Comment by weinzierl
4 days ago
Leaders and typefaces:
In 1941 Adolf Hitler personally gave order to make the use of the Antiqua mandatory and forbade the use of Fraktur and Schwabacher typefaces.
4 days ago
Leaders and typefaces:
In 1941 Adolf Hitler personally gave order to make the use of the Antiqua mandatory and forbade the use of Fraktur and Schwabacher typefaces.
(We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46224867. It's fine and interesting, but the offtopicness of you-know-who is a bit too agitating at the top of the thread.)
If you read the article, Calibri usage was instituted during the Biden administration. So, there's probably a diversity of government styles that get involved with typefaces.
Calibri is designed for screen use and Times New Roman for printing. As usually, there is a practical option and conservative option.
But stakes are quite low here. Some bureaucrats will have nearly undetectably harder time to read Trump speaches
Forgive my ignorance but this seems to be one of the most neutral things Hitler did. He just didn't like the font so he ordered it to be changed. Equivalent to your boss ordering tabs be used instead of spaces. After the war was lost the arguments just continued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_disput...
I rather assumed so as well, but a big of digging turns up a whole history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_disput...
Surprisingly to me the Fraktur typeface was the traditional "German" typeface but was disliked by Hitler.
Yeah it was so the occupied peoples could read the edicts better. Sp perhaps not so neutral, after all.
“I want a new font so it’s easier to read” isn’t neutral?
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I tend to agree with you, many people are passionate about typefaces, and dictators are no exception. [Passion about typeface] seems to be a low-signal detector for dictators. I'm passionate about lasagna, and I'll bet Mussolini was too -- but that probably doesn't mean I'm a fascist.
But if you go around and tell everyone you meet that they're doing it wrong and that lasagna MUST be prepared exactly the way you do it, because it's the one and only right way, then you're a lasagna-nazi :)
As they say, "Hitler drank water."
It didn't happen in isolation though. There were a few changes that used aesthetics as a culture influence and what being properly German should mean. Another one which was more explicit was music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_in_Nazi_Germany It was literally anti the idea of diversity and inclusion. Much like this change.
And just like with the font, that shaped preferences for years.
That's still using their other culture choices to manufacture a problem with producing consistency in typeface. It's a stretch. Any good (don't take this out of context, please) leader will settle these kinds of trivial internal disputes and move onto important problems.
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> He just didn't like the font so he ordered it to be changed.
There is your answer. He imposed his will - that's what dictators do. You have to be careful when the reason for any costly change is one individual's personal preferences. It's a bad omen.
> Equivalent to your boss ordering tabs be used instead of spaces.
That's not always equivalent, especially if it is to set a standard. Obviously, some people using spaces and the others using tabs is not ideal in situations you're referring to. It's also fine to change the standard, if they find a significant problem with the current convention. But if your boss wants it changed, and their only explanation is their dislike of the status-quo, then that's a red flag. The problem isn't very serious right now, but could grow into one in the future and you have to be on the watch.
Fascism relies on politicisation of aesthetic
See V is for Vendetta, I would argue there is a sort of seduction in the Baudrillard sense involved.
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While you'll get no argument from me about the Biden government being fascist adjacent, no. The font was chosen by that government for accessibility reasons. The font has now been changed for purely aesthetic reasons, attaching the politics of anti-DEIA to a particular aesthetic (serifed fonts).
As for the politics of that government, a history lesson; In 1930s Germany, Liberals did nothing to abort the rise of NSDAP, seeing them as economic allies if not political allies. They sold out their country and turned a blind eye to genuine evil for profit and the reduction of the political influence of their workforce.
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Nope. That choice wasn't for aesthetic reasons.
How is that downvoted? You can’t seriously disagree?
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