For the record, viewing a paragraph from Sartre is also imagery. But it’s neither satisfying nor original.
Well, if you’re going to police our intentions, perhaps you could supply some satisfaction to go with it. I’m open to suggestions. Be specific.
How do we get from me expressing “visceral distaste” to discussion of “policing”? That’s not unlike a lot of the backlash I encounter against what many perceive to be “political correct”. Taking a few seconds to explain that I find something offensive is not the same as telling anyone that they cannot say (or draw, or shoop) it.
I think that your first and last sentences here contradict each other. People like to have their cake and eat it, making something subjective or objective as it suits the changing perspective of their argument. Meaning is established through consensus. So I participate in this consensus by stating that I find the practice offensive. YMMV
When one’s position is essentially a moral one - as arguments against racism usually are - I think that it is important to take the moral high ground. Deliberately violently defacing a religious symbol to attack a group of people is actually classified as a hate crime in many places, and is IMO not taking the moral high ground. It is compartmentalizing the use of the same harmful tactics as one’s opposition.
Even if it was not my religion specifically, I would still call it out as hypocritical. If not upon the basis of content, then of process.
Who are you speaking for here? Would it be safe to say that you are personally singling me out because you disagree with my opinion?
Why not both?
In what places would defacing a swastika be classified as a hate-crime?
I think maybe you meant that for me?
Well, this:
I sure wouldn’t want to be seen as stifling debate or discussion, or be intellectually dishonest. So how can we be better at this?
…except that “white nationalist” is itself a euphemism for the Klan et al.
It’s still more accurate than “alt-right”. Nobody gets confused about whether white nationalists are white supremacists. They’re the same.
It could be anywhere which protects people from being attacked over their religion. That was more to illustrate that there is some precedent for many considering the practice to be hurtful, not that I care about the legality of it in itself. I am thick-skinned enough to deal with it, but I think that the practice does illustrate a degree of hypocrisy.
I don’t know if we can, but I would suggest more debate than facile types of propaganda, such as reducing people to caricature. And being rather consistent in one’s arguments and methods. Debate not principally amongst ourselves, but with bigots, “the other”. Keep it rational and reasoned, despite everything they throw at us. Confront them on the stage or on the street or on the net - not with a label, but with their own ignorance.
Or it could be nowhere at all then?
Sure it could be. Are you suggesting that if one is unlikely to be charged with a hate crime, that there is no double standard at play here? That wasn’t what I was getting at. I am not going to do your homework for you, feel free to do some research.
FWIW I am not even convinced by the sociological model of “performative speech” which hate speech laws are based upon, but I think that’s a separate topic.
Righto. 
ActionAbe, you beat me to it, came here to post the same article - well worth reading in light of this conversation. Having been watching the trajectory of this, and related movements over the years - I’m both glad and sad that it’s now getting more attention - glad in the hope that publicity will prove disinfectant to the virus, and sad for the obvious circumstantial reasons.
Another commentor brought up strategy questions regarding not wanting to give airtime to a marginal group out of concern that it will inevitably attract more energy. I’d propose that on the other hand - more public repudiation of these ideas could repel potential adherents, but perhaps more importantly inoculate the culture to an extent by making it less obscure and more boring. Will the best approach be based on classical struggle of ideas, or marketing tactics or ???
(Umberto) Eco is firm in claiming “There was only one Nazism,” he says, “the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change.” Eco reduces the qualities of what he calls “Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism” down to 14 “typical” features. …
… Link
Maybe have the red be more irregular too, so it looks a little like a pool of blood?
The Hindu Swastika is slightly different.
HOWEVER.
I had a Jewish American visit our offices & manufacturing facilities around 10yrs ago. The Swastika is there everywhere in India, especially on machinery and manufacturing set-ups. He refused to enter the manufacturing facility, he was livid, he was red in the face.
I had a tough time discerning why he was so upset (I had no idea he was Jewish, and Swastika is way too common here to think about it) and once I understood, explaining to him that THIS Swastika has nothing to do with what Hitler used (NOT-Swastika)
Oh, I didn’t know that. I just used a common meme format with Drake on the left half. Interesting though, as that implies a deeper meaning to my quick, shallow effort.
(The phrase refers to the racial yardstick of having skin white enough that when one is red in the face it’s visible. I guess they forgot about Jews?)
Ok, but these aren’t caricatures. These people are real and they at least include Neo Nazis. (I like that article ActionAbe posted. I can deal with Nazis now, but maybe I’ll try something else for the rest later. I need to warm up a bit.)
Debate will probably include satire, jabs at the enemy’s sore spots, editorial cartoons, rational debate in pure text form, and posters.
I don’t think it’s knee-jerk to paint or talk about Nazis when there are actual Nazis walking around as part of something called the “alt right.” But here’s the problem, as I see it, and I’m not speaking for Mr. Fishkin, but as an artist myself, I don’t know what else to do. Not specifically.
< shrug > Methods of debate include the visual. That’s the punch.
But this isn’t the only forum I attend. I also have family which believes in some pretty wrongheaded things. I do the best I can with words, with debate, but I am not exactly patient, and sometimes, a picture can say a thousand words better than I can say them.
And they (alt right) use memes. Why shouldn’t we?
But if these aren’t the right words suitable, what should it look like? I’m open to ideas. I know it wasn’t my first choice to slice up a Nazi swastika. But my other takes didn’t really work very well, and probably don’t read because relatively few folk even know what fasces is. Symbols are components of communication, and we often work with the familiar for that reason. It’s already part of the lexicon, and people know it. (Even the word lexicon’s roots essentially mean images of words.)
The original symbol for fascism is boring, and maybe it should remain so. But it doesn’t have much modern meaning at this point.
[Edited for typo/link-adding]
wow that’s a great quote: it’s the behavior of both trollies, and our soon to be president as well.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
( found a longer excerpt here: Anti-Semite and Jew )
Use Klan-associated imagery instead?
