Are nazis the new satan? I’m not talking about historical nazis who played their villainous part in one of humanities tragic expression. Nor am I really talking about the misguided and gullible of today who for whatever reason manage to go unvaccinated against this particular vile strain of hate. I am talking about idea of nazis. The dread that is elicited by so many have when for whatever reasons is accused of being a nazi. I ask this question in response to the trial of Mark Meechan, known by some as “Count Dankula” for posting a video of him teaching his girlfriend’s pug to “nazi salute” . He explains in his video that he did this, as a way of pissing off his girlfriend, who to his annoyance gave the dog to much cuteness praise. He further explains that teaching the pug to raise its paw when he said shit like “gas the jews” was the most repugnant thing he could think to do. Obviously posting a video that make light of anything holocaust related will offend people. Anyone has a right to be offended, to post their feeling about this. Anyone has the right not to watch the video, or to unsubscribe. I could make the point that nazis are the actual butt of this joke, which they are. He is making fun of nazis, but humor and offence are emotions. They are not rational. Say a joke wrong, and we will offend people no matter the rational behind it. Anyone especially his girlfriend has a right to be offended by this. I myself find the idea of pugs to be offensive. Inbreeding our best friend canis lupus to the point where they can’t breath only because we see them as cute seems like a fetish gone pathological to me . But this is not about my opinions on pugs. It's not about whether or not you me or anyone else see this find this offensive. It's about what makes nazis so offensive that someone can face legal action for the crime pretending their pug, (a mascot for helplessness) is a nazis.
From a cultural european perspective Christianity and to a lesser extent Judaism held cultural sway over morality and ethics for quite some time, up until recently. Within the Christian world view with its all powerful good guy God, there needs to be a Satan to explain why life is sometimes more fertilizer than flowers. This schism between good and evil creates an imbalance. No one wants to court any force that is associated with pain and suffering. So the powers that be created formalities around what could and could not be done to protect of from invoking this maleficent force. When these powers grew decadent, people were tortured, burnt as witches and killed for whatever was considered blasphemy. Now we are for the most part secular. Our ideologies are rational. Even religious people for the most part exist and function in a secular world. Yes there are exceptions but they are the exceptions.
It's easy for us to now look at this older worldview as superstitious. That people were stupid and ill informed. I think that this would be a mistake. It is my position that people are just as crazy, non rational and emotionally swayed as ever. All people, you me, everyone, not just the people we disagree with ideologically. Our irrationality is a crucial aspect of our biology. We all have instincts that have been shaped over generation. Some of those instincts presently serve us well. Some do not, but because memes are faster that genes, the standard sapien comes hardwired with outdated, bugg ridden neuro tech. So to think we are in some enlighten age free of irrationality, phobia, and cultures pathologies, to me is a form of madness. A cultural blindness.
So, we as a culture don’t dress evil up in cloven hooves and goat horns anymore. There are many self professed satanist, who mock this overly simplified version of evil, as a cultural catharsis. The devil been housebroken, so how do we embody our collective fears, anger and other taboo emotions ? Perhaps in the image of the last thing that truly horrified us collectively, sent demonic vibration down our epigenetic telomeres. Nazis.
So before I proceed I do feel I should explore why I feel racism should be vilified. Racism by its nature sets people outside the human experience. Under its logic we can not see that giving similar circumstances we would have exhibit similar behavior as people based on the most superficial aspects of ourselves, our skin. Of course these divides between us can be framed through culture and class equally effectively, but historically our deepest shisms seem to have been based on racial lines. These differences not only allowed for horrors such as genocide and slavery, but inhibited humanity from progressing .What world would we be in now if our history wasn’t haunted with such stupidity. So in no way do I see racism and to a greater extent any form of otherrising as anything other than evil. It keeps humanity divided and weak while offering nothing in return. We all have our cultural bias. When we mistake our cultural bias for the way the world we, we are at our most dangerous.
So I have no problem with demonization of any nazis racist ideology. It serves no purpose. It distracts us from real problems. But just because we got this piece of the equation right doesn't mean we aren’t riddled with other problems. A common meme I see is “Fuck nazis”. Fuck at its core is a crude colloquialism for a sexaual act. In biology sex is a reproductive act, how life reproduce itselves. Depending on what we are into and how loose we are with definitions we humans sometimes use sex to describe acts that will in no way create another human. Fucking likewise can and often is used to describe acts that again will not results in more humans. That said there seems to me a creative energy behind the idea of fucking no matter what the actual logistics are. My belief is that on some deep layer of reality beyond my understanding, the word magic of “fuck nazis” is conjuring this dysfunctional ideology. Another way of saying this might be that a philosophy that feeds on hate will eat the hate you throw at it.
So then how do we unfuck nazis. I don’t know, but I would ask Daryl Davis. Over the last 30 years he has by his own admission exorcised 200 White sheet demons from, at the time, klansmen. He is black which seems to me would make this work all the more dangerous. If anyone is better at actually eradicating racism in the world I do not know their name. How many nazis, kkk members are there in the world? With all the rhetoric concerning these topics why are not people studying his techniques and practices. If 1 percent of the population was as 10 percent as dedicated as Daryl we have roughly 35 million less racist in America. I don’t think Darryl has any superpowers other than his dedication. He probably heavily informed by reality, not blinded by his own ideologies, or he would not be this successful. I’m sure he's made mistakes in his approach and has honed his craft over the years. I can’t think of any reasons why he would not share his techniques and gleaned wisdom with others who are on a similar mision. Other than e baying the robes he is gifted after people relinquish their race based identity, I can’t think of any way of monetizing such an activity. To be fair I think what Darly does is way beyond what anyone should expected to do, but he does illuminate a functional path that one can explore if they are interested in this work. So maybe we should fuck daryl davis at least in that energic creative way instead of fuck nazis.
And this is what saddens me about Mark Meechan trial. In the end the judge who pronounced him guilty of hate speech is trying to fuck nazis. He trivialized actual hate speech by conflating something that was possibly in poor taste and perhaps should have been left as a private joke, with speech that is intended to inflict pain upon people. By stating this is hate speech debases the cultural outrage around people calling for hateful policies. I am offended by hate, no matter how it is channeled. It's a poison we drink that exaggerates our differences and erases our connection. I thought Mark’s video was stupid and I would prefer to live in a world where he did not get money from such silly antics, but I at no level could take it serious, which in my mind precludes it from hate speech.
This is an interesting time to be alive. For the first time people from all cultures are connecting with each other. Along with goods and resources we are all sharing our wisdoms, and our pathologies. We are barely 2 decades into the construction of this neuro chapel known as the world wide web. People will be offended. Sometimes these offenses will be reasonable sometime not. It is only time that allows us to really understand whether our offense was rational or not. What we can’t do is give into our fears, even if they are nazis.How does creating a rigid decorum where it’s a legal taboo to offend anyone in the world help anyone. If we do that humanity will be silenced. Mark is certainly not the only person right now who is having their life altered by a legal system. In the course of writing this how many countless people have played bargain away their freedom out of fear irregardless of guilt, or innocence. It's shameful. What makes this different though is its novelty. Do we really want to train our legal systems yet another way to slowly devour lives in their well guarded concrete stomachs. I doubt Mark will receive much in the way of actual prison time, but as years pass I don’t have as much faith in our ability not to face draconian punishment for what used to be called in more tolerant times bad taste.