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   kcarruthers (kcarruthers@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 20:30:37 JST kcarruthers

   I’ve been re-reading all my history books about the Nazis. One thing that strikes me is how hard it was to fight back against Nazism from inside. The normative culture is so strong and everybody is just going along. Ordinary folks, with denouncing their neighbours to the Gestapo. The Gestapo was tiny only 32k. It was the ordinary people that were informing on their neighbours. Ordinary people enabled Nazism.

   • Embed this notice
     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 20:33:23 JST Graydon

     in reply to

     @kcarruthers And for that better future to win the inevitable fight with the folks who will burn the world to be sure they're accorded the deference they're sure they deserve.

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     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 20:33:24 JST Graydon

     in reply to

     @kcarruthers We can be absolutely sure the incumbent social order will not survive; any one of decarbonization, agricultural collapse, or the rising sea would suffice that.

     The trick is not so much to contest the really bad insecurity management that comes with people knowing they're going to lose relative status, but to find a way for people to participate in an increase in absolute measures. (More agency, larger choice space, greater egalitarianism in outcomes, etc.)

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     Graydon (graydon@canada.masto.host)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 20:33:25 JST Graydon

     in reply to

     @kcarruthers While that's a factual statement, it's also unhelpful.

     Moral frames that require people to acknowledge that they're bad are resisted. (Moral frames in general are only effective for rationalizing the awful, awful things you did to benefit the ingroup.)

     Opposing hegemonizing normalcy in the service of guaranteeing secure status needs a successful alternative power structure where participation raises people's functional relative social status.

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     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 25-Feb-2024 07:55:57 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • RustyBertrand
     • Rage Rumbles 🏴‍☠️🫂 🔞

     @RustyBertrand @black_flag @kcarruthers Fucking hell. I have no words. 😡

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     kcarruthers (kcarruthers@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 25-Feb-2024 07:55:58 JST kcarruthers

     in reply to

     The other thing that strikes me is how viciously the Nazis went after their “enemies” as soon as they got into power. They attacked leftists, communists, church leaders & intellectuals (as well as Jews). They had lists of people they wanted gone. And they ticked off those lists assiduously. Nobody expected this in a “civilised” nation.

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     Rage Rumbles 🏴‍☠️🫂 🔞 (black_flag@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 25-Feb-2024 07:55:58 JST Rage Rumbles 🏴‍☠️🫂 🔞

     in reply to

     @kcarruthers They also culled their own such as the purge of gay Nazis in 1934. No dissent or difference must be allowed and strength must be projected at all times, not just to make people think they are undefeatable but to turn people into those who police themselves.

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     RustyBertrand (rustybertrand@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 25-Feb-2024 07:55:58 JST RustyBertrand

     in reply to

     • Rage Rumbles 🏴‍☠️🫂 🔞

     @black_flag @kcarruthers