I was inspired to build this quiz when I
noticed that comments on Littlegreenfootballs.com
(a popular warblog) tended to be indistinguishable in tone
and content from the writings of Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler,
and the other architects of the "final solution."
Always indistinguishable? Well,
maybe not - but close enough and often enough to be pretty
disturbing. Yes, the quotes I've used here are all "cherry-picked"
- from LGF and the Nazis both - but since the webmaster patrols
LGF pretty thoroughly it's fair to say that his site is as
defined by what he allows (e.g., calls to "sterilize"
the "subhuman" Palestinians) as it is by what he
doesn't (e.g., criticisms of Israel or George W).
If you need a reference point to understand
what I'm trying to accomplish with this, think of the "Al
Gore? Or the Unabomber?" quiz that floated around
the WWW a couple of years back.
Interesting questions present themselves:
•Are genocide (and the language of
genocide) always wrong because of *what* they represent?
•Or are genocide (and the language
of genocide) sometimes wrong and sometimes right, depending
on *who* they are deployed against?
•Is it really necessary to dehumanize "the enemy"
in order to win a war?
•If we recycle the persuasive strategies and
rhetorical tropes of the Third Reich in our battle against
"global Islamofascism," then how does that change
the way we think about other (formerly unthinkable) tactics
of total war?
I have assembled the quiz at
right so that those willing to remember the past [cf. Santayana]
might have the opportunity to reflect on its apparent repetition.
"The racial bigot identifies
another race as being less than he or even as worthless sub-human
flesh. So it is clear that the bigot is not "one of them."
Racial and ethnic bigots find support and common cause with
one another. They feed each other's need to feel superior
to another racial or ethnic group. This is of course fear-based
behaviorthat flows from their own sense
of powerlessness over their own lives."
- Peyton Quinn, Freedom From
Fear, p. 54, pub. 2004, RMCAT
