Do you find nazi imagery offensive?

[Deleted member 668561]

 

[bazamuffin]

Swastika dates back 15,000 years and its original meaning/representation was "well being". Used by Hindus among others before Mr Hitler ruined it

 

[DinohScene]

In historical context: no.

If used without historical context or as a means of propagating/condoning it: yes.

This sums it up pretty well.

 

[Acid_Snake]

The term 'best' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there! Every company needs political intervention where its States that regulates the conditions for the market to exist. Its the contradiction with capitalism where it wants to remove regulation yet requires the State to regulate conditions in order for it to exist. The Nazis had the whole economy harnessed for one reason: war, and its armed forces. If youre on about specific party based intervention, TBH the only companies they specifically acted against were anything owned by Jewish people. I didnt say they were the same, its just not the opposite.

The main aspects of national-socialism is a hatred against capitalism and race warfare (as opposed to class warfare in communism, everything else was pretty much the same). Most of their economic policies where interventionist and purely socialist (expropriation without compensation, price topping, deciding who does business where, nationalized industries, etc).
Doesn't matter if they only applied these policies onto jews and foreign companies, these policies are still anticapitalist in their nature.

 

[Tomato123]

I don't at all simply because it's not my place to be offended by it. I wasn't born during WW2 and any uses of it during that time period don't offend me. I also can't be offended by it based on the modern usage because they are not targeting me. I do understand people who were/are targeted by it being offended though as they should be.

 

[Glyptofane]

Not really. I used to collect and display flags of a certain theme, but they're all folded up in a box since a few years and two moves ago. I have a Nazi flag, Palestine, Iran, and the centerpiece was Hezbollah.

 

[Deleted member 569431]

The main aspects of national-socialism is a hatred against capitalism and race warfare (as opposed to class warfare in communism, everything else was pretty much the same). Most of their economic policies where interventionist and purely socialist (expropriation without compensation, price topping, deciding who does business where, nationalized industries, etc).
Doesn't matter if they only applied these policies onto jews and foreign companies, these policies are still anticapitalist in their nature.

The main aspect of Nazism was race and attempting to establish a 'racial' state with Jewish people at the bottom of the hierarchy. In terms of its relationship with capitalism, it said one thing while performing the other basically. Your definition of what constitutes socialism needs reworking tbh. If the point your making was that the Nazis were somehow socialist a la their full title, its an old trope and in general its not a good idea to put a lot of faith in the words of Nazi's! They were populist and the 'socialist' was put in there as a means of mass appeal i.e. pro union etc and they claimed to be the party for workers when they were anything but. Once they got into power, socialists and unions were the very first to be targeted as they provided the most meaningful resistance. All unions was banned apart from the official organization for workers. They were also the first inmates in the concentration camps in the 1930's.

Im actually going to leave the topic here, best of luck!

 

[VictorMoreno015]

only depends on the context honestly
If used in history no
If used by racists yes
If used in Buddhism no

 

[The Catboy]

No. The nazi find my imagery offensive

^this
I actually keep Nazi coins to preserve the imagery on them. The historic symbols of Nazi Germany do not offend me. I am also not upset over the cultures that still use many of symbols the Nazi plagiarized from them. I am not “offended” by neo-nazis and other groups or them using the symbols, I am disgusted by them.

 

[Hayato213]

I do not. I've learned about world war 2 and the injustices but I don't find political propaganda from something which ended decades before I was born offensive.

Depending where you live, if you were living in Germany, then obvious the answer is yes, people will find it offensive, one of my friends told me you can't even mention Hitler in public without getting in trouble.

 

[Ottoclav]

If it's for historical or collection purposes then I guess it's cool. People nowadays don't even know what national-socialism is or the implications of that radical anticapitalist ideology. Also lots of people go around waving communist flags and nobody bats an eye, which is weird considering the latter has a shitton more dead people on their back.

And those neo-communists keep saying, "Well, America kept interfering with those countries trying to practice communism, so they never got a fair chance!" F*%($*ing Morons. Those communists COULD have tried to do all those wonderful things that was supposed to make communism great even while America was trying to interfere. Those communists chose tyranny, wealth and power, instead.

 

[BlackAstro20]

In historical context: no.

If used without historical context or as a means of propagating/condoning it: yes.

like every dictator, if you use them out of their context, it becomes offensive.

 

[Kioku]

Offensive? That depends on the context, here. If I'm at a museum or seeing historical photos? No.

If I'm at a friend's house and he has a shrine to literally Hitler? Yeah.

 

[Viri]

Depends on the context. If it's used for art, video games, movies, and historical reasons, then nope. If anything, I get annoyed when the Swastika gets censored, since it's pretty stupid. When video games/movies censor the swastika in WW2 games, it kills the immersion for me.

Nazi Museums should exist, and we shouldn't destroy history, just because that part of history isn't a nice time. All history should be preserved, so we don't repeat our mistakes, and so we can see our past, no matter how awful it was.

As for the Swastika, don't let Nazis steal an ancient symbol that has been used for thousands of years. I thought it was dumb that the US stopped doing the "Bellamy salute", once they did that, they pretty much allowed the "Roman salute" to be claimed by Nazis. If the US didn't stop doing the Bellamy salute, it would probably be seen in a better light imo, and not just seen as a "Nazi salute".

 

[osaka35]

As everyone is saying, it's all about context.

-If it's presented in a way of "you're learning about these horrible people and how/why these horrible things happened and how we can avoid this evil", then yes of course it's acceptable.

-If it's presented in a way of "this stuff is acceptable/inoffensive", "there's nothing wrong with this", or "maybe they weren't wrong" then it is highly unacceptable.

Same with representations of slavery, or any other horrific evil of the past.

In video games, it's presented as "these are the bad guys", which for me falls into the first category.

As far as using use similar imagery, it can be difficult. Even though it isn't exactly the same, it is usually taken that way. Mainly because evil people try and use it as a backdoor way of presenting the issue the second way, and so you have to stay vigilant you are not accidentally endorsing that way of thinking. Which is difficult if you're unaware of it. So as a rule of thumb, try and avoid similar iconography because you just know that evil people are using it to endorse crazy stuff.

The fact nazi propaganda is *still* an issue, is so bizarre. It's such a terrible and anti-scientific viewpoint. Though I suppose we have people who think the earth is flat, among other misunderstandings of how the universe works, but still.

 

[pwjpssdfvqyuhweuxx]

No, I am not a Twitter user so I don't consider most things I see, be it racist or even just black humor, offensive.

 

[Windaga]

When I did my history stint during GD, I taught 2 units on World War 2. One of the students walked out of the lecture because she was offended at some of the imagery used. I had another student try to usurp the lesson and say the Holocaust didn't happen. It was a nightmare.

 

[JuanMena]

I do not. I've learned about world war 2 and the injustices but I don't find political propaganda from something which ended decades before I was born offensive.

From my perspective, nazi propaganda actually made good things implicitly.

For instance, British counter-attacked Nazi propaganda with good pieces of art.
The now meme "KEEP CALM AND..." (originally being CARRY ON)

was made to inspire bravery and acceptance amidst German invasion.
Don't misunderstand, but that poster was just the begging of many important movements around the world.

After that poster got popular, all men went to the war limiting industrial production.

That led to the use of femenine power in factories and other important production jobs.
After that, this poster emerged:

This poster didn't just empowered women.
It was the start for women pursuing equality in obligations and rights.

Nazi propaganda wasn't just bad stuff, but to me, "Keep calm" and "We can do it" are too Nazi propaganda (given the period this came out to counter german nationalism ).

After this period, we have the movements that led to women being able to vote for the first time, to get equal jobs as men, more education, and that feminine movement, also inspired the civil war to fight against slavery in the US.

Everything is tied together, implicitly, but it's a connection we can't deny.

 

[Ottoclav]

When video games/movies censor the swastika in WW2 games, it kills the immersion for me.

Kills the immersion? You mean, "makes the enemy look less evil than it truly was!"

 

[Acid_Snake]

And those neo-communists keep saying, "Well, America kept interfering with those countries trying to practice communism, so they never got a fair chance!" F*%($*ing Morons. Those communists COULD have tried to do all those wonderful things that was supposed to make communism great even while America was trying to interfere. Those communists chose tyranny, wealth and power, instead.

All politicians want is wealth and power regardless of the economic or political system in place. The dangers of all forms of socialism (be it national-socialism, fascism, communism or cultural marxism) is that these ideologies give a golden ticket for politicians to do whatever they want while claiming to be doing it "for the greater good of the society". This gives them way more power than normal, a false sensation of legitimacy and a wildcard to attack anyone that opposes them (if you're against me, you're against the common folk). This is why the nazis would send people to gas chambers: because those people are enemies of the society we want to build for the better of the rest of us. It's also why communists would happily send homosexuals (and businessmen, clerics and intellectuals) to concentration camps: we want to build a new society with nothing but hard workers, so there's no place for "bourgeois degenerates", only tough and manly workers.