Comment by jwdunne
9 years ago
Communism as an ideology doesn't have racism as a cornerstone. It's just that it's very easy for people who want to do that to sieze power. Karl Marx never wrote in his manifesto that whole ethnic groups should be eliminated because white Germans are superior.
Racism and genocide is at the heart of Nazi ideology. It is steeped in the ideas of racial superiority. This is why their symbols are culturally unacceptable: they literally mean "I am better than the Jews therefore they should die".
...which means (or, at least is should mean) absolutely nothing.
Both Nazi and Communist regimes have killed staggering amounts of people in horrible and brutal ways. They're both repulsive.
Like, who really cares whether your ideology has hate as a cornerstone if you still commit genocide by starvation and throw millions in gulags to die? "Oh man, I'm dead but at least they didn't hate me while they slowly starved me to death!"
I think you're mistaken. That's like saying we should attribute blame for Islamist terrorism to Islam itself. They're Muslims right? Wrong. Just because someone does horrible shit in the name of a cause does not mean the cause itself is at fault.
Communisms fault is that it's far too utopian in practice and easy for someone like Stalin to hijack the process leading to what you describe. In fact, communism as defined by Marx looks nothing like what the Soviet Union was.
I am a democratic socialist. The USSR was a socialist republic. Do I support what the Soviet union did because I'm a socialist? Hell no! Do I support Nazism because they were called the National Socialists? No and I reject any association of that nature. It's flat out wrong.
Nazism, on the other hand, is pretty clear. Non-whites are vermin and must be exterminated. It's their ideology and if you fly their flags you support that view. It isn't a case of association because a bad actor was affiliated. It matters because it is rotten to the core. It matters because of intent.
Karl Marx never intended for millions to starve in gulags. There is no mention of this and it isn't communist by definition. Genocide was Hitler's intent and it is Nazism by definition.
I have mixed feelings on this. In part because I want to be pedantic but also because I think there's multiple levels here. To be succinct, because that first sentence was wishy-washy, I don't think it's wrong to identify Islamic terrorism as being associated with Islam. THAT BEING SAID, it's not productive to have a public discourse from this perspective in my opinion because the general public is emotional and whimsical and so giving them a complicated debate only invites the opportunity for miscommunication and the development of hate in my opinion.
The reason I think it's important to identify terrorism committed in the name of Islam, Nazism, Christianity, etc. with their respective belief systems is because it empowers us to ask 'why'. Why are so many terrorist organizations affiliated with Islam, RECENTLY SPEAKING? Why has white supremacy become more visible in the American social space including the pre-charlottesville social space? I don't have the end all be all answer. But I think asking the question is important because whatever the true answer is, I think it's fair to say that it's probably regionally rooted, potentially linked to the economics of certain groups rooted in those regions, and because of the regional nature of many Islamic terrorist groups and white nationalist groups, I think it's fair to say that there is a cultural BUT NOT UNIVERSALLY CULTURAL element to it. I would make a similar assessment of the IRA in Ireland, Christian terrorists in Africa, and by now you can probably see where I'm going with this. Acknowledging the affiliations of these organizations and their beliefs is important because it explains THEM. It doesn't inform us about their beliefs, but it allows us to analyze why they have chosen to affiliate with those beliefs in a hopefully honest fashion.
None of that is meant to imply that Nazism should be viewed as American, or that Islamic Terrorism should be viewed as a sub-element of Islam, but acknowledging that these contexts exist with regard to SPECIFIC ORGANIZATIONS is important in my opinion because the root of these issues is often multifaceted and can only be combated, in my opinion, with a comprehensive understanding of these groups and their spiritual as well as political influences.
Edit: I will acknowledge when I edit an argument in the face of something that someone has pointed out. This post has already been heavily edited for my own satisfaction however because while modern examples of significant terrorism are obviously not evenly distributed across cultures, that does not mean that one culture is implicitly prone to terrorism and I'm trying very hard to keep my grammar and framing of arguments as neutral in that respect as possible while acknowledging the current configuration of terrorism, hate, and extremism across the globe.
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I really want to upvote you but this
...which means (or, at least is should mean) absolutely nothing.
won't let me.
I think there have existed communist-like experiments that kind-of worked.
That's fair, and I'll concede that point. I didn't add a disclaimer ("communism (at scale...)") because I felt it'd make my comment a bit less forceful.