Not everyone bad is a Nazi

Terrible. But not a Nazi.

Okay, I've got to rant for a second, because this really bugs me. The Pope, Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, today made some really stupid comments about Nazism being "atheistic extremism" while visiting the UK. And thus, from some of his critics as well, kicks off the latest iteration of my least favorite Rhetorical Game — My Enemy is a Nazi.

I do not like the Pope. He's taken an already often repressive, meddling institution and made it even more repressive and meddling. His pre-Papacy activities within the Church mostly consisted of crushing the most promising threads of reform and dissent. He's endorsed positions that are rampantly misogynistic and homophobic. Lastly, and most unforgivably, he covered up for pedophile priests for years, something that should lead to his investigation, arrest and trial.

All those are very good and legitimate reasons to oppose Ratzinger and the views he advocates.

But he's not a Nazi.

Actually, reading his basic biography, it emerges that one of the few really good things he's ever done was desert the Hitler Youth after being drafted into it at the age of 14. 

So yes, he's not a Nazi, and it's lazy to throw around that accusation. By the same token, it's wretchedly stupid for the Pope to compare British secularists to Nazis as well but, at the same time, I don't expect anything better, given the Pope's general attitude on anyone that doesn't conform to an extremely reactionary version of Catholicism.

My concern is that the emerging flap about this overshadows the push to put the Pope on trial. While I don't that push is likely to succeed yet, it's an important step in breaking the idea that any institution is immune from prosecution for horrific acts.

It's also, of course, a popular rhetorical game on either side of the Atlantic, to dub those who have done bad things (as Ratzinger has) or whom one simply disagrees with, as Nazis. It's also a really bad idea. There are plenty of people in modern politics whom I don't like or whose policies I think will have a really bad impact, but until they start ramping up efforts to kill millions of people in death camps, I'll hold off on pairing them with Hitler. There are plenty of other epithets I can, and should, use.

In its latest incarnation, trying to boil Nazism down to Religion v. Atheism, from whatever side, is monumentally dumb. If anything, the history of atrocity in the 20th century is a stark reminder that people can kill, zealously, for many reasons, some of them having little to do with religion, or whatever one's opposing cause happens to be.

The Nazi Party consisted, among others, of Catholics, Protestants, atheists and agnostics united by an insane nationalism and a willingness to use tyrannical murder to accomplish their goals. And while we're at it, plenty of Catholics, Protestants, atheists and agnostics, among others, courageously fought the Nazis, in many cases losing their lives in the process.

The enemies, in any time, are fanaticism and repression, whatever the form. Those should always be opposed, because they're fanaticism and repression, whether those unleashing them use the excuse of a god or not.

Comments

[Claudia]

Let's start calling everyone bad an Aztec. :D