas, the gays, the communists, the handicapped and so on and so on.

Yes. It is unfortunate that too many people equate the Holocaust with the Shoah alone, in the process effectively negating things such as the murder of about half of the Roma/Sinti population of Europe and so on. That in itself is a good argument for why a broader definition of the term 'Holocaust' should be adopted.

that's the same impulse that brings me to my broad usage of fascism. i want to say "yes, and also a broader definition of those that perpetrated it"

[Travis B.]

that is indeed a regrettable side effect of calling all fascists fascists, but the good part of doing so is that it highlights important things, such as the obvious ideological similarities, the fact that they all collaborated, collaborate and will collaborate with other fascists, and so on and so on. trumpists would and do cheer for concentration camps, even if no furnaces have been lit inside of them... yet.

It is true that the Trumpists are cheerfully in favor of concentration camps (in the proper sense of the term, not the common, narrower, incorrect 'Nazi death camp' sense of the term) -- but being in favor of concentration camps does not necessarily equate being in favor of mass murder per se.

sure, in the way being pro privatization does not necessarily mean being in favor of oppression of sexual minorities, and yet these things so often go hand in hand.

agreed! i think that the fact that in popular culture etcetera there's such a focus on the camps and the jews sort of sidelines the other victims of the nazis, Nazis, fascists, Fascists, collaborators and other bastards of the time. often good, decent people speak as if it was only the jews, forgetting the romas, the gays, the communists, the handicapped and so on and so on.

Yes. It is unfortunate that too many people equate the Holocaust with the Shoah alone, in the process effectively negating things such as the murder of about half of the Roma/Sinti population of Europe and so on. That in itself is a good argument for why a broader definition of the term 'Holocaust' should be adopted.

that's the same impulse that brings me to my broad usage of fascism. i want to say "yes, and also a broader definition of those that perpetrated it"

Summing up a wide group of people with differing positions, some with less extreme positions and some with more extreme positions, under a single umbrella is liable to both ameliorate people's views of those with more extreme positions and sharpen people's views of those with less extreme positions. I don't think that it is appropriate to ameliorate people's views of the original Nazis and their collaborators, and hence I am loath to place them under the same umbrella with Trump, Meloni, and company, even if it may sharpen people's views of those other people.

[Torco]

I mean, fair enough. the fact that the difference between some fascists and others is that some are more 'extreme' and other less so to me points out that they're varieties of the same thing, but i understand your position as well. I just take issue with being called a liar [not by you, but above] for saying a thing that is true (i.e. that Nazism is a variety of fascism, caps intentional) but i mean we all use the words that best express us.

[alice]

On the subject of AI-generated popular music, does anyone remember the "versificator" from a book called Nineteen Eighty-Four?

Now that you mention it, I remember. (It was long ago that I read it.) And meanwhile, Napster has decided to go that way.

I'm not sure whether this is an argument for or against AI-generated music, but the name "Dragonshaft" is genius.

[zompist]

The problem with simply dumping these people under the heading of 'fascist' is that there are genuine modern-day fascists such as Trump who are not nearly as bloodthirsty (despite the ICE shooting people) as these people were, so throwing them in with Trump and company dilutes their crimes. Even when one considers the original Italian Fascists, they weren't as genocidal as many of these groups were, so referring to them in one breath with the Italian Fascists still negates what they did to an extent.

Since you are happy to call Trump a fascist— correctly, in my view— I'm not sure what the rest of this objection is about.

Trump may not have spilled as much blood yet. But recall a few things.
* Concentration camps exist now and more are being built.
* It's ICE policy not to provide medical care in the camps. How many are dead already? They're also not allowing anyone to check.
* Trump obviously views ICE as his personal Gestapo; they can shoot anyone they want, and he's threatened to send them to polling places.
* Trump already attempted a coup, and he and his minions obviously despise democracy and are ready to overthrow it, and despise free speech and are ready to use the power of the federal government against it.
* At this point it's starting to be easier to list countries Trump hasn't threatened to invade. He even issued a national security document mandating support for antidemocratic far-right European parties (i.e. fascists).
* Anyone remember the Young Republicans explicitly identifying as Nazis?
* Or his proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza?
* The laboratory for American fascism has been Texas; ask trans or pregnant Texans if they feel safe.

Giving the Nazis special status as ultimate evildoers because of the Holocaust means misreading Nazi history itself. The Holocaust per se didn't really get going until 1941... were the Nazis not Nazis before that? Trump has been in power only for a years; he has to be compared to the early Nazis. Nothing about history or politics means that he has to follow their timetable exactly, but it's worth pointing out that some of the Nazis' earliest targets were sexual minorities and comedians— which Trump has already done.

Also, times change, and so do models for evil. Orbán and Putin have provided an updated model of E-Z fascism: control the media, control the universities, suppress the opposition, deploy armed forces only as a last resort. Steal an election rather than declaring an outright dictatorship. No real need for mass movements and street riots. (After the civil war, Franco governed that way too.)

Finally: if Trump hasn't been able to be more fascist, it's because he's being resisted: by friction in his own party, by the courts, by public outcry, by well-organized resistance to the ICE goons, by Democratic governors, by China, increasingly by Europe. And by his own stupidity and inability to focus. Trump's approval rating is down to 37%, his lowest in this term. As Paul Krugman points out, Orbán was able to implement his takeover at a time when the economy was growing and he was personally popular; Trump has thrown both advantages away.

There was a time when leftists routinely misused "fascist" for any conservative, but that is not a problem any more. We can perfectly well distinguish conservatives and fascists— and find that the GOP has been taken over by fascists. Trying to be overscrupulous in our terms doesn't help anyone at this point.

Besides, the "most evil" competition has never been very useful or informative. There is too much competition. If anything, the danger in making the Nazis the sole holder of of the title is that people can think they are a historical aberration, totally over, just a set of symbols to use in fiction. That seemed to be the case in 1970; it sure isn't true today.

[Travis B.]

Point taken. There is always the possibility that Trump will come up with a Final Solution to the Migrant Problem, but to our knowledge that hasn't happened yet. When and if that does happen, we can then actually compare Trump with Hitler. For the time being, though, we can only go by how things are now, rather than by extrapolating based on the assumption that Trump will seek to emulate the Nazis, with the slight substitution of foreign-looking people of color in general for Jews, Roma, Sinti, Communists, gays, disabled people, and like.

[Richard W]

Point taken. There is always the possibility that Trump will come up with a Final Solution to the Migrant Problem, but to our knowledge that hasn't happened yet. When and if that does happen, we can then actually compare Trump with Hitler. For the time being, though, we can only go by how things are now, rather than by extrapolating based on the assumption that Trump will seek to emulate the Nazis, with the slight substitution of foreign-looking people of color in general for Jews, Roma, Sinti, Communists, gays, disabled people, and like.

If Trump were a fascist, wouldn't he be in favour of some form of universal healthcare? His use of fascist methods doesn't make him a fascist.

[Travis B.]

Point taken. There is always the possibility that Trump will come up with a Final Solution to the Migrant Problem, but to our knowledge that hasn't happened yet. When and if that does happen, we can then actually compare Trump with Hitler. For the time being, though, we can only go by how things are now, rather than by extrapolating based on the assumption that Trump will seek to emulate the Nazis, with the slight substitution of foreign-looking people of color in general for Jews, Roma, Sinti, Communists, gays, disabled people, and like.

If Trump were a fascist, wouldn't he be in favour of some form of universal healthcare? His use of fascist methods doesn't make him a fascist.

Despite what you seem to think, fascists are not racist, nationalist social democrats.

[Richard W]

Despite what you seem to think, fascists are not racist, nationalist social democrats.

True in that the democratic part is dropped.

[Travis B.]

Despite what you seem to think, fascists are not racist, nationalist social democrats.

True in that the democratic part is dropped.

You seem to think that the only 'true' forms of fascism are the likes of Strasserism and National Bolshevism.

[Richard W]

Despite what you seem to think, fascists are not racist, nationalist social democrats.

True in that the democratic part is dropped.

You seem to think that the only 'true' forms of fascism are the likes of Strasserism and National Bolshevism.

To quote Wikipedia,

In a final, bitter irony, many of the core policies of Gregor [Strasser]'s plagiarized program were later implemented by the Hitler regime after Gregor's murder in 1934.

Etymologically, recall that fascismo comes from fascio 'trade union'.

[Torco]

but to our knowledge that hasn't happened yet. When and if that does happen, we can then actually compare Trump with Hitler.

this part

is what I mean by "words aren't only for quantifying evil". no, we can compare him now, cause he *functions* the same, or in similar ways. when covid started, you weren't like "oh but there's no comparison with the spanish flu, the spanish flu killed more people, this is a Different Type of Thing because the spanish flu was worse". he is already emulating the nazis

If Trump were a fascist, wouldn't he be in favour of some form of universal healthcare? His use of fascist methods doesn't make him a fascist.

in a word, no. nazis invented privatization, and before being used as a term for trade unions fascio meant the rod with which cops beat civilians. and using fascist methods doesn't make a person a fascist? how about modeling your propaganda on fascist propaganda? how about having the support of actual fascists? how about cult of tradition? disagreement is treason? fear of difference? the enemy being at the same time too strong and too weak? contempt for the weak? machismo?

[Travis B.]

but to our knowledge that hasn't happened yet. When and if that does happen, we can then actually compare Trump with Hitler.

this part

is what I mean by "words aren't only for quantifying evil". no, we can compare him now, cause he *functions* the same, or in similar ways. when covid started, you weren't like "oh but there's no comparison with the spanish flu, the spanish flu killed more people, this is a Different Type of Thing because the spanish flu was worse". he is already emulating the nazis

If Trump is a Nazi, so are many other post-WW2 authoritarians -- which really dilutes what the original Nazis did. Thing is, we already have a perfectly good term for people like him -- fascist.

[Man in Space]

If Trump is a Nazi, so are many other post-WW2 authoritarians -- which really dilutes what the original Nazis did. Thing is, we already have a perfectly good term for people like him -- fascist.

The term “fascist” itself has been diluted due to overuse. It is no longer a “perfectly good term”. The euphemism treadmill rolls on.