Nazi: Still a four-letter word?
March 11, 2006 7:43 AM Subscribe
Does the re-purposing of the word "Nazi" in U.S. culture in recent years to mean generic-overzealous-rule-enforcement instead of Homicidal-Socialist-German-Workers-Party detract from the horror of the Holocaust and the other crimes perpetrated by actual Nazis?
Is the "Soup Nazi"-type usage of the word "Nazi" taking away the power of the word? If so, is that the right thing to do?
Is it causing greater estrangement in cultural relationships between the U.S. and Europeans?
How is the word "Nazi" used in your community/workplace/social circles?
It seems to me that in recent years, it has become a kind of fashion to use the word "Nazi" as a way of saying "fascist", but with a stronger effect.
Between Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" and Brooks' "The Producers", I wonder if it's time to start worrying that children born today will grow up with the impression that Nazis were simply arbitrary-rule-enforcing-buffoons. Is that an unreasonable concern?
I live in the Boston area, and my personal experience is that people tend generally to not use the word "Nazi" outside of the context of WWII. When someone does use it, usually joking about someone being a 'grammar-nazi', it does make me a little uncomfortable and a little sad. I know that's a bit hyper-sensitive of me, but it does make me curious about this phenomenon.
It seems to me that in recent years, it has become a kind of fashion to use the word "Nazi" as a way of saying "fascist", but with a stronger effect.
Between Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" and Brooks' "The Producers", I wonder if it's time to start worrying that children born today will grow up with the impression that Nazis were simply arbitrary-rule-enforcing-buffoons. Is that an unreasonable concern?
I live in the Boston area, and my personal experience is that people tend generally to not use the word "Nazi" outside of the context of WWII. When someone does use it, usually joking about someone being a 'grammar-nazi', it does make me a little uncomfortable and a little sad. I know that's a bit hyper-sensitive of me, but it does make me curious about this phenomenon.
I don't believe the non-Second World War use of the term Nazi affects the realization of the horrors associated with what occurred.
Personally, I have never considered "Nazi" to be a devestating word which exists only to symbolize the Holocaust and what not. I think if a time comes when people only think of the word "Nazi" in relation to an extreme-authoritarian like nature, then that would be a sad event. However, with that history is taught, I doubt we ever have to worry about the seperation of "Nazi" from the horrors unleashed by Hitler.
posted by Atreides at 7:51 AM on March 11, 2006
Personally, I have never considered "Nazi" to be a devestating word which exists only to symbolize the Holocaust and what not. I think if a time comes when people only think of the word "Nazi" in relation to an extreme-authoritarian like nature, then that would be a sad event. However, with that history is taught, I doubt we ever have to worry about the seperation of "Nazi" from the horrors unleashed by Hitler.
posted by Atreides at 7:51 AM on March 11, 2006
Is the "Soup Nazi"-type usage of the word "Nazi" taking away the power of the word?
Language does what it does. And if you try to discourage analogies in order to 'preserve their power', you end up with taboos that are asking to be broken. The power lies in the history and the actions. That the 'Soup Nazi' and 'Springtime for Hitler' were the coinages of Jewish writers might be indicative here.
Certainly, a trope needs a referent in order to be effective, but you ought to be looking at history teaching in schools rather than Larry David and Mel Brooks for that.
As for 'cultural estrangement': just wait for the back pages of the British tabloids to cover the World Cup.
posted by holgate at 7:57 AM on March 11, 2006
Language does what it does. And if you try to discourage analogies in order to 'preserve their power', you end up with taboos that are asking to be broken. The power lies in the history and the actions. That the 'Soup Nazi' and 'Springtime for Hitler' were the coinages of Jewish writers might be indicative here.
Certainly, a trope needs a referent in order to be effective, but you ought to be looking at history teaching in schools rather than Larry David and Mel Brooks for that.
As for 'cultural estrangement': just wait for the back pages of the British tabloids to cover the World Cup.
posted by holgate at 7:57 AM on March 11, 2006
If you really want to explore this thoroughly, I can recommend some books and articles on the general subject of Holocaust memory that touch upon this topic. (I answer these kinds of questions for a living.) Email me if you're interested.
posted by arco at 8:03 AM on March 11, 2006
posted by arco at 8:03 AM on March 11, 2006
Language does what it does. And if you try to discourage analogies in order to 'preserve their power', you end up with taboos that are asking to be broken.
This, I think, is all that needs to be said. Well put, holgate.
posted by danb at 8:18 AM on March 11, 2006
This, I think, is all that needs to be said. Well put, holgate.
posted by danb at 8:18 AM on March 11, 2006
arco, why can't you post answers here directly? (Not an accusation, just a question.)
posted by cgc373 at 8:18 AM on March 11, 2006
posted by cgc373 at 8:18 AM on March 11, 2006
In my opinion, there is a subtle danger in the overuse of the word, in that as horrible as the Holocaust was, the word Nazi refers, in accepted historical use, to the members of the National Socialist German Workers Party, and to the policies and platforms of that extremist organization; using the term loosely weakens that association. In particular, any term like "Soup Nazi" that trivializes the term, or reasonably directs the attention of an audience to superficial and even stereotypical aspects of behavior often associated with the Nazi party and the conduct of Germans of that era, is likely to contribute to misunderstanding in the minds of younger people who are not deep students of history. We who remember, or who have stood at Auschwitz, or Dachau, or have witnessed the horrors of that period in some direct way, owe the past and the future better witness than to allow that.
The Nazis were not dangerous because they were autocratic, dictatorial, or lacking a sense of humor; they were dangerous because of the combination of hubris, racism and psychopathic lack of empathy they institutionalized. That word should always conjure the reptilian reaction of Herman Goering in the dock at Nuremberg to questions of responsibility. That word should bring to mind the rabid, saliva throwing face of Hitler exhorting the uniformed masses at a Nuremberg rally in 1935, in the Leni Riefenstahl film "Triumph of the Will". And it must stand only, clearly, eternally, for the persons who led the decade of horror between those iconic historical bookends.
There is nothing funny about that word, the arguments of buffoons and apologists notwithstanding. And the complacency that might ever allow it to be funny, or more broadly referent, is all that is needed, was all that was needed, for the horrors it uniquely labels, to again flourish.
posted by paulsc at 8:46 AM on March 11, 2006
The Nazis were not dangerous because they were autocratic, dictatorial, or lacking a sense of humor; they were dangerous because of the combination of hubris, racism and psychopathic lack of empathy they institutionalized. That word should always conjure the reptilian reaction of Herman Goering in the dock at Nuremberg to questions of responsibility. That word should bring to mind the rabid, saliva throwing face of Hitler exhorting the uniformed masses at a Nuremberg rally in 1935, in the Leni Riefenstahl film "Triumph of the Will". And it must stand only, clearly, eternally, for the persons who led the decade of horror between those iconic historical bookends.
There is nothing funny about that word, the arguments of buffoons and apologists notwithstanding. And the complacency that might ever allow it to be funny, or more broadly referent, is all that is needed, was all that was needed, for the horrors it uniquely labels, to again flourish.
posted by paulsc at 8:46 AM on March 11, 2006
why can't you post answers here directly?
I can, but I need a little more information about exactly what Sprout may be looking for. There are lots of academic discussions on the topic of "cultural memory" and the Holocaust that may be relevant, but I'm not sure if that's the kind of thing she would be interested in. There really is no straightforward answer, because words have connotations beyond their strict definitions, and certain terms like "Nazi" are particularly loaded for many people. The word "Holocaust" itself is frought with meanings based on context, etc.
Besides, it's Saturday morning and I don't have access to all the resources I would have on Monday at work. (I work here, by the way.)
posted by arco at 8:49 AM on March 11, 2006
I can, but I need a little more information about exactly what Sprout may be looking for. There are lots of academic discussions on the topic of "cultural memory" and the Holocaust that may be relevant, but I'm not sure if that's the kind of thing she would be interested in. There really is no straightforward answer, because words have connotations beyond their strict definitions, and certain terms like "Nazi" are particularly loaded for many people. The word "Holocaust" itself is frought with meanings based on context, etc.
Besides, it's Saturday morning and I don't have access to all the resources I would have on Monday at work. (I work here, by the way.)
posted by arco at 8:49 AM on March 11, 2006
(Actually, there are some very good references at the bottom of the link I gave above that may be useful for those wishing to explore the question of language and Holocaust memory. They might not specifically address the use of the term "Nazi," but they get at the issue nonetheless.)
posted by arco at 8:54 AM on March 11, 2006
posted by arco at 8:54 AM on March 11, 2006
When someone uses "nazi" in a joking way, I think he/she knows that the Nazis were a "homicidal-socialist-german-party" and the rest of the history of the holocaust and such. The hyperbole is the point of it. I mean, you're equating someone who goes nuts over "its-verus-it's" with someone who wanted to decimate an entire race of people.
Also, the prosody of the word kinda works out, as it sounds sorta like "nutsy." Which is a trait you're trying to imply about the person you're calling a soup nazi, grammar nazi, dog nazi, etc.
Somewhat analogous examples of the eventuality of perpetrators of rapacious atrocities ending up in jokes.
Nigga please!
posted by furtive at 8:30 AM PST on March 11
Furtive, that post offends me. It ought to be: "Nigga, please." [/grammar nazi]
posted by neda at 8:59 AM on March 11, 2006
Also, the prosody of the word kinda works out, as it sounds sorta like "nutsy." Which is a trait you're trying to imply about the person you're calling a soup nazi, grammar nazi, dog nazi, etc.
Somewhat analogous examples of the eventuality of perpetrators of rapacious atrocities ending up in jokes.
Nigga please!
posted by furtive at 8:30 AM PST on March 11
Furtive, that post offends me. It ought to be: "Nigga, please." [/grammar nazi]
posted by neda at 8:59 AM on March 11, 2006
Is the "Soup Nazi"-type usage of the word "Nazi" taking away the power of the word?
Of course it does. Any new usage of a word changes its meaning, either reducing or increasing its "power." Words that held great weight long ago do not, and vice versa. Example: "Villain" was a pretty bad word before it became to be associated with cartoonish depictions of bad guys. Today, no one would call a serial killer a "villain" with a straight face.
If so, is that the right thing to do?
Language does what it does.
Here's we enter Subjective Opinion Land where there are no right answers. I happen to believe that yes, language does what it does, but it's desirable to maintain some loose "standards" so that every conversation doesn't get overtaken by careless bomb-throwing and diluted by useless analogies. This isn't about taboos -- I couldn't care less -- but it is about markers on the conversation highway.
How is the word "Nazi" used in your community/workplace/social circles?
Honestly, in my circles, it's like a comedian's dick joke -- it's the easy way out. You've reached for the easy when a more skilled writer/speaker could've found a better way.
posted by frogan at 9:05 AM on March 11, 2006
Of course it does. Any new usage of a word changes its meaning, either reducing or increasing its "power." Words that held great weight long ago do not, and vice versa. Example: "Villain" was a pretty bad word before it became to be associated with cartoonish depictions of bad guys. Today, no one would call a serial killer a "villain" with a straight face.
If so, is that the right thing to do?
Language does what it does.
Here's we enter Subjective Opinion Land where there are no right answers. I happen to believe that yes, language does what it does, but it's desirable to maintain some loose "standards" so that every conversation doesn't get overtaken by careless bomb-throwing and diluted by useless analogies. This isn't about taboos -- I couldn't care less -- but it is about markers on the conversation highway.
How is the word "Nazi" used in your community/workplace/social circles?
Honestly, in my circles, it's like a comedian's dick joke -- it's the easy way out. You've reached for the easy when a more skilled writer/speaker could've found a better way.
posted by frogan at 9:05 AM on March 11, 2006
That word should always conjure the reptilian reaction of Herman Goering in the dock at Nuremberg to questions of responsibility.
I'm going to skate close to Godwin here, but Entartete Kunst was all about declaring what a term should or should not signify.
Language is mutable. It just is. The only way to prevent it from being so is to take it out of circulation, like the true name spoken in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Don't blame language for what you perceive to be a failure in the education system.
posted by holgate at 9:05 AM on March 11, 2006
I'm going to skate close to Godwin here, but Entartete Kunst was all about declaring what a term should or should not signify.
Language is mutable. It just is. The only way to prevent it from being so is to take it out of circulation, like the true name spoken in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. Don't blame language for what you perceive to be a failure in the education system.
posted by holgate at 9:05 AM on March 11, 2006
yes i think that sort of irony and irrevence is very hip nowadays. ive never seen anything wrong with the phrase 'national socialist' by itself (im both a socialist and a jew)-- what was wrong were the people of germany. as long as we dont forget what the vast majority of german PEOPLE (it was an entire society, not just a fringe group of lunatics or nazis) did to opress and kill millions of innocents, the words and terminology dont matter in the least.
posted by petsounds at 9:11 AM on March 11, 2006
posted by petsounds at 9:11 AM on March 11, 2006
Here's we enter Subjective Opinion Land where there are no right answers.
No, here's where we enter the land of basic sociolinguistics. Anyway, I'll defer to Samuel Johnson's call for care in usage, while accepting of language's mutability:
No, here's where we enter the land of basic sociolinguistics. Anyway, I'll defer to Samuel Johnson's call for care in usage, while accepting of language's mutability:
If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? it remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.posted by holgate at 9:17 AM on March 11, 2006
Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions, arco. I actually have a good friend who works at your museum, coincidentally enough.
holgate: Certainly, a trope needs a referent in order to be effective, but you ought to be looking at history teaching in schools rather than Larry David and Mel Brooks for that.
holgate, I agree with you there, but my question about the future usage is more along the lines of: When all that's left is the trope, without the referent, how does that affect interpretations?
Is it simply a matter of time before "Nazi" goes the way of Attila and Genghis (see also neda's analogous examples)?
And if so, in the meantime, what is the affect of that transition on the way we communicate and understand one another?
This last question is the one I'm most interested in hearing from MeFites about. Anecdotally, how is the word "Nazi" being used around you?
My other questions are more about opinions rather than answers, and it's really interesting to read different thoughts and points of view on this.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2006
holgate: Certainly, a trope needs a referent in order to be effective, but you ought to be looking at history teaching in schools rather than Larry David and Mel Brooks for that.
holgate, I agree with you there, but my question about the future usage is more along the lines of: When all that's left is the trope, without the referent, how does that affect interpretations?
Is it simply a matter of time before "Nazi" goes the way of Attila and Genghis (see also neda's analogous examples)?
And if so, in the meantime, what is the affect of that transition on the way we communicate and understand one another?
This last question is the one I'm most interested in hearing from MeFites about. Anecdotally, how is the word "Nazi" being used around you?
My other questions are more about opinions rather than answers, and it's really interesting to read different thoughts and points of view on this.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2006
I think something akin to the placebo effect happens with words. If you believe words are powerful, they are powerful. If you don't, they aren't (or they aren't AS powerful). A word has power over you if it sparks emotive associations in your brain. The amount this occurs varies greatly from person to person.
I love words when they are used -- in sentences -- to conjure up specific images. But I'm not greatly affected by words in isolation. I can't think of a single word that can affect me by itself if, say, I see the word (not surrounded by other words) on a sheet of paper. Death. Sex. Holocaust. Republican. God. Sin. Abortion. Nigger. Fuck.
Just words.
I'm a Jew. And I'd be offended if someone called me "a dirty Kike." I'd be offended by the obvious attempt to insult me.
But, unlike some other Jews, I'm not offended by the existence of the word "kike." To me, it's just a neutral group of letters -- devoid of morality. (I'm not judging. People who are affected by individual words are having valid experiences -- it's all about how one's brain happens to be wired.)
So for someone like me, "Nazi" is just a word. It has little baring on whether or not I remember or care about the Holocaust. Since I was born in the 60s, I didn't experience WWII. So the degree to which I care about it depends on stories I've been told, movies I've seen, books I've read, etc. Nothing that can possibly happen to the word "Nazi" can make me care more or less about the Holocaust.
Do you really think that if people stop saying "Soup Nazi," they will care more about the Holocaust? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm really asking.
Though I realize that individual words DO affect other some people more profoundly than they affect me, I sometimes wonder if discussions like this miss the forest for the trees. Is it possible that the dynamic is as follows...?
Some people don't care much about the Holocaust. Others care deeply about it and are offended by the less-caring people. The word "Nazi" becomes a game-piece in the battle between these two groups. In other words, saying "I hate the fact that you de-value the word 'Nazi'" really means, "I hate the fact that you don't care about the Holocaust."
Or am I just looking at things through my words-aren't-magic lens?
posted by grumblebee at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2006
I love words when they are used -- in sentences -- to conjure up specific images. But I'm not greatly affected by words in isolation. I can't think of a single word that can affect me by itself if, say, I see the word (not surrounded by other words) on a sheet of paper. Death. Sex. Holocaust. Republican. God. Sin. Abortion. Nigger. Fuck.
Just words.
I'm a Jew. And I'd be offended if someone called me "a dirty Kike." I'd be offended by the obvious attempt to insult me.
But, unlike some other Jews, I'm not offended by the existence of the word "kike." To me, it's just a neutral group of letters -- devoid of morality. (I'm not judging. People who are affected by individual words are having valid experiences -- it's all about how one's brain happens to be wired.)
So for someone like me, "Nazi" is just a word. It has little baring on whether or not I remember or care about the Holocaust. Since I was born in the 60s, I didn't experience WWII. So the degree to which I care about it depends on stories I've been told, movies I've seen, books I've read, etc. Nothing that can possibly happen to the word "Nazi" can make me care more or less about the Holocaust.
Do you really think that if people stop saying "Soup Nazi," they will care more about the Holocaust? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm really asking.
Though I realize that individual words DO affect other some people more profoundly than they affect me, I sometimes wonder if discussions like this miss the forest for the trees. Is it possible that the dynamic is as follows...?
Some people don't care much about the Holocaust. Others care deeply about it and are offended by the less-caring people. The word "Nazi" becomes a game-piece in the battle between these two groups. In other words, saying "I hate the fact that you de-value the word 'Nazi'" really means, "I hate the fact that you don't care about the Holocaust."
Or am I just looking at things through my words-aren't-magic lens?
posted by grumblebee at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2006
Response by poster: Do you really think that if people stop saying "Soup Nazi," they will care more about the Holocaust? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm really asking.
grumblebee, I don't know who you're asking. If you're asking me, my answer is that I don't know. I've thought about it, and I can see arguments for both sides.
That's one reason why I've posed this question; I'm curious what other people think about the issue.
The word "Nazi" becomes a game-piece in the battle between these two groups. In other words, saying "I hate the fact that you de-value the word 'Nazi'" really means, "I hate the fact that you don't care about the Holocaust."
I think it's more complex than that. That's why I want to hear from people about who's using it how, and where, because my hypothesis is that this is becoming a kind of cultural/language barrier, especially in communities that span regions and nations, like MetaFilter.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 9:49 AM on March 11, 2006
grumblebee, I don't know who you're asking. If you're asking me, my answer is that I don't know. I've thought about it, and I can see arguments for both sides.
That's one reason why I've posed this question; I'm curious what other people think about the issue.
The word "Nazi" becomes a game-piece in the battle between these two groups. In other words, saying "I hate the fact that you de-value the word 'Nazi'" really means, "I hate the fact that you don't care about the Holocaust."
I think it's more complex than that. That's why I want to hear from people about who's using it how, and where, because my hypothesis is that this is becoming a kind of cultural/language barrier, especially in communities that span regions and nations, like MetaFilter.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 9:49 AM on March 11, 2006
On a related tangent... I think it is absolutely ridiculous when people refer to President Bush as a nazi. Every time I hear the referance I always wonder if the people speaking realize how absurd of a comparison it is. Hate him or love him the comparison is foolish.
posted by JFitzpatrick at 9:54 AM on March 11, 2006
posted by JFitzpatrick at 9:54 AM on March 11, 2006
How is the word "Nazi" used in your community/workplace/social circles?
It's not used around me, because I don't countenance it.
When somebody makes a trivial use of the word, I make a point of it to them. I look them in the eye, my face directly in front of theirs, and I don't blink, and I talk about the afternoons I've spent on the bare, sanitized yard at Dachau, and the walk you can take down to the back corner of the compound, past the big memorial, to the small gas chambers and the crematoria. I tell them about how the ovens at Dachau were originally "underplanned" and how, based on lessons learned at bigger camps like Auschwitz, they were "improved." I ask them if they think what I'm saying is funny, and I ask if they can say "Arbecht macht frei" so it comes off as a joke. If they try to get by with passing their stupidity off as humor, or if they tell me to chill, I tell them I will, right after I tell them again, about Auschwitz.
You see, I've found, so often, that people who say things like "Soup Nazi" don't know. They aren't one of the 25,000,000 who have gone into Auschwitz since the liberation, because none of those 25,000,000 ever make a damn "joke" like that. So, I make a point of helping these cretins understand. I have seen, and I let them see that in my face. And it is always, always enough to shut them up.
Even the ones with the shaved heads, and the ugly tattoos.
It's not hard, usually. There's a horror about the names of these places, that ties to a morbid fascination we all carry, and I can use that sick curiosity to examine the word. And I do, because I have seen.
"I know that's a bit hyper-sensitive of me, but it does make me curious about this phenomenon."
No, it is not hyper-sensitive. Nazi is not "a four letter word." It is a specific reference to specific people, who countenanced and advanced horrors and evil we cannot fail to remember as it was, lest it be again. The word is no more than that. But, by all that is ever civilized, no less, either.
posted by paulsc at 10:55 AM on March 11, 2006
It's not used around me, because I don't countenance it.
When somebody makes a trivial use of the word, I make a point of it to them. I look them in the eye, my face directly in front of theirs, and I don't blink, and I talk about the afternoons I've spent on the bare, sanitized yard at Dachau, and the walk you can take down to the back corner of the compound, past the big memorial, to the small gas chambers and the crematoria. I tell them about how the ovens at Dachau were originally "underplanned" and how, based on lessons learned at bigger camps like Auschwitz, they were "improved." I ask them if they think what I'm saying is funny, and I ask if they can say "Arbecht macht frei" so it comes off as a joke. If they try to get by with passing their stupidity off as humor, or if they tell me to chill, I tell them I will, right after I tell them again, about Auschwitz.
You see, I've found, so often, that people who say things like "Soup Nazi" don't know. They aren't one of the 25,000,000 who have gone into Auschwitz since the liberation, because none of those 25,000,000 ever make a damn "joke" like that. So, I make a point of helping these cretins understand. I have seen, and I let them see that in my face. And it is always, always enough to shut them up.
Even the ones with the shaved heads, and the ugly tattoos.
It's not hard, usually. There's a horror about the names of these places, that ties to a morbid fascination we all carry, and I can use that sick curiosity to examine the word. And I do, because I have seen.
"I know that's a bit hyper-sensitive of me, but it does make me curious about this phenomenon."
No, it is not hyper-sensitive. Nazi is not "a four letter word." It is a specific reference to specific people, who countenanced and advanced horrors and evil we cannot fail to remember as it was, lest it be again. The word is no more than that. But, by all that is ever civilized, no less, either.
posted by paulsc at 10:55 AM on March 11, 2006
If so, is that the right thing to do?
As holgate said (and it bears repeating): "Language does what it does."
How is the word "Nazi" used in your community/workplace/social circles?
It's a punchline. Of course, the people I deal with find Iraq and Rwanda to be much more pressing concerns than something that happened 60 years ago, and prefer to focus their energy on those.
posted by tkolar at 11:10 AM on March 11, 2006
As holgate said (and it bears repeating): "Language does what it does."
How is the word "Nazi" used in your community/workplace/social circles?
It's a punchline. Of course, the people I deal with find Iraq and Rwanda to be much more pressing concerns than something that happened 60 years ago, and prefer to focus their energy on those.
posted by tkolar at 11:10 AM on March 11, 2006
The usage I hear, when not being used to specifically denote the actual Nazi Party, is ironic hyperbole, as in "He was such a Nazi!" (referring to someone overzealous in a way found repugnant to the speaker). Compare to a word like "nigger," which still carries enough force that I would be shocked to hear it used jokingly by a non-black person in casual conversation (one can substitute kike, chink, etc.).
posted by Falconetti at 11:28 AM on March 11, 2006
posted by Falconetti at 11:28 AM on March 11, 2006
This is tricky, isn't it?
There is nothing funny about that word, the arguments of buffoons and apologists notwithstanding.
And yet satire was an important contemporary tool, and remains so: you can read Susan Sontag's demolition of Leni Riefenstahl, or you can watch Chaplin's in The Great Dictator.
That's something of a different issue to the initial question, but it's also a cultural starting point for today's frivolous applications of the word 'Nazi'. The disarming caricatures of Nazis, designed to belittle them in wartime, have taken a life of their own, via Hogan's Heroes or Allo! Allo! or wherever. Like it or not, the 'Soup Nazi' is picking up on a stereotype created in the 1940s to assist in fighting the Nazis.
A final point: you can't rid the English language of the consonance of 'little Hitler'.
posted by holgate at 11:35 AM on March 11, 2006
There is nothing funny about that word, the arguments of buffoons and apologists notwithstanding.
And yet satire was an important contemporary tool, and remains so: you can read Susan Sontag's demolition of Leni Riefenstahl, or you can watch Chaplin's in The Great Dictator.
That's something of a different issue to the initial question, but it's also a cultural starting point for today's frivolous applications of the word 'Nazi'. The disarming caricatures of Nazis, designed to belittle them in wartime, have taken a life of their own, via Hogan's Heroes or Allo! Allo! or wherever. Like it or not, the 'Soup Nazi' is picking up on a stereotype created in the 1940s to assist in fighting the Nazis.
A final point: you can't rid the English language of the consonance of 'little Hitler'.
posted by holgate at 11:35 AM on March 11, 2006
There was nothing special about the Nazis. There were genocidal organization before the Nazis, there have been such groups since. Demonizing the Nazis is an attempt to pretend that such organizations are unusual or alien. Unfortunately, when the "Nazis" come around again, they're not going to label themselves with swastikas. They'll wear flag pins in their lapels and assure us that what they're doing to us, they're doing for our own good.
The distance between George Bush and the Nazis is not as great as we'd like to believe.
posted by SPrintF at 11:44 AM on March 11, 2006
The distance between George Bush and the Nazis is not as great as we'd like to believe.
posted by SPrintF at 11:44 AM on March 11, 2006
Thank you, Sprout the V, for posting a question I've been wondering about.
And thank you too, paulsc.
posted by Rash at 11:53 AM on March 11, 2006
And thank you too, paulsc.
posted by Rash at 11:53 AM on March 11, 2006
paulsc, not everyone who chooses to laugh at the Nazi's is uneducated or a cretin.
I am well educated, and the grand-daughter of four Holocaust survivors. I've been to Dachau too, and I've held a great interest in learning about the Holocaust and WWII for as long as I can remember. When I visited Nürnberg, I went to the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, stood proudly inside the little yellow box that marks the spot where Hitler's podium once stood, and I laughed out loud at the irony of the fact that his fucked up dream had crumbled, and that his stadium was now a park where children of all races and religions play, and that I, a Jew, could stand there and freely laugh in the face of something once horrible, now transformed. I laughed becaused my grandparents could not.
There is nothing wrong with laughing at and making light of fools.
posted by RoseovSharon at 1:43 PM on March 11, 2006 [1 favorite]
I am well educated, and the grand-daughter of four Holocaust survivors. I've been to Dachau too, and I've held a great interest in learning about the Holocaust and WWII for as long as I can remember. When I visited Nürnberg, I went to the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, stood proudly inside the little yellow box that marks the spot where Hitler's podium once stood, and I laughed out loud at the irony of the fact that his fucked up dream had crumbled, and that his stadium was now a park where children of all races and religions play, and that I, a Jew, could stand there and freely laugh in the face of something once horrible, now transformed. I laughed becaused my grandparents could not.
There is nothing wrong with laughing at and making light of fools.
posted by RoseovSharon at 1:43 PM on March 11, 2006 [1 favorite]
It occurs to me that the two main uses for the word Nazi are generally mutually exclusive. That is, it is unlikely the use of the word to denote totalitarian facists would ever be mistaken for an "overzealous rule enforcer." The clarity of the context allows the more benign definition to survive.
And perhaps the reason the more benign use exists is that more often than not, the people who use either of these definitions do not mingle with people who use the other (of course, tensions might rise if you talked about a Soup Nazi to a Holocaust survivor).
As time progresses and the historical distance from the Holocaust increases (and first and second generation Survivors die) the term's meaning will change. An exception would be if neo-Nazis somehow reached critical mass.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 1:59 PM on March 11, 2006
And perhaps the reason the more benign use exists is that more often than not, the people who use either of these definitions do not mingle with people who use the other (of course, tensions might rise if you talked about a Soup Nazi to a Holocaust survivor).
As time progresses and the historical distance from the Holocaust increases (and first and second generation Survivors die) the term's meaning will change. An exception would be if neo-Nazis somehow reached critical mass.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 1:59 PM on March 11, 2006
And the complacency that might ever allow it to be funny, or more broadly referent, is all that is needed, was all that was needed, for the horrors it uniquely labels, to again flourish.
It's not irreverence for the words "Nazi" and "Holocaust" that make fascism more likely -- it's seeing those events as so unique and disconnected from the rest of history that the words attached to them deserve absolute reverence.
I would rather my kids knew that more than 20 million people died because powerful people invested in an organization, and then a government that blamed religious, immigrant and political groups for economic collapse, than that they know the words "Nazi" and "Hitler".
Those things aren't mutually exclusive, but I think there's a danger of passing down the words and images that most evoke horror, while forgetting that they don't inherently contain the knowledge we need to avoid it happening again. "Adolf Hitler" didn't carry the same weight in 1925, and it isn't going to be the name of the next person to be pivotal to 20 million deaths. Likewise, if someone forms a violent, racist party and call it the National Socialists, the mid 20th century isn't going to repeat itself (I think that's been proven), we have different cultural hot buttons to 1930's Germany.
This looks very obvious written out, but I think words become so laden with meaning that it's easy to subconsciously forget. I'm not in favor of trying to minimize or erase that meaning, and I cringe when someone says "copy machine nazi". It is offensive and painful for so many people I think it's immature, flippant and lazy. But I don't think it puts anyone at risk of substantial harm any more than saying someone is "on a crusade". The risk is putting the holocaust and the events around it absolutely outside of the continuum of our history, calling them uniquely evil. There's a lot of intellectual understanding of our own ability to turn a blind eye to horror, or to participate in it, but I think most of us imagine ourselves there, rather than that here. I'm not convinced that absolute reverence for the past helps us avoid repeating it. Respect can be distancing (which I think is a part of why our culture deals with death how it does). Then or now, we generally think "Shit, that's fucked up, but it's hardly..."
posted by crabintheocean at 6:02 PM on March 11, 2006
It's not irreverence for the words "Nazi" and "Holocaust" that make fascism more likely -- it's seeing those events as so unique and disconnected from the rest of history that the words attached to them deserve absolute reverence.
I would rather my kids knew that more than 20 million people died because powerful people invested in an organization, and then a government that blamed religious, immigrant and political groups for economic collapse, than that they know the words "Nazi" and "Hitler".
Those things aren't mutually exclusive, but I think there's a danger of passing down the words and images that most evoke horror, while forgetting that they don't inherently contain the knowledge we need to avoid it happening again. "Adolf Hitler" didn't carry the same weight in 1925, and it isn't going to be the name of the next person to be pivotal to 20 million deaths. Likewise, if someone forms a violent, racist party and call it the National Socialists, the mid 20th century isn't going to repeat itself (I think that's been proven), we have different cultural hot buttons to 1930's Germany.
This looks very obvious written out, but I think words become so laden with meaning that it's easy to subconsciously forget. I'm not in favor of trying to minimize or erase that meaning, and I cringe when someone says "copy machine nazi". It is offensive and painful for so many people I think it's immature, flippant and lazy. But I don't think it puts anyone at risk of substantial harm any more than saying someone is "on a crusade". The risk is putting the holocaust and the events around it absolutely outside of the continuum of our history, calling them uniquely evil. There's a lot of intellectual understanding of our own ability to turn a blind eye to horror, or to participate in it, but I think most of us imagine ourselves there, rather than that here. I'm not convinced that absolute reverence for the past helps us avoid repeating it. Respect can be distancing (which I think is a part of why our culture deals with death how it does). Then or now, we generally think "Shit, that's fucked up, but it's hardly..."
posted by crabintheocean at 6:02 PM on March 11, 2006
"There is nothing wrong with laughing at and making light of fools."
If the Nazis had been only fools, I might agree with you, RoseovSharon, and with Mel Brooks. But before they failed, they were methodical, efficient, institutionalized killers. If you were able to laugh, after visiting the camps, and thus feel vindicated, I suppose I am glad for you, but you must understand also that many (including me) cannot chortle with you. But I take your point as personal testimony. I also take the point of the families I came to know on visits I made as a young man in then Czechoslovakia and Beylorussia, most of whom lost some relative in the 20,000,000+ killed on the Eastern Front. For the evil didn't begin and end in the camps, and it didn't stop on VE day, or at the conclusion of the War Crimes trials.
Tens of millions died 60 years ago, in large part, because of the determination of some few thousands for domination and fulfillment of their pathological social visions and narcissistic racial dreams. In Germany, in Italy, and in Japan common cultural themes of superiority and manifest destiny played out, more coldly and chillingly than ever before in human history. In the end, we will never know the final human cost of that madness, but it was surely many times the relatives and the 6 million of the camps you remember with your visits and your laughter. We do know that we must not permit that level of insanity and hatred to be loosed on the world again.
So I hear you, RoseovSharon, but I take to heart more surely the German attitudes towards banning Nazi symbols, propaganda, and images in any replication or display. Because the young are often foolish, and though you may be determined to laugh in remberance and revenge, some things are never going to be fodder for jokes.
I can not make light of this. For I've been to Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, too. I know, too well, that sometimes, what springs into the world as small evil in one place, can resonate in other times and locales, sometimes even today dismissed by some as "only a joke," and I also know that madmen find common cause too easily.
That struggle against the Nazis passes into the books now, as those who fought it die away rapidly, and those of us who came a little later, and traveled through Berlin when the rubble was still piled block after block grow old ourselves. But we can not forget, nor let those who would wish to, do so easily. From 1939 to 1945, some evil we can not ever again permit went loose from within us, as a race. To say that such a thing could happen only to other men to whom we can give a label, call fools, and think were somehow impossibly different from us, is to think that we are somehow immune.
And we know better than that, now, don't we?
I say simply, we need undiluted, powerful words for hatred and evil, and for those that put such things into actions. We need simple ways of saying the truth, if it is to be said ever, when we need it. Find something else to call the autocrats of soup, so that when you meet a Nazi, you will have a name to give him, that is big enough, and strong enough, to keep him from slipping away.
posted by paulsc at 6:19 PM on March 11, 2006
If the Nazis had been only fools, I might agree with you, RoseovSharon, and with Mel Brooks. But before they failed, they were methodical, efficient, institutionalized killers. If you were able to laugh, after visiting the camps, and thus feel vindicated, I suppose I am glad for you, but you must understand also that many (including me) cannot chortle with you. But I take your point as personal testimony. I also take the point of the families I came to know on visits I made as a young man in then Czechoslovakia and Beylorussia, most of whom lost some relative in the 20,000,000+ killed on the Eastern Front. For the evil didn't begin and end in the camps, and it didn't stop on VE day, or at the conclusion of the War Crimes trials.
Tens of millions died 60 years ago, in large part, because of the determination of some few thousands for domination and fulfillment of their pathological social visions and narcissistic racial dreams. In Germany, in Italy, and in Japan common cultural themes of superiority and manifest destiny played out, more coldly and chillingly than ever before in human history. In the end, we will never know the final human cost of that madness, but it was surely many times the relatives and the 6 million of the camps you remember with your visits and your laughter. We do know that we must not permit that level of insanity and hatred to be loosed on the world again.
So I hear you, RoseovSharon, but I take to heart more surely the German attitudes towards banning Nazi symbols, propaganda, and images in any replication or display. Because the young are often foolish, and though you may be determined to laugh in remberance and revenge, some things are never going to be fodder for jokes.
I can not make light of this. For I've been to Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, too. I know, too well, that sometimes, what springs into the world as small evil in one place, can resonate in other times and locales, sometimes even today dismissed by some as "only a joke," and I also know that madmen find common cause too easily.
That struggle against the Nazis passes into the books now, as those who fought it die away rapidly, and those of us who came a little later, and traveled through Berlin when the rubble was still piled block after block grow old ourselves. But we can not forget, nor let those who would wish to, do so easily. From 1939 to 1945, some evil we can not ever again permit went loose from within us, as a race. To say that such a thing could happen only to other men to whom we can give a label, call fools, and think were somehow impossibly different from us, is to think that we are somehow immune.
And we know better than that, now, don't we?
I say simply, we need undiluted, powerful words for hatred and evil, and for those that put such things into actions. We need simple ways of saying the truth, if it is to be said ever, when we need it. Find something else to call the autocrats of soup, so that when you meet a Nazi, you will have a name to give him, that is big enough, and strong enough, to keep him from slipping away.
posted by paulsc at 6:19 PM on March 11, 2006
With the greatest of respect, paulsc, we know this.
so that when you meet a Nazi, you will have a name to give him
If we end up waiting for the right moment to use that name, then we will wait a long time and let a lot of evil pass by. Frankly, I'd be happy for the word to become a common euphemism for dog turds. The road to its trivialisation began with Chuck Jones and Walt Disney.
posted by holgate at 10:08 PM on March 11, 2006
so that when you meet a Nazi, you will have a name to give him
If we end up waiting for the right moment to use that name, then we will wait a long time and let a lot of evil pass by. Frankly, I'd be happy for the word to become a common euphemism for dog turds. The road to its trivialisation began with Chuck Jones and Walt Disney.
posted by holgate at 10:08 PM on March 11, 2006
And continues mainly with Jews, in my experience. I hear Jews calling people Nazis the most of anyone.
Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld are the reasons we're having this conversation, yes?
posted by goo at 4:55 AM on March 12, 2006
Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld are the reasons we're having this conversation, yes?
posted by goo at 4:55 AM on March 12, 2006
Funny thing about this 'nazi' word. I am comfortable to call my spouse a 'fruit nazi', because he almost forces it on me (as he should, okay? I am horrible about eating right). He's a fruit, and it's all a joke.
But by the time I would call a German a 'nazi', I'd already be cowering in a boxcar. Okay? This definition of 'nazi' as "arbitrary-rule-enforcing" just describes German cultural tendencies, without having to go into the evils of the past.
As for the word 'nazi' relating to that specific political party in Germany, only in a very technical sense. Any German soldier was considered a 'nazi', member of the party or not. And honestly, if you want to be strict, that's not any more fair than to call every American soldier a 'Republican'.
But, when I use the word in a political sense, I'm dead serious. But I'm more likely to use the word 'fascist', even though people act like even that word only applies to the 1930's German variety. Look the word up, discover just how well it applies to a certain junta.
And whoever said it was so wrong to apply the word to Bush and crew, you're acting like the proverbial 'good little German'. I say, polish it up and use the damn word, it fits like a glove too much of the time. It is not a joke, it scares the hell out of me. Ain't no hyperbole in this application.
As stated often enough on Metafilter, I'm Gay, as in, pink triangles. Believe me when I say, I take holocaust personally.
posted by Goofyy at 8:14 AM on March 12, 2006
But by the time I would call a German a 'nazi', I'd already be cowering in a boxcar. Okay? This definition of 'nazi' as "arbitrary-rule-enforcing" just describes German cultural tendencies, without having to go into the evils of the past.
As for the word 'nazi' relating to that specific political party in Germany, only in a very technical sense. Any German soldier was considered a 'nazi', member of the party or not. And honestly, if you want to be strict, that's not any more fair than to call every American soldier a 'Republican'.
But, when I use the word in a political sense, I'm dead serious. But I'm more likely to use the word 'fascist', even though people act like even that word only applies to the 1930's German variety. Look the word up, discover just how well it applies to a certain junta.
And whoever said it was so wrong to apply the word to Bush and crew, you're acting like the proverbial 'good little German'. I say, polish it up and use the damn word, it fits like a glove too much of the time. It is not a joke, it scares the hell out of me. Ain't no hyperbole in this application.
As stated often enough on Metafilter, I'm Gay, as in, pink triangles. Believe me when I say, I take holocaust personally.
posted by Goofyy at 8:14 AM on March 12, 2006
Well, Nazi is two syllables. Totalitarian is six.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 9:07 AM on March 12, 2006
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 9:07 AM on March 12, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
Restaurant Nazis
MeTa of Restaurant Nazi
Dog Nazi
Playlist Nazi
Grammar Nazi
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 7:47 AM on March 11, 2006