NAZI
Is the word in question.
I recently wrote an article which you can read HERE about the discord I experienced between a pharmacist and a doctor. However, it's not the article I am concerned with today it's some of the responses.
The name Nazi really tipped the scale for some of the people commenting. It made the difference I think between being somewhat reasonable and deteriorating into emotive name calling.
I get it, Nazi is not a nice thing to call someone. And, just to be clear I did not call anyone that. (In this article anyway, I have called people that before and they can just suck it, Nazi-pigs that they are.)
What I and others noticed however is that there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what a Nazi is.
One commenter pointed out that the word Nazi is derived from the National Socialist Party, which is the party Hitler ran and won with post depression. Hitler Supporters were therefore Nazis. However we all are aware that the socialism did not extend beyond Hitlers supporters and in later years not even to them. By the time we entered WWII Nazi was a generally agreed upon term for those who followed and fought for Hitler's regime.
We also all agree that we don't like Nazis, unless you are a Nazi in which case I assume you like yourself and your friends.
The problem is spin doctors and media voodoo practitioners like Glen Beck have been getting on t.v. nightly and telling people that NAZI=Socialism therefore Socialism is bad.
An interesting outcome of pundits like Glen Beck is that I can almost see commenters, bloggers and people I have discussions with working out blackboard scenarios in their minds. For example:
Nazi=National Socialist Party=Socialism=enough for everyone=this conversation is about medicine=Obama wants to help get everyone medicine= Obama is a socialist=writer must be both a socialist and an "Obama-tron". (that's one of the names thrown out there in the the discussion)
There has been a shift in which everything is becoming politicized whether or not it was intended to be should have been or is in anyway relevant. A discussion about Dr./patient/pharmacist relationships really shouldn't have been political, however because of the way words like Nazi are being bastardized and thanks to Glen Beck's magick chalkboard, now as Lewis Black pointed out everything is a 6 degrees of separation game and somehow it all comes back to politics.
And of course Nazis and Socialism.
Look Nazi is a strong word. It shouldn't be used lightly in public and ideally one should know what the hell they are talking about when using it. However I stood behind my quote because, A. It was a quote that illustrated frustration. B. It was appropriate because it had to do with controlling behavior to the detriment of an individual. C. It was a bloody quote!
Nazi isn't a term to be used loosely, but I do know a thing or two about them. As a matter of fact, I have a young Nazi living in my house for the time being. I've been trying to infect him with the idea that people are pretty much the same regardless of race. Just when I think I'm getting through to him, I walk into the room in which he and his mom are staying and saw he had made his avatar the Nazi flag. I'm pretty unhappy with that and don't much like someone with that attitude living in my house. For the moment, though, my hands are tied.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with modern use of the term “Nazi” is how overused and misused it is. Much like “Socialist.” Nothing wrong with using those words, but use them sparingly.
The thing that was bad about Hitler was the genocide and invading and general lack of respect for rule of law and human life. To use Hitler to attack Obama for eating or walking is to ignore the historical lessons that really CAN probably be learned from the Third Reich.
Actually, that Lewis Black clip says it all better than I can, so let me just go watch that again!
It's a pretty good clip isn't it? Gotta Love Lewis Black.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree we shouldn't be tossing about terms willy nilly just to illicit emotion. Unless we understand and are willing to take on us the resulting fall-out which Glen Beck and the Sarah Palins in the world clearly are not. They are unable to process it when they are "attacked" as evidenced by their stupid stage tears.