I commented early trying to say much the same (though I think you've done it better) and got an inbox full of rude dismissals and condescension. I'm glad to see others familiar with the feeling I was trying to express. Perhaps if I had taken more time I'd have done a better job, but it's a hard thought to properly convey, and it goes against the group trend so it's met with unwarranted hostility.
I'm fine with the hostility on some level.
people are rightly emotional and upset about the fuckingwehrmacht , if you will pardon my french.
I'm not going to bemoan anyone for that, no more than I bemoan Lyudmila for dehumanizing them.
Yeah you can all yell down the Jew who isn't angry enough at the Nazis. Didn't pull that card earlier because I shouldn't have to. Dehumanization is a fuck, I stand by that.
I'm a little testy. Got a full inbox of people telling me I'm defending Nazis or too online and not taking genocide seriously. Sorry if I'm firing off on people who don't deserve it.
it goes against the group trend so it’s met with unwarranted hostility
If you were willing to acknowledge that Lyudmila's comments are absolutely warranted, you would not have been met with hostility.
I understand why online Leftists, who've been sheltered from the lived experiences of genocide, are uncomfortable with her words. This is all an intellectual exercise right now.
Go ahead and yell down the jew who isn't angry enough at the Nazis. Didn't play that card because I shouldn't have to. Dehumanization is how that shit starts.
The way I see it is you can't engage in war without dehumanizing the enemy (people in general don't like killing another person, much less 300 of them), so if you are being invaded by a genocidal force that dehumanization is excusable if it's the cost of rebuffing them. Besides it's not like the USSR did a counter genocide against Germany so I'm not sure what "shit" was started in this case
I'm not an expert, and of course such an inflammatory historical narrative is going to have disagreement, but the evidence pretty strongly suggests that mass-rape took place during the occupation and invasion of Germany proper.
Now that MIGHT not rise to the level of genocide, but it sure as shit ain't the action of benevolent liberators either. One could see how virulent dehumanization might lead to a greater rate of war-time rape.
I don't care if you are "angry enough" or not. That is not what I am talking about.
You have not had to murder soldiers to prevent a genocidal war machine (presumably). You do not understand that trauma and cognitive dissonance that causes.
Dehumanization is a normal and justified response to that trauma. There is a documented history of this happening in countless anti-imperialist wars: Vietnam, Korea, Algeria, etc.
I'd recommend reading Wretched of the Earth. Fanon describes this better than I could.
Genocide does not start with soldiers dehumanizing enemy soldiers. It starts with systematic categorization & discrimination towards different social groups.
I think similar to another poster in this particular comment chain, I was responding with a chip on my shoulder from the earlier thread. My bad.
I wouldn't disagree with your assessment that that kind of dehumanization is almost a coping necessity for people living through such situations. With the benefit of hindsight, though, I think we should be able to separate ourselves from that same dehumanization. Should the current situation we are living in become more violent, I think practically as well as morally, we'd be better served by keeping it in mind. I will go ahead and seek that book out, though, thank you for the recommendation.
Part of what I like about leftist ideology is that it acknowledges the varying levels of culpability between class actors. I allow myself to hate cops and soldiers in imperialist countries as an institution, but at the end of the day they're victims of capital as well. The 'ideal' solution would be for them to recognize that, take off their uniforms, and join the class struggle. I think that same attitude logically applies to gaspmost werhmacht soldiers too. They weren't all dead eyed automotons of fascism, and truly the greatest tragedy of war is that its usually poor people killing poor people to benefit the rich/elite on both sides. (This is notably not the case in the USSR and the tragedy is more one-sided, but just because one side happens to be fighting for a revolutionary workers state doesn't make the other side being duped by nationalistic and fascist ideology any less tragic.) Of course the soldiers of the USSR and other countries fighting Nazis Germany were justified - I'd never deny that - nor would I deny that modern imperialist forces should be fought with a similar vigor. But to lose the capacity to see them as fellow victims of capitalism reduces our capacity to organize and welcome them as comrades down the line. That's the goal, right? Fight them while we have to so that we can bring about a better world for us all (them included). We're not going to be able to put every single soldier or police officer up against the wall - and I wouldn't want to be part of a movement that aspired to do so. Celebrating and internalizing the dehumanization that's a horrific reflection of necessity from humanity's lowest moment is part of how people slip into that thinking, though,
To be clear: I don't hold the same empathy for the elites/capitalists at all. They have no excuse for weaponizing and exploiting their fellow human beings, and I'm all for crab posting if someone like Trump or Bezos end up coughing their lungs out or about one heads' length shorter.
I got pretty defensive too. Pavlichenko was a war hero, and deserved to see herself as such. But war and murder are traumatizing experiences. I'm not got to pass judgement on how she squared that circle.
Yeah, I fully admit I could have expressed myself better in my original comment, but some real jerk immediately tried to paint me as an apologist and doubled down on dehumanization as the thread went on. As a Jew, I do have a particular sensitivity for dehumanization rhetoric, and I do my part to resist it when I see it. Perhaps I really should have qualified my position earlier, perhaps I should have been more careful with my initial comments, but the way the thread shook out was really off-putting for me. I immediately got cast as a nazi sympathizer and forced to argue against a bunch of people who quite frankly exhibited the exact kind of dehumanization I was worried about. Pretty gross to interact with that directly.
Edit: thanks for sticking in there and hearing me out.
I commented early trying to say much the same (though I think you've done it better) and got an inbox full of rude dismissals and condescension. I'm glad to see others familiar with the feeling I was trying to express. Perhaps if I had taken more time I'd have done a better job, but it's a hard thought to properly convey, and it goes against the group trend so it's met with unwarranted hostility.
I'm fine with the hostility on some level. people are rightly emotional and upset about the fucking wehrmacht , if you will pardon my french. I'm not going to bemoan anyone for that, no more than I bemoan Lyudmila for dehumanizing them.
Yeah you can all yell down the Jew who isn't angry enough at the Nazis. Didn't pull that card earlier because I shouldn't have to. Dehumanization is a fuck, I stand by that.
I agree? do you think I am yelling you down?
I'm a little testy. Got a full inbox of people telling me I'm defending Nazis or too online and not taking genocide seriously. Sorry if I'm firing off on people who don't deserve it.
I forgive you.
I sincerely appreciate that.
If you were willing to acknowledge that Lyudmila's comments are absolutely warranted, you would not have been met with hostility.
I understand why online Leftists, who've been sheltered from the lived experiences of genocide, are uncomfortable with her words. This is all an intellectual exercise right now.
Go ahead and yell down the jew who isn't angry enough at the Nazis. Didn't play that card because I shouldn't have to. Dehumanization is how that shit starts.
The way I see it is you can't engage in war without dehumanizing the enemy (people in general don't like killing another person, much less 300 of them), so if you are being invaded by a genocidal force that dehumanization is excusable if it's the cost of rebuffing them. Besides it's not like the USSR did a counter genocide against Germany so I'm not sure what "shit" was started in this case
I'm not an expert, and of course such an inflammatory historical narrative is going to have disagreement, but the evidence pretty strongly suggests that mass-rape took place during the occupation and invasion of Germany proper.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany
Now that MIGHT not rise to the level of genocide, but it sure as shit ain't the action of benevolent liberators either. One could see how virulent dehumanization might lead to a greater rate of war-time rape.
I don't care if you are "angry enough" or not. That is not what I am talking about.
You have not had to murder soldiers to prevent a genocidal war machine (presumably). You do not understand that trauma and cognitive dissonance that causes.
Dehumanization is a normal and justified response to that trauma. There is a documented history of this happening in countless anti-imperialist wars: Vietnam, Korea, Algeria, etc.
I'd recommend reading Wretched of the Earth. Fanon describes this better than I could.
Genocide does not start with soldiers dehumanizing enemy soldiers. It starts with systematic categorization & discrimination towards different social groups.
I think similar to another poster in this particular comment chain, I was responding with a chip on my shoulder from the earlier thread. My bad.
I wouldn't disagree with your assessment that that kind of dehumanization is almost a coping necessity for people living through such situations. With the benefit of hindsight, though, I think we should be able to separate ourselves from that same dehumanization. Should the current situation we are living in become more violent, I think practically as well as morally, we'd be better served by keeping it in mind. I will go ahead and seek that book out, though, thank you for the recommendation.
Part of what I like about leftist ideology is that it acknowledges the varying levels of culpability between class actors. I allow myself to hate cops and soldiers in imperialist countries as an institution, but at the end of the day they're victims of capital as well. The 'ideal' solution would be for them to recognize that, take off their uniforms, and join the class struggle. I think that same attitude logically applies to gaspmost werhmacht soldiers too. They weren't all dead eyed automotons of fascism, and truly the greatest tragedy of war is that its usually poor people killing poor people to benefit the rich/elite on both sides. (This is notably not the case in the USSR and the tragedy is more one-sided, but just because one side happens to be fighting for a revolutionary workers state doesn't make the other side being duped by nationalistic and fascist ideology any less tragic.) Of course the soldiers of the USSR and other countries fighting Nazis Germany were justified - I'd never deny that - nor would I deny that modern imperialist forces should be fought with a similar vigor. But to lose the capacity to see them as fellow victims of capitalism reduces our capacity to organize and welcome them as comrades down the line. That's the goal, right? Fight them while we have to so that we can bring about a better world for us all (them included). We're not going to be able to put every single soldier or police officer up against the wall - and I wouldn't want to be part of a movement that aspired to do so. Celebrating and internalizing the dehumanization that's a horrific reflection of necessity from humanity's lowest moment is part of how people slip into that thinking, though,
To be clear: I don't hold the same empathy for the elites/capitalists at all. They have no excuse for weaponizing and exploiting their fellow human beings, and I'm all for crab posting if someone like Trump or Bezos end up coughing their lungs out or about one heads' length shorter.
Okay, I understand where you are coming from.
I got pretty defensive too. Pavlichenko was a war hero, and deserved to see herself as such. But war and murder are traumatizing experiences. I'm not got to pass judgement on how she squared that circle.
Yeah, I fully admit I could have expressed myself better in my original comment, but some real jerk immediately tried to paint me as an apologist and doubled down on dehumanization as the thread went on. As a Jew, I do have a particular sensitivity for dehumanization rhetoric, and I do my part to resist it when I see it. Perhaps I really should have qualified my position earlier, perhaps I should have been more careful with my initial comments, but the way the thread shook out was really off-putting for me. I immediately got cast as a nazi sympathizer and forced to argue against a bunch of people who quite frankly exhibited the exact kind of dehumanization I was worried about. Pretty gross to interact with that directly.
Edit: thanks for sticking in there and hearing me out.