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"Turning Fascism and Nazism into a fetish is creepy. All it says is the person has no real control over their world and are effectively damaged goods..."
I suppose it could say that, but I'd think long and hard about the full ramifications of such a notion before I expressed this kind of bold allegiance to it. The second part, I mean; I would certainly agree that Fascism and Nazism are *themselves* creepy, though not so much with the idea that the fetishization of them is, which seems to me to be contingent upon who is doing the fetishizing, why, and what they're getting out of it. So like...yeah, I'm with you on the first half of your first idea. But that whole second part -- "All it says is," etc. -- man, I don't know. Couldn't that same argument be extended to anything that a person embraces for its empowering aspects? I mean, most magical belief systems are about some kind of empowering transcendance (or empowering acceptance) of one's life and circumstances; if one were completely satisfied with one's lot as it stands, I don't see why that person would need to seek empowerment. By extension, you're basically saying that anyone who doesn't have what they want out of life and themselves, right now, in this second, is a pathetic, "damaged" person, who might as well just accept how lame they are; even that person's attempts to change him/herself serve only as indicators of their deep-down pitifulness.
Now I imagine you're reacting to a personal distaste for...um...Nazis, which is certainly understandable and not exactly a stance that's likely to cause much controversy (probably no one is about to reply, "But I LOVE Hitler!"), but it seems clear that an embrace of Nazism isn't what's being discussed here. The idea -- I think -- is that power, symbols, etc., cannot be in and of themselves "evil." A person who was not a Nazi or a Fascist could co-opt the tropes of these things, previously used for nasty purposes, and make something new with them.
It might be relevant to note that the swastika was not designed by the Nazis; you find it in several other cultures, pre-Third Reich. Hitler co-opted it, and now it's associated with him, and with the Nazi Party -- in a very real, obvious way, he took its power for himself. You could conclude that the symbol is now forever tainted, useless for any other purposes...but isn't that giving Hitler a great deal of power? I don't see any reason why someone else can't steal the swastika (as Hitler stole it), and I certainly don't see any reason why notions original to Nazis can't suffer the same fate. (Notions of, say, fashion, at any rate -- and I'm sorry, but I like a tall, nordic-looking girl in thigh-high black leather boots, and if a boner for Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS makes me a sleaze or a guy with very serious control issues, a person who is in fact "damaged," I can accept that, but I hardly see where you get the moral wherewithal to make that judgment *for* me, based on having seen a concentration camp -- but yes, I will agree that a recipe for turning a human being into a candle is probably *only* useful for purposes that are negative and wrong no matter who's doing the candlemaking.) A fear of Nazi symbolism actually, to me, implies that it is (in some taboo way) sacred. And I mean, fuck that.
On the other hand, if someone is "fetishizing" Nazi culture, and what they really mean by that is that they're in some cool, ironic way just being a violent anti-Semite, then I feel that person should be beaten soundly about the head until s/he returns to his/her senses. And maybe goes outside and gets some sun or something. |
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