controversial opinion
These nazi racist fuckheads are still human beings. As unfortunate as it may be and as implausible it might seem, any of us are capable of becoming or raising someone to become entrenched in a bad and hateful ideology. Dehumanizing them doesn’t stop their ideas from spreading. In fact, a big part of their ideology is the dehumanization of different groups of people. So please don’t encourage that practice.
I would ask you, is it OK to fight Nazis in a war? If you say yes, then what’s the difference?
The point isn’t whether or not it is okay to fight nazis. The commenter only states that the guy who died is still a human even if we don’t like him.
That is a fact. If we start dehumanizing people we don’t like, we open ourselves up to becoming monsters no matter how justified we feel we are.
I struggle with this myself. I have a deep-seated disgust toward narcissists and emotionally, I do not consider them human beings. Rationally, I know that they are and that if I continue to refuse to accept that they are one of the countless aspects of humanity, I open myself up to my own narcissistic aspects, where I see an entire subsection of humanity as lesser than me, as pests instead of human beings with a severe personality disorder that most likely came from repeated childhood neglect and abuse.
It is okay to feel strong negative emotions toward people we don’t like, but we cannot allow ourselves to dehumanizing them because that is how we become monsters ourselves.
Empathy is hard because it isn’t always the easiest or most comfortable path. It can feel downright injust at times, but that is all emotions talking. The more we think about it, truly reflect on it, the more we will understand that choosing empathy over emotional outbursts, will serve us and society far better in the long run. But it is fucking difficult.
Choices where you harm or oppress others for your own benefit means losing your humanity.
I will not be strong armed into giving moral weight to people whose entire existence revolves around subjugating and hurting people.
Just because someone is biologically human, does not mean they deserve any consideration from me. Context is king, and if you’re a shit person, you can die. I’m so done with pussy fitting around these fuckwads and letting them own everything just because we don’t want to be mean to them.
You are missing the point. It’s not about being mean or not mean. It is about acknowledging that bad people are still people. Doesn’t change the fact that they suck and deserve punishment for the crimes they commit. But pretending like they aren’t human is how you become like them. That is all.
Not going to downvote but no I sharply disagree.
Nazi lives don’t matter. The paradox of tolerance goes both ways. Do not tolerate the intolerant.
Btw this story was in May 2018 and sadly is not from a recent event (Nazis regime is now in the white house)
Nazi lives don’t matter. The paradox of tolerance goes both ways. Do not tolerate the intolerant.
It’s not even a paradox. Being tolerant means allowing things you disagree with, but only up to a point.
It is fallacy to think that if we are intolerant to intolerance, we then become intolerant, thus defeating our own tolerance.
A fallacy mostly promoted by right-wingers.
The problem I have is that, although we shouldn’t tolerate Nazis, treating their deaths in car accidents as a non-event at best, or a national holiday at worst, does feel like moving toward the same dehumanising treatment that Nazis give to those they hate.
I don’t like it.
Two counterpoints to this (although I like the spirit):the paradox of intolerance suggests that intolerance will easily spread if we tolerate it. So in a world where tolerance is abundant: intolerance itself should still not be tolerated.
In a way I feel this may be saying the same thing again, but when we speak of protected classes and human rights we generally think of immutable qualities assigned at birth. That is, it’s not okay to discriminate based on things such as skin color, height, sound of voice, heritage, language, race, disability etc. and you get the idea.
Modern ideas stretch this a bit, as sexuality and gender identity have recently (as in within the last century, and only then within more educated cultures) entered as protected facets of human expression due to our understanding of them as involuntary. Even an individual’s personal religion is universally considered to not be up for debate, even though each of the world’s religions are composed of transient beliefs that an individual is allowed to change whether they are comfortable with it or not.
Any group’s ideas for societal idealism do not and should not get these types of protections, because ideas obviously should change if a better idea is presented. It should be agreed upon that whatever utopia is (for however close the human race can get to it), it would need to be universally agreed upon by all living individuals as well as all possible human group permutations. This is seemingly insurmountably large, so some of us tried to take shortcuts by eliminating other groups, and to make a long story short you could say the world universally condemned these ideas as one of the first “global” acts.
The point is, if somebody has:
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Willingly violated the social contract in defiance of available historical context and public information, and
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Elected to voluntarily hold that an aforementioned Protected Class of people should be either eliminated or exiled (in service to making their version of utopia easier to achieve), then
Then this somebody has found themselves to be a member of the one group of people (a group founded on voluntary belief) that society at large would be better to either eliminate or exile.
Obviously debate is preferred but one cannot reason with somebody who believes deep down in another group’s inferiority.
I agree with all you wrote, and it’s a good point well made. However, in the context of what it’s replying to, it could be interpreted as condoning the death penalty for extremists, which I disagree with, if it was intended that way.
Death penalty, but more likely death in combat while trying to oust them from society. Like was done in WWII. These fuckers aren’t going anywhere voluntarily, it will take violence to remove them from society.
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It’s literally the one message every old European used to preach to us younger generations back in the day. I remember how important it was to them to make us understand that the minute we start dehumanizing people we don’t like, we are repeating the cycle.
It is why movies like Der Untergang exists. We have to understand that the most despicable people who ever lived were still human beings and much closer to ourselves than we like to think.
I have carried with me, my whole life the knowledge that I am fallible and I am capable of evil no matter how good of a person I think I am. To a lesser extent, every time I have thought I was too clever to fall for x, y and z, that’s when I have fallen right into it. “I would never end up in an abusive relationship. I have too much self respect for that” 🤡 “I’m far too strong to become the doormat in this and that friendship” 🤡 “I’ll never fall for fake information online. I’m too observant” 🤡
I could never trust myself to believe I would be too smart, kind or principled to not fall into a destructive and abusive pattern of behavior if the circumstances are twisted just right. I think more people would benefit if they reminded themselves of their imperfections and got off their high horses. On Lemmy alone I have encountered far too many holier than thou types who are super duper anti fascist but ironically act exactly like fascists, but to them it doesn’t count because they are “on the right side of history”.
Am I sad that some nazi KKK guy died? No. But he was human. Most likely a very terrible human, but still human.
I do agree with almost everything you wrote, but I don’t understand the moral consequence. One do not have to think they’re too smart or too pure to take some kind of solace from the fact that there’s one less fascist walking the earth.
To me, that has nothing to do with being “better” as a human. It’s just that their project means my/our death. The more they grow, the more we die and vice versa. I do not dehumanize them nor do I think they’re stupid or deserve anything.
It’s as simple as : the more they grow, the more anything I care for will wither away.
All that was said was that they are still human. Even if we dislike them. That is all. I find it interesting how defensive people are being about acknowledging that a terrible person is still a person.
If we stop acknowledging a bad person as a being a person, we have become what we hate. Its got nothing to do with caring or not caring about a kkk member dying. All we have reacted to was the claim that the guy wasn’t a human. That is the dangerous part.
You’re right, but it makes people uncomfortable so they don’t want to agree with you.
This isn’t like the economy. It IS a zero sum game. If they succeed, we lose. If they thrive in life, we lose. If they continue to live at all, we lose.
They can CHOOSE to come back to humanity, unlike their victims, but I won’t give them any consideration as having value until they do.
^reddit chud
My grandfather killed a nazi and became a hero. Ms. Sherry does it and she becomes the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.
Your grandfather went to war to protect the world from a global enemy. Mr. Sherry got drunk and drove on the way killing a nazi. These two things are not even close to be the same. Lets just be happy a nazi died. No need to justify DUI.
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