January 23, 2003
WHAT'S IN A NAME?:
Meme Spreading: call it by its name: National Socialism (David P. Janes, January 23, 2003, Ranting and Roaring)We (that is, the Blog Collective) should stop using the diminutive word "Nazi" to refer to the party that ruled Germany through the 1930s to the mid '40s and start calling them by their real name: National Socialists (from the German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei: National Socialist German Worker's Party). It's been far too long that the morality of these clowns have been pinned to the right.
In fact, take a look at Russell Kirk's definition of conservatism and Leftism:
Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few portentous phrases; he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma, and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time. As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors...; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine. [...]I think there are six canons of conservative thought--
(1) Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. [...]
(2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. [...]
(3) Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes. The only true equality is moral equality; all other attempts at levelling lead to despair, if enforced by positive legislation. [...]
(4) Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic levelling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession and liberty is erased.
(5) Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters and calculators.' Man must put a control upon his will and his appetite, for conservatives know man to be governed more by emotion than by reason. Tradition and sound prejudice provide checks upon man's anarchic impulse.
(6) Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress. Society must alter, for slow change is the means of its conservation, like the human body's perpetual renewal; but Providence is the proper instrument for change, and the test of a statesman is his cognizance of the real tendency of Providential social forces.
He contrasts these core beliefs with those of conservatism's opponents on the Left, the radicals of all stripes, who believe in :
(1) The perfectibility of man and the illimitable progress of society: meliorism. Radicals believe that education, positive legislation, and alteration of environment can produce men like gods; they deny that humanity has a natural proclivity toward violence and sin.(2) Contempt for tradition. Reason, impulse, and materialistic determinism are severally preferred as guides to social welfare, trustier than the wisdom of our ancestors. Formal religion is rejected and a variety of anti-Christian systems are offered as substitutes.
(3) Political levelling. Order and privilege are condemned; total democracy, as direct as practicable, is the professed radical ideal. Allied with this spirit, generally, is a dislike of old parliamentary arrangements and an eagerness for centralization and consolidation.
(4) Economic levelling. The ancient rights of property, especially property in land, are suspect to almost all radicals; and collectivist radicals hack at the institution of private property root and branch
One is unsurprised to find that National Socialism fits none of the criteria for conservatism and all of those for Leftism. National Socialism was in fact just another utopian variant on the rationalist theme of the kind that, as we suggested below, the Left has been prey to since it lost its sense of Man's true nature. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 23, 2003 2:44 PM
This is interesting, and I certainly agree that the, um, National Socialists would not satisfy Prof. Kirk's conditions for conservatism.
And while the Nazis were certainly "radical" - oh were they ever! - their program does not, on the surface (or otherwise, I thinking), seem to meet the criteria for the utopian Left.
Words can mislead: eg, all those Stalinist "democratic republics" that plagued the globe until quite recently. The Nazis were hyper-nationalists of an almost unique coloration, and it always seems unproductive to try and place them in a conventional political pidgeon-hole.
(1) They believed that racial purification of their society would usher in a thousand year Reich.
(2) They substituted National Socialism for religion.
(3) They centralized all power.
(4) They were contemptuous of all claims of rights, including bringing private industry under their thumb.
As the poster of the original article, I will state that I don't think that all, or maybe even maybe of the left are National Socialists, per se. Just that:
(1) there is a tight ideological heritage shared between National Socialism and other brands of Socialism -- particularly in the deep left and communists.
(2) the word "Nazi" is incorrectly but probably intractably used as a smear word against the right and conservatives; it is time for us to abandon using it.
While it's fair to say that "utopian" leftists are (rightly) appalled by the actions of the National Socialists in the 1940s, they certainly haven't been seen screaming in the streets about the other horrifying atrocities commited in the name of socialism during the 20th century.
David
An interesting post
on this topic, which I found on Instapundit (Wasting Time At Work So You Don't Have To Since 2001).
I doubt we will ever manage to get people to speak of the 'national
socialists' as anything other than the 'nazis' to be honest. It's too
pithy and people are too lazy.
I also think that it's fundamentally wrong to look at them as
'socialist' in any real way and, in the end, we should recognise that
extremism can prosper at both ends of the political spectrum.
Hitler was no socialist except for his desire to 'improve' the lot of
the German, generally at the expense of the 'other' - whether jew,
gay, socialist, social democrat, communist, or slav. Any
understanding of the party as 'socialist' surely died when Eric Rohm
and many of the 'storm trooper' wing (brown shirts) perished in the
'night of the long knives'. It was at this point that Hitler allied
himself with the industrialists and military as the way to further
his aims.
These people were no socialists and to put this notion forward is
slightly pernicious I think. People on the 'right' shouldn't delude
themselves that totalitarism is unique to those to their 'left'. We're
all human after all.
--
Alastair
Many thoughtful people, of whom the most thoughtful was probably Walter Laqueur, have attempted a precise definition of fascismm and its varities such as Naziism.
None but lunatics ever concluded that either arose out of the left.
Mussolini, once a socialist, did an Ariana Huffington to become a fascist.
Hitler took over a weird collection that included populists, nationalists, clericalists, racists, socialists and people who hated chain stores and created a new party. The socialists went to concentration camps.
Harry:
The desire to replace all other institutions and aspects of life with the political is fundamentally a project of the Left. Real right wing dictators, like Franco and Pinochet, leave structures like the Church and business in place because they have no intention of the Party taking total and permanent control of the nation.
Replacing all institutions is neither left nor
right but revolutionary. The Nazis were
a revolutionary party that was supported by
conservative and institutional groups (like the
Lutheran church) because they did not
understand or perhaps did not wish to
believe Hitler when he said he was leading a
revolution. They thought he was leading a
conservative reaction.
He was also supported by radicals who are
somewhat hard to label but could perhaps
be called populists. Goebbels, for example,
seemed to want to have an urban jacquerie.
Possibly only in Germany could such a situation
have come about. Because Jew hatred trumped
all there.