Comment by belorn
5 months ago
If the goal here is the show that intellectual curiosity can be had by a discussions on ethics and symbolism, I would recommend reading the comment in the best light possible and find the strongest arguments to talk about. Comments like "Debunks your entire point" does not do that and only closes the discussion. For the purpose of this thread that started with the question of "Why is this flagged", I would like to see if its possible to have that discussion.
The many published ww2 documentaries do indeed shows some variability in the Nazi salute, just like that youtube video you linked. The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_salute) definition and their linked sources do not include the "hand on heart" part, which may indicate how common different versions are. The added "My heart goes out to you" statement to it is also seems like an very uncommon addition. A question we could ask is what people in the rally interpreted the gesture as in the context of the whole speech. Did they see it as an variable form of the Nazi salute, or did they interpret it as a gesture of gratitude?
Gestures has a natural ambitiousness in them. A person taking a knee in front of a king is different from a person taking a knee in front of a significant other and asking their hand in for marriage. The context and additional variability (like saying "do you want to marry me") changes the meaning of the gesture. In order for it to be one or the other the whole picture, context and gesture, need to align.
If the discussions is about ethics and symbolism we should also look at the ethics part. Political rallies are seemingly about displaying symbols and generating boundaries between in-groups and out-groups. If the gesture was intended to be an ambiguous Nazi salute in order to ignite controversy, we can look at what the consequences are. The in-group feels attacked, while the out-group becomes a threat for which the in-group can rally against. This strengthen the bonds of the in-group. It also increases political violence and instability, with both group "othering" each other. By instantly and publicly distance himself from the others interpretation, there is a gain of presenting themselves as the "true" anti-nazi and friends to Israel, especially now in the context of the current war in Gaza. This kind of political maneuvering is not that uncommon in far left and far right. Political researchers and analysts often remark that this create a problem of actually identity what the movement actually believes in, since the message is not in the actually words (or gestures), but rather in the intended outcome. The ambiguousness also create an environment that invites more extreme members which can be used to gain votes, or to kick out when there is political points to be gained.
> The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_salute) definition and their linked sources do not include the "hand on heart" part
Even the video in the comment you replied to shows Hitler doing it that way, and people who do the salute today do it constantly, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN8Q3U1GYmo
It's not required, but it takes nothing away from the salute. On the other hand, there is no such "my heart goes out to you" gesture. That'd be throwing kisses, or moving your hand to your heart and then extending it with palms sideways or slightly upwards. IF there was such a gesture that is similar and easily confused with the nazi salue, the WP page would mentioned it. But there isn't, we all know there isn't, it's only created ad-hoc to rationalize inaction.
And I don't know about the people who were present in that rally, but Andrew Tate for example loves it: https://bsky.app/profile/junlper.beer/post/3lgemglpkws2s
There is no named gesture called "my heart goes out to you". Air kiss has an Wikipedia article, but "moving your hand to your heart and then extending it with palms sideways" does not have an article. Wikiepdia has an article on gestures and a non-exhaustive category, but as it is written in the Wikipedia policy, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and definitively not an exhaustive list of everything. If there are gestures that can be confused with the Nazi salute then Wikipedia has no obligation to list them nor any directive to do so.
The alternative interpretation of the gesture that Musk did is however written on the Wikipedia article on the Nazi Salute, and on the article on Musk himself. It says: "it could indicate a sort of gesture of thanks to the crowd".
People see what they want to see. Having said that (and looking at the snarky "ad-hoc to rationalize inaction" comment), does it help producing a discussions on ethics and symbolism that produce intellectual curiosity? A more neutral way to describe it is likely to quote Wikipedia that quoted multiple other sources: "regardless of what Musk meant, his salute was widely embraced by right-wing extremists". As such, while different people will interpret the gesture differently, what matter is the outcome. That would be the ethical discussion we are not talking about but that I have now written twice about. What is the effect of the gesture and what was the goal.
> And I don't know about the people who were present in that rally, but Andrew Tate for example loves it: https://bsky.app/profile/junlper.beer/post/3lgemglpkws2s
That is a association fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy). A speech during a rally is no the same as a short clip. If we are asking why people present during the rally did not react to the gesture, we need to ask what those people saw in the context of being at that rally and the speech up to that point. A good thing to have in the intellectual tool belt is the Invisible Gorilla, in that people don't always see what other see if you change the context. My personal guess is that taken out of context, if we gave the gesture blindly to people and especially without the "my heart goes out to you", most people would label it as a salute, and a subset would label it as a Nazi Salute. Give the pretext and the post-comment, an other subset would see it as a gesture of thanks. Give a context of a Nazi rally and close to 100% would see it as a Nazi Salute. Give the context of a funeral, and close to 0% would see it as a Nazi Salute. Context matters in interpreting the meaning of a gesture.
> Give the context of a funeral, and close to 0% would see it as a Nazi Salute.
No. Near 100% would see it as a fascist salute because it is a fascist salute.
Sometimes things are exactly as they appear to be. There's no explaining away this one.
Can you show me someone doing that at a funeral? Because as a German I'm telling you, you can say about your heart whatever you want, if you do that on anything but a right-wing extremist funeral without other witnesses, you're in deep shit instantly. I know the US is more "free speech" about that, but this is still where that gesture originates or rather, why it's this big of a deal.
You could say I care more about what I know what Elon did, than what he may think he did. He's just someone wearing it like a "funny" hat. He has no clue, and that does not matter.
You brought up the WP article on the nazi salute not mentioning moving the hand to the heart first, as if that implies they are different gestures. However, apart from Neo-Nazis, the original Nazis including Hitler did the salute that way, too. Obviously video footage of Nazis doing the salute that way weighs more than WP just not mentioning it can be done that way.
> There is no named gesture called "my heart goes out to you"
No, the one on the nazi salute has mentions no possibility of confusing the two, and IMO there is none. Haaretz said it best: "you don't usually hurl it like a discus".
> A good thing to have in the intellectual tool belt is the Invisible Gorilla, in that people don't always see what other see if you change the context.
I'm not concerned that Americans, in that moment (where "making a scene" has a extremely high threshold for cause) didn't think much of it. I'm concerned with what I think of it, and while even that is under debate, that starts with the basic fact that it's a nazi salute, not remotely something like a "my heart goes out to you" gesture, especially one would repeat to his leader on top of that, and that particular one to boot, the one who said he could shoot people in broad daylight and his followers would not mind.
If I show someone the middle finger, either because I was told it means "hi, how are you?", or because I want someone to think I don't like them, but in reality I'm just trolling and I really do like them; that doesn't change that I'm showing them the middle finger. If I do it while reciting a poem and time it with the line "and my middle chakra yearns for thee", I'm still showing them the middle finger, that just makes it seem like some plausible deniability thrown in on purpose. I mean, this is not an obscure gesture.
And even though Musk endorsed the German AfD, and keeps courting Neo-Nazis, I'm not even sure he is fully aware of what he is doing. Maybe he is, or maybe he finds it very based and contrarian. What is inside his mind is not really something I can or care to guess at. The way he pretended to be good at Path of Exile doesn't allow me to assume he has any real thought process until he verbalizes it and I recognize it as coherent. I'm concerned with the media and other people I do hold to a higher standard.