JAMES P. writes:

Bruce B. writes,

“I think the essence of contemporary liberal thought is egalitarianism. To phrase it like Jim Kalb would, it’s ‘individual autonomy subject to the formal constraint of equality’ or we should all be equally free.”

And you respond,

“Yes, the idea of equality is so central to modern liberalism, and so foreign to Nazism, that it is impossible to think of them as neatly allied.”

I disagree with the basic contention that the essence of contemporary liberalism is egalitarianism. “Equality” is merely the fig leaf used when attacking class enemies and targeting them for economic pillage. Women need “equality” with men; therefore men must be attacked and pillaged. Blacks need “equality” with whites; therefore whites must be attacked and pillaged. Gays need “equality” with heterosexuals; therefore heterosexuals must be attacked and pillaged. The rest of the world needs “equality” with America; therefore America must be attacked, pillaged, and opened to a flood of foreign immigrants.

Note that “equality” is something that is always relentlessly sought but never actually achieved, which is why new forms and manifestations of “inequality” are constantly dreamed up. Just as in the old Soviet Union, class enemies were never completely eliminated, the Left will always need supposed “inequality” to justify increasing its political power and despoiling its enemies. If the Left ever admitted that “equality” had been achieved, it would lose its reason for existence and would have to fold up its tents and go away. That’s never going to happen, and that’s what tells you that “egalitarianism” is a sham.

The supposed champions of egalitarianism have created a hierarchy of victims and oppressors that in its own way mirrors the Nazi racial hierarchy. White heterosexual males are the Jews at the bottom, and (I guess) a black handicapped lesbian immigrant would be the “master race” at the top. It goes without saying that for all the Left’s prattle about equality, the Left will never, ever consider the former equal to the latter.

As for freedom and autonomy, just try saying something against blacks, women, gays, or immigrants at work, and you’ll find out how much freedom and autonomy you really have.

Thus, I conclude that Greg’s points are basically valid, and the issue of whether the Nazis were “left” or “right” is merely a distraction. Leftism and Nazism have a great deal in common both in theory and in actual practice.

Laura writes:

There is a major difference that James P. overlooks.

The Nazis never thought of themselves as egalitarians. They thought of themselves as supremacists. Even if egalitarianism is a sham for the reasons James P. mentions, it is still an ideology that people believe in. They use the language of equality. The challenge is to show that this is actually the language of supremacism and that life is always hierarchical. The question is who will be at the top and what principles they will uphold.

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James P. responds:

The Nazis did think of themselves as egalitarians, and preached equality — among Germans. The Nazis preached that the Jews had achieved unfair advantages over the Germans and other Aryans, and thus needed leveling. Today the Left preaches that white males have achieved unfair advantages over “others” and thus need leveling. In both the Nazi, the Soviet, and the modern Leftist idea of “equality”, there is a government agent that coercively achieves this goal, and a vanguard party that decides how the goal will be achieved:

Nazi parlance: equality among Germans (goal), Aryans (good guys who are victimized), Jews and Slavs (enemies and oppressors), Nazi Party (vanguard of the good guys)

Soviet parlance: equality among the proletariat (goal), proletariat (good guys who are victimized), capitalists (enemies and oppressors), CPSU (vanguard of the good guys)

Modern Leftist parlance: equality among those living in America (goal), women, gays and minorities (good guys who are victimized), white male heterosexuals (enemies and oppressors), Democrats (vanguard of the good guys)

The Nazis are often represented as uniquely vicious because Jews were their enemies as an “accident of birth” and could never choose to do anything to escape Nazi enmity. The Jews were always and forever the enemy and the oppressor, and as such had no right to defend themselves from their Nazi “victims.” Today, in America, a white heterosexual male is an enemy due to an accident of birth, and will always and forever be the enemy and the oppressor. As such, he has no right to defend himself from attack by his non-white “victims.” He cannot achieve “equality” with non-whites any more than a Jew could achieve equality with Nazi Germans.

Egalitarian Leftism is an ideology that people believe in — but so, too, were Nazism and Soviet Communism in their time.

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

 We should always remember that what we call Nazism was National Socialism. The racial component in Nazism was hierarchical. The “Aryan Race” (Germans and “kindred peoples”) were superior (hence positively unequal) to all other races, but within the “Aryan” community, the ideal was the usual, socialist-egalitarian ideal. Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will has a long sequence in which the different delegations to the Nuremburg rally (1936) present their colors. The sequence is fascinating for its many resonances with modern liberal rituals. Within the racialist context, the delegations (from Thuringia, Upper Saxony, Lower Saxony, this Gau and that Gau) represent the internal diversity of the German Nation; they are regionally “different,” but their differences are equal.

Nazi society would have been a totally conformist society, had it survived. The Fuhrer or “Leader” would have “represented” the citizen, who would be encouraged by the institutions to imitate the “Leader.” Hitler took great care to appear a “normal” person; he was not extravagant in his appearances and he endeavored to communicate with the Volk or people. As In Russian under the Bolshevik regime, especially during its Stalinist phase, almost no room existed for indviduality. The ideal person of Nazi sculpture resembles the ideal person of Stalinist sculpture.

Greg J. responds:

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