FailForward @FailForward@social.cleverlibre.org

@jens I agree with all you said. I have only one thing to add.

> The only thing a bully accepts is more strength than they can exert.

It's crucial how you use that strength. If you will try to beat them into submission, you fail. I rather propose to use that strength to become robust and resilient. You do not have to punch anybody. **You just need to be strong enough not to give an inch.** That it real strength.

@iiqof@mastodont.cat Indeed, I was thinking about that for quite a while this afternoon. I think, what minorities as gay, etc. can do, is to engage majority of their societies to protect them. And that is exactly what is happening. I am glad about it. Where I live, I am also a minority. I rely on the sanity of the majority to protect my rights. Should that cease to exist, I would have to radically restructure my life.

What however is counterproductive on the side of minorities, is to go radical (like "let's burn them all"). Because exactly that will alienate the majority and the minority risks losing its protection. I know it's not an ideal solution, but as minorities, you do not have luxury to set the rules. So you better get powerful allies.

@jens I very much agree with all your statements. Absolutely. You are right, some of those people try to play outside the box. But so far, they are not succeeding. Although they managed to create a huge turmoil in the last decade. That's why it's so important to protect and guard the social system we created so far (at least in Europe, but I also believe in US it still works too). And majority of people around us agrees - look at results of general elections around!

But to effectively defend what we achieved so far as societies, it's not helpful to cry wolf and wish Nazis to burn. We, the normal people, citizens who wish to live productive lives in a cooperative societies are not losing! We just need to stay calm and not give an inch. But we do not need one thing: get to their level of psychological insecurity and wish them to "burn" or whatever. That way, we can only harm ourselves. I said exactly that many toots above.

@iiqof@mastodont.cat Well, that's the problem: most likely they also have that maxim, because their moms taught them the same.

What either party does not notice is that they both dehumanise the other group which allows them to reconcile the violence with their own beliefs. It goes like this: "I am a good and decent human being, but *they* should burn!" - implicitly because they are not human beings.

And that is exactly what I reacted to at the very beginning of this thread. The lady OP dehumanised her fellow citizens and wished to burn. And I stepped in, because I believe she belongs into a group of people who are not stupid and stubborn enough not to be able to shift their position to something more useful. It's dehumannisation of others which I was objecting all along.

@iiqof@mastodont.cat
> then don't defend them, xD.

When it comes to freedom of expression I am maybe somewhat radical. Expression of even extreme opinions which I personally find abhorrent must be defended, otherwise we all lose freedom. Such acts, however, shall not be tolerated at all. In this sense, I absolutely agree with the German Constitutional Court (which many times in recent history prevented the government to ban neo-nazi parties). See some basic principles e.g., here: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/freedom-expression/germany.php:

> freedom of opinion, as the most immediate expression of the human personality living in society, is one of the noblest of human rights (un des droits les plus precieux de l'homme according to article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789). It is absolutely essential to a liberal-democratic constitutional order, because it alone makes possible the constant intellectual exchange and the contest among opinions that form the lifeblood of such an order; indeed, it is ‘the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom’.

Alright. It seems to me we reached a conclusions of this chat. You agree that it is a bad thing to wish to "exterminate individuals of a collective without recourse, becouse something thhey can't change", while I generalise just a bit more to "desire to exterminate individuals". In principle that's a useful basis on which we can work forward.

You know, I started this whole conversation actually because I agree with your opinions. In the past, I found that changing opinions of whom you call "Nazis" is almost impossible. But in my crusade to make a positive change in the world, I saw on opportunity to speak to somebody who might be prone to shifting their attitudes to a somewhat more productive position. Curiously, the first time in my life, I found myself *almost* accused of being a Nazi. At my age, I find that quite amusing. And I also learned something useful today: some people on the left hand side of political spectrum seem to be equally stubborn than those whom they hate. I find that unsurprising, but the specific wording of that stubbornness I find quite interesting.

@jens No. I am absolutely not tolerant of racist, xenophobe, homophobe opinions, what you have. And I am proud I actively stood up many times against people saying such things and I will do more of it. But those are words.

However, if either party enacts violence, they belong to courts and jails (actually on top of that I would punish them by forcing them to speak to "the others" for at least 200 hours - to learn something). I very well understand what this is all about. I am absolutely not tolerant to intolerance.

Where we perhaps differ is that I try to seek *feasible* path forward. A path of political cooperation despite differences. Please observe, vast majority of people are not violent! It can be done and is done by our governments (see, I am a very conformist tame being).

I recognise that 1) the path of extermination (what you think right-wing people seek) is criminal and thus cannot work; while also 2) the path of wishing for extermination (what it seems to me was expressed here) not only won't work, it is also counterproductive to the person expressing such a thought.

@iiqof@mastodont.cat To show you how absurd this debate is to me, let me rephrase your statement and try to "feel" what it does to you reading it:
> she expreses the oportunity of stoping beeing an Anti-Nazi, droping that ideology. Anti-Nazis didn't and don't allow you to stop beeing something, becouse what they despise is intrinsic to you.

@iiqof@mastodont.cat Look. Some of these things are quite simple. My mom taught me this: "to be a good person never do to other what you do not wish to be done to yourself". I am sure, most moms teach us something along these lines.

_How does wishing somebody something I don't want to happen to me make me a good person?_

What I find a way more interesting question is actually this: **_Even we have great differences in our political opinions, how can we work together towards a better future for all of us?_**

I.e., how can we together move from speaking to acting? That is way tougher than labelling a group of people "abhorrent" and moving on with my own pure life. BTW, "they: do the same. How is that helpful?

@iiqof@mastodont.cat I find it quite odd that I am here standing and defending humanity of people we call "Nazi". I personally experienced violence from hands of skinheads some 20 years ago. I would never expect that. Maybe I am finally maturing after all these many years 😉

"Nazi" is a very vague term. They call others "Anifa". Both are the same BS. Yes, there are really violent people on the right-side of the political spectrum who want to exterminate some. From my perspective, the same holds for the extremists on the left-side of the spectrum. With a subtle difference: the "Antifa" people rather wish for somebody else to exterminate the "Nazis" because "hey, we are the good guys".

In reality people are very colourful in their political opinions. Most of who you label Nazi probably would reject that labelling.

@iiqof@mastodont.cat @IngaLovinde

Thanks for your response.

First a disclaimer: I am not sure if I am not trespassing on some unwritten rule somewhere. The OP asked me not to speak to her on this thread, and I try to respect that.

Now to your comment: Inga's violence has limit, Nazi's don't have it.

She said this:
> "They can all burn"
and then this:
> "I'm not saying all of them should burn. They can also choose to not be Nazis;"

To me, the most charitable interpretation of these statements is that "somebody shall get rid of them".

Nazi's or not, everybody in this thread, we are all part of one society, whether we like it or not. Planning violence, or wishing for it to happen to our fellow humans is simply not helpful. It only fuels rage. Nothing good comes out of rage.

I just learned in my life the hard way that "being against" is easy and also useless. What leads to a change for better for all of us is "being for something". I would prefer to argue here about what we shall together do towards a better future for all of us, rather than crying how everything is bad and theorising about how things ought to be while the world outside is running forward without us. But I got booted out of this conversation, so what does my opinion count anyway...

@marathon I am still testing this social networking thingy for myself (I never cared for Facebook, or Twitter, or such). So far I noticed, 90% of folks here are just screaming and broadcasting themselves and somehow the place is full of some rage (I sense a vast pools of personal insecurities and aggrandizement/entitlement). Psychologist's nirwana...

Not only that lady was somehow very pessimistic, or angry, I am specifically referring also to all that radical-right politics stuff. Strange. I start to understand that if people live solely in this space, no wonder they think the world wants to kill them.

So far, my inbox/timeline is full of either useless chatter, or angry people. I am looking for a calmer place where one can have a conversation and spot new things. Do you have perhaps an advice for how to navigate this?

@IngaLovinde As you wish.

Having said that, please let me apologise for whatever I wrote upset you. It certainly was not my intention.

You came here with an existential question: _does it make me a bad person?_ And my sole intention was to cheer you up and point out to you that world is not as black and white as I understood you portrayed it. I genuinely thought, we might have an interesting conversation in which I could learn something new. Apparently I was mistaken. Again, my apologies to you.

Have a good life there!

@IngaLovinde
> Then people would choose to work because they like that work, or because they like that extra income, not because they _have_ to for their survival.

Well, once upon a time there was this experiment called communism. And it collapsed to a very large extent due to the problem called [Tragedy of commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons). Non-authoritarian social systems where incentives of individuals to strive are weak (lack of competition) quickly turn into a prey for various opportunists, which then turn into oligarchy.

@IngaLovinde
> it is not a free exchange of labor for money, when one has to choose between selling their labor or dying.

That is a very simplistic way of seeing the word which actually has huge colourful spectrum of nuance to it. You have a vast spectrum of options between these two extremes, don't you? You can start your own business for instance. And I am not speaking about a mega-corp business, but a doing whatever you can (e.g., with your hands) can actually be (is, I know!) very satisfying. Or you can start an NGO (or whatever small-scale charity) and live off contributions.

You portray a very bleak world. Are you really such a pessimist?

> Violence never made anybody happy. While we sometimes need to use it, we shall be very careful in doing so - you can harm yourself more than you think.
> -- [From earlier conversation](https://qoto.org/@FailForward/105650810161771989)

@IngaLovinde
I strongly disagree, but I also recognise we won't move further. That's ok.

What you are proposing to do to them (to solve your problem with them) is in fact **exactly** what they are proposing to do to you (to solve their problem with you). I fail to comprehend how is that a good thing (and how it makes you a better person) in your eyes.

Violence never made anybody happy. While we sometimes need to use it, we shall be very careful in doing so - you can harm yourself more than you think.

@IngaLovinde
But in this case (economy), it's not a bad thing either. The fact that ideas like yours - which is also roughly mine too - are becoming mainstream gives me a good hope (actually much more than that) that we are on a good way towards fixing the problem in the coming decades. And that is a good thing(TM).

@IngaLovinde
I get what you feel. And I also recognise why you probably feel that way. You have full right to feel it. They hate you, so why should you not hate them back? I get it.

But do you really believe that expressing contempt (if not outright hatred) towards, say 10%, of the society is going to solve the problem?

I don't want those ideas to be present at the marketplace either. But whether those ideas have a right to be there or not is besides the point. They are already present there, whether me or you like it or not. That's a simple fact. So we can either close our eyes and pretend that they don't exist (which will solve nothing), or we can engage them. And that can be done only when we speak to each other. And of course I know well they don't want to speak to me or you either.

But tell me this: How is wishing some tens of thousands of our co-citizens to "burn" going to help us solve the problem?

@IngaLovinde
Re tot take on capitalism: from my personal vantage point, your opinion falls well within the bounds of mainstream. Just look at election results and average a bit what is the society (especially German for that matter) telling that way. About the same stuff you expressed. You're ok

@IngaLovinde
I know I am going off-topic, still... You saying that Nazis are bad people is a bit harsh. My emotions agree with you, yet, many (if not most) are loving husbands, wives and parents. Does what they think make them bad persons?

What I am trying to say is this: let's not dehumanise those we don't agree with. That is a slippery slope and actually it is the same thought crime we accuse those we don't agree with of.