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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

No, that would be if we called cancel-culture racist and anyone who perpetuated it a white supremacist.

By assigning moral outrage to one side of the debate, we remove the pretense of a debate. It's no longer about evidence and facts but vilifying one side. It's ad hominem 2.0 if you will, and it works because we as a society have a visceral negative reaction to some labels.

The problem is that pavlovian-esque training can be untrained. If you call everyone who does something you don't like a nazi, then pretty soon it doesn't seem like being a nazi is all that big of a deal. That in itself is bad because by abusing the term you buy cover for actual, literal nazis. The same issue applies when you label everything racist or sexist or otherwise.

Words have power, but that power can fade if misused.

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> it works because we as a society have a visceral negative reaction to some labels.

Do you know why we have that reaction? Because of millions upon millions of dead, innocent humans. That is what those ideologies lead to. We learned this lesson once, and we learned it very well. We don't want that to happen again. We don't want to let those ideas spread again. We don't want to see the mass graves again they lead to again. We learned that.

Some people have forgotten, though.

IDK, I'd say people calling everyone they don't like a Nazi seem like a party which doesn't get it.

Some people remember the horror of Nazi Germany as well as the horror of the Red Terror, Stalinist Russia, and the Cultural Revolution.

All that, and the horrors of McCarthyism too.

You're comparing McCarthyism to the Nazi genocide, the Red Terror, the horror of Stalinism and the Cultural Revolution?

I'm saying it's another authoritarian impulse to squash dissent, yes. Smaller magnitude, sure. But that's exactly why you compare things -- to see what's better or worse.

Calling them dangerous and a pox on society seems in the same ballpark of moral outrage as calling someone racist.

More the pox on society than dangerous per se. Dangerous is a big category with nuance while always advising caution. A car which works perfectly can be dangerous but a car which randomly catches on fire without warning is also dangerous.

That nuance allows for far more room for debate.

Apologies for the somewhat pedantic aside, but I want to point out: "literal Nazi" is a borderline oxymoron. There is no Nazi party, nor is Nazism a coherent political ideology to which one can seriously ascribe. I suppose people who were active members when it still existed can still be considered "literal Nazis", in which case there's probably less than 50 left on earth. But saying that anyone else who claims adherence to Nazism or allegiance to the (completely defunct) Nazi party makes them a literal Nazi actually elevates their status from what it is, which is just a pathetic racist cosplayer.

> There is no Nazi party

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Nazi_Party

> nor is Nazism a coherent political ideology to which one can seriously ascribe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fascist_Party

I'm not going to link to it, but there is a self described National Socialist Movement party still alive today.

> But saying that anyone else who claims adherence to Nazism or allegiance to the (completely defunct) Nazi party makes them a literal Nazi actually elevates their status from what it is, which is just a pathetic racist cosplayer.

“The tragic aspect of the situation is that the Tsar is living in an utter fool’s paradise, thinking that He is as strong and all-powerful as before.” - Sergei Witte in 1905

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