It’s not apologia to understand something. Understanding things allows us better opportunity to address root causes. If simply killing/imprisoning/suppressing them all worked, the AfD would not be an issue in Germany after WW2 and post-war reconstruction.
The AfD only exists and has power now because it was explicitly allowed to continue existing due to a (bullshit) court ruling that it wasn’t big enough at the time to constitute a threat. Your own example doesn’t even make sense because the AfD got where it is now exactly because they weren’t stamped out when they should’ve been.
The court order would have never been brought forward if the ideology had been successfully stamped out post-war. Ultimately, an idea cannot be forcibly destroyed though, only driven into hiding where it can continue to fester underground and through back-channels, as the John Birch Society did here in the States.
This is why addressing the root socioeconomic and individual psychological causes becomes necessary. While most people like to focus on one or the other, I think both are necessary.
Clever trying to strawman the argument into “suppressing Nazism actually works forever and never needs to be reapplied.” from “suppressing Nazism works”. Part of the ongoing post-war stamping out of Nazism is exactly the kind of thing that court failed to uphold. Again, your example makes no sense at all because the AfD should have been stamped out under the law but was given a ludicrous exception. Had it been dissolved when it was small, Germany would not be in this predicament.
It’s not a strawman, I think you mean shifting a goalpost. It’s not that either though, since my position has remained completely consistent. I’m arguing it does not work, the problem of right wing authoritarianism was never actually addressed. It was driven underground, it was hidden, it’s symptoms were masked as people went around thinking “no problems here!”. This was a grave error. From its position underground, it was only a matter of time before it at some point rose threaten society again.
The solution you advocate for requires a neverending process of rolling the dice, hoping no Nazi infiltration into courts or higher government has happened. This does not work, it is not a viable long-term solution. A long term solution must take both a societal and medical perspective into account to understand how a person actually becomes a Nazi.
The medical part is largely under-discussed, it’s only recently that physiological changes in the brain differentiating these sorts of conservatives are becoming more recognized, and explaining why an ideology of fear is so much more effective on them than you or I.
This is true of other beliefs as well. The failure of Reconstruction is a parallel of not addressing the real problems and just patching things and calling them fixed, only for them to fester for decades erupting in sores and infection constantly.
Agreed. I would point to widespread systemic racism as an evidence of this festering. And this was despite Ulysses S Grant’s, as President and controlling both Houses of Congress at the time, attempted harsh persecution of the KKK during Reconstruction. There’s just only so much you can do against what is essentially a domestic guerilla campaign. They hide. Really well. They come out and do things when you’re not watching, and flee when faced with real danger.
It’s not apologia to understand something. Understanding things allows us better opportunity to address root causes. If simply killing/imprisoning/suppressing them all worked, the AfD would not be an issue in Germany after WW2 and post-war reconstruction.
The AfD only exists and has power now because it was explicitly allowed to continue existing due to a (bullshit) court ruling that it wasn’t big enough at the time to constitute a threat. Your own example doesn’t even make sense because the AfD got where it is now exactly because they weren’t stamped out when they should’ve been.
The court order would have never been brought forward if the ideology had been successfully stamped out post-war. Ultimately, an idea cannot be forcibly destroyed though, only driven into hiding where it can continue to fester underground and through back-channels, as the John Birch Society did here in the States.
This is why addressing the root socioeconomic and individual psychological causes becomes necessary. While most people like to focus on one or the other, I think both are necessary.
edit for grammar
Clever trying to strawman the argument into “suppressing Nazism actually works forever and never needs to be reapplied.” from “suppressing Nazism works”. Part of the ongoing post-war stamping out of Nazism is exactly the kind of thing that court failed to uphold. Again, your example makes no sense at all because the AfD should have been stamped out under the law but was given a ludicrous exception. Had it been dissolved when it was small, Germany would not be in this predicament.
It’s not a strawman, I think you mean shifting a goalpost. It’s not that either though, since my position has remained completely consistent. I’m arguing it does not work, the problem of right wing authoritarianism was never actually addressed. It was driven underground, it was hidden, it’s symptoms were masked as people went around thinking “no problems here!”. This was a grave error. From its position underground, it was only a matter of time before it at some point rose threaten society again.
The solution you advocate for requires a neverending process of rolling the dice, hoping no Nazi infiltration into courts or higher government has happened. This does not work, it is not a viable long-term solution. A long term solution must take both a societal and medical perspective into account to understand how a person actually becomes a Nazi.
The medical part is largely under-discussed, it’s only recently that physiological changes in the brain differentiating these sorts of conservatives are becoming more recognized, and explaining why an ideology of fear is so much more effective on them than you or I.
This is true of other beliefs as well. The failure of Reconstruction is a parallel of not addressing the real problems and just patching things and calling them fixed, only for them to fester for decades erupting in sores and infection constantly.
Agreed. I would point to widespread systemic racism as an evidence of this festering. And this was despite Ulysses S Grant’s, as President and controlling both Houses of Congress at the time, attempted harsh persecution of the KKK during Reconstruction. There’s just only so much you can do against what is essentially a domestic guerilla campaign. They hide. Really well. They come out and do things when you’re not watching, and flee when faced with real danger.