Whose voice?
From the Epiphanies thread on fascism and philosemitism:
And why did the Styx thread on recent planking / fascism / Nazism that contains over 100 mentions of Nazi, Nazis and Nazism (but excluding neo-Nazi, neo-Nazis and neo-Nazism) not require own-voice content from the people in the 20th Century most affected by Nazi atrocities?
Would it need significantly more own-voice content than a thread predicated on a report about philosemitism (and antisemitism)?I think a working definition of ' indigenous' or defining 'colonialism' are big questions of their own and would need to be a separate thread with a lot of own voice content - what do the people most affected say? How do they define it?
And why did the Styx thread on recent planking / fascism / Nazism that contains over 100 mentions of Nazi, Nazis and Nazism (but excluding neo-Nazi, neo-Nazis and neo-Nazism) not require own-voice content from the people in the 20th Century most affected by Nazi atrocities?
Comments
There's a fair bit of own voice linking in the philosemitism thread to voices from Jewish communities which I'm happy with. So it's not so much 'more' as just making sure that the discussion is indeed making room for how people want to talk about themselves- do the people being discussed call themselves indigenous? Do they prefer that term? Do they regard themselves as being in a colonised/ coloniser situation? Are there other viewpoints and currents in those communities etc. ?
If the idea is to have completely abstract discussion of these terms that could possibly go in Purgatory but it looks like there is a definite context here so I think we'd need to be at least linking to what the peoples being discussed think about these terms.
In my opinion anyway. I'm happy to be corrected by @Doublethink or @Alan Cresswell if they think something different should happen.
For me, the issue isn't about abstract discussion, but about the futility of us discussing the concept of indigeneity in this region, with or without own-voice content.
Nazism can fairly be described as a marginalised identity essentially everywhere on the planet.
As I have said elsewhere, I believe that fascism and Nazism essentially are about violent behaviour, so in practice this probably wouldn't happen: however could not someone say that (as a Nazi) their views are not being considered carefully as a marginalised identity in Epiphanies?
This is an extreme example but without spelling things out perhaps it is not too hard imagining someone else thinking that their political identity is marginalised. Does the way the guidelines have been written essentially offer protection from debate to any marginalised viewpoint?
I was thinking about this because there's one group we have not heard about in the discussion of anti-Semitism on this website. Nazis.
I for one do not want to.
I'm not following the logic, I'm sorry if I am too slow. The question of debate recently was whether a Neo-Nazi could or should be 'planked' before posting anything. This appeared to be related to MAGA postings that I have not read.
It appears that the current position is retrospective in the sense that a poster is judged on their actions rather than their username or stated position.
And yet if a person was to obviously claim a minority political position they cannot state it in Epiphanies.
Can they state it elsewhere? It seems incongruous to say someone with the implausible username "magafascist" could stay on the website and yet would or could be removed for stating their political beliefs however factually they did it.
Also I do not understand where the line is. A lot of people in the world seem to be currently taking political positions that are variations on "-- is woke" (sometimes using different language and with regional variations) and yet stating this would appear not to be allowed. Can these be stated on this website?
In the report on philosemitism to which Louise linked, Hannah Rose uses the word Nazi… to refer to the fascist political group of the 20th Century, and neo-Nazi… to refer to the many groups that exist today that profess or idealise Nazism. While the Nazis were anything but marginal or marginalised, many neo-Nazi groups are marginal, if not marginalised.
Bullfrog's point elsewhere comes to mind: I don't find it difficult to see how conflating marginal and non-marginal affiliations or identities might work to the advantage of these groups.
Wikipedia.
Nazism and fascism are about political violence. That's the problem.
Yes - two different wikipedia pages for two different things. Idealising something is not the same as being something. Its significance includes issues such as identity. (Professing something is much murkier water, once you start considering how it overlaps with, for example, the profession of faith.)
There are many neo-Nazi groups in the UK. Only a handful of them are proscribed under the Terrorism Act - one is virulently antisemitic, one isn't, and one idealises Nazi imagery. (I trust no-one is planning to name them here.)
In relation to your earlier post, I would say that the established view on these forums is that there is big difference between "being a marginalised identity" and "thinking of oneself as having a marginalised identity".
I'm not sure about the word "regarded" in this context. In relation to other -ism's, the way in which discrimination is experienced is the primary issue, hence the stress on own-voice content.
I think the no tolerance attitude to Nazis, neo-Nazis and fascists is the right one, albeit couched in the wrong reasoning.
It isn't just about whether someone states that they are a member of (and/or supports( a group which is specially named and outlawed by the British government (which, as I understand it, would require action by any social media platform which can be accessed by a British audience.
It is entirely appropriate to moderate views abhorrent to the management of this website. In a different context an LGBT discussion forum might well remove anyone stating views seems as abhorrent (however legal they might be according to lists of groups held by the British government).
For me the issue is not about trying to manage the claim that one is in a minority group with a marginalised identity because that becomes confused pretty quickly. The point, in this very specific instance, is in a political ideology that is about political violence. That's the heart of fascism, neo-Nazism and Nazism. Without question.
They don't have to be actively fascist to be abhorrent, but currently I'm not clear what grounds they can or should be excluded.
It should be noted that in our formulation of Epiphanies, and the associated guidelines, we never sort to imply an equivalence between marginalised groups and minority groups. One can be in a minority group but not experience marginalisation (eg: the hyper wealthy are in a minority of significantly less than 1% of the population, but no one would claim they're marginalised), conversely one can experience marginalisation despite not being in a minority group (eg: women are often marginalised, despite being approximately 50% of the population). Epiphanies seeks to preference own voices from marginalised groups, not minority groups.
IME, far-right political groups would actually not want to be considered marginalised (how often do they claim to speak for "the silent majority"?), they often seem to consider themselves empowered (including having power to inflict violence or threaten violence to suppress dissent), and don't seem to have any difficulty with getting people to hear their opinions and views. They don't need additional protection from having their voices drowned out.
I think conceiving it in terms of violence gets you (us) some of the way there, if you include physical violence, metaphysical violence and psychological violence, which would (for example) include hate groups.
An alternative is to conceive it in terms of groups that present, or are perceived as presenting, an existential threat to the identity groups that Epiphanies was established to cater for.
- Ideologies and self-identities get considered based on the degree to which they affect the member individual versus attempting to affect others.
Have an identity or ideology that describes your internal existence and thinking ?- Let's hear about that.Have an ideology or identity that wants to constrain, affect, or limit other? Maybe think about that more before you mention it out loud.
Have an identeology (just made that up by being lazy) that wants to commit some form of physical, emotional, or economic (non-exhaustive list) violence on others? Go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
That way we don't feel compelled to curate the poor, little, persecuted hate-trolls.