Talk:Nazism/Archive 6

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Socialist or Conservative

That the Nazis resemble party X is not a question that can be addressed in an encyclopedia. What can be addressed is how parties and politicians in the Weimar Republic perceived themselves and each other, or claimed to perceive themselves and each other. The Nazis believed themselves socialists and revolutionaries. The conservative parties did not believe the Nazis to be conservatives. If you want to associate the Nazis with party X, find a Weimar Republic politician or think tank associating the Nazis with party X - not as evidence that they really were like party X, but as evidence of the politics happening at the time.

If we are going to revisit the edit war as to whether the Nazis supported capitalism or socialism, let us at least quote communists of the Weimar Republic calling them supporters of capitalism, and capitalists of the Weimar Republic calling them supporters of socialism - inserting actual evidence that tends to support the conclusions we desire, while leaving the conclusions unstated. James A. Donald 00:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

"Godwin's Law" and "Godwin's Tarpit"

Does this article breach godwin's law? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesbrownmonster (talk • contribs) 14:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha! Duh. 24.223.151.194 (talk) 10:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

What IS "Godwin's Law"??? I read Mike Godwin's article online (see summary in Wikipedia article) re his "Godwin's Law" which I understand to be Godwin's observation about dialogue: if differing people blog long enough about a controversial subject, someone will call someone else a "Nazi".

Thus, people NOW have this "magic phrase" to counter the 4-letter "N" word. You call me "Nazi" or my ideas "nazi like". Well, I need not refute you point by point. I merely speak BACK the new magic phrase "Godwin's Law'. The implication seems to be that it is NEVER fair to use the term "Nazi" or "Nazilike". Thus, true scholarly analysis is short circuited into name calling.

Also, some of the editorial battles over this article on Nazis/National Socialists reflect the societal ongoing battle to tar and feather one's opponents with any aspect (however individually harmless or tangential) with any portion of the word Nazi.

A kind of Godwin's Tar Pit, so to speak.

This article's discussions are interesting to read as a summary of the ideology wars on the 4 letter "N" word; but I would NOT use this article on National Socialists / Nazis as a solid major source. Because - I'm not sure how much of this article is truly objective scholarship and how much is part of "who can I tar - however lightly - with the 4-letter N word".Victorianezine (talk) 03:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Nazism vs. National Socialism

Shouldn't this article be called the latter? I mean, Nazism, is an informal abbreviation. Hitler and the rest of his party, never called themselves "Nazis". It was a pejorative slang used by the allies. The title of this article, is obviously wrong and misleading. — EliasAlucard|Talk 01:00 03 Sept, 2007 (UTC)

See the move discussion above. The outcome was 25 to 5 against moving to National Socialism. --mav 15:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't really matter the least as far as I'm concerned. The proper name for this ideology, is not Nazism. Its actual name, is National Socialism. Just to take an example here, Mohammedan is a name many Muslims are called, based on their religion, being followers of Muhammad. Yet, despite this, the article is called Muslim. The same rules should apply on this article. Be that as it may, that Nazism is colloquially more common in the English language, that is beside the point. We are trying to be encyclopaedic here, and we should call the ideology by its proper name, not after informal slang. Britannica Encyclopaedia calls it National Socialism.[1] You know my point is valid here. — EliasAlucard|Talk 22:48 03 Sept, 2007 (UTC)

The example you note, Muslim, follows our common names naming convention while this proposed move would not follow that convention. Exceptions are granted, but on a case-by-case basis that requires consensus building. So far, the consensus here is to not allow for an exception. I'm now off to other things. --mav 22:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

You will not find one single political party, calling itself "Nazi". They are all called National Socialist. Basing the title of this article on the most common name in Hollywood films, is not encyclopaedic. The title of this article, clearly has NPOV issues, seeing as how many of the votes who opposed the National Socialism term in that vote for discussion, claimed that National Socialism has nothing to do with Socialism. Yeah right. — EliasAlucard|Talk 07:35 04 Sept, 2007 (UTC)

National Socialism and Nazism are not the same. National Socialism is a political ideology with nationalism and socialism as major principles, among others. Nazism is a specific incarnation of National Socialism (i.e. the incarnation that governed Germany from 1933-1945). This is obvious in the name itself, as the term “Nazi†and its derivatives (Nazism) stem from the formal German name “National Socialist German Workers Party†(NSDAP) – “German Workers Partyâ€, obviously, indicating the specificity. To use an analogy, Volkswagen is to car as Nazism is to National Socialism. Not all cars are Volkswagens, not all National Socialists are Nazis. A National Socialist would be expected to believe that their nation/culture/race is superior to others, but that nation/culture/race need not be Germanic, as it would be with a Nazi.

That being said, however, this article should indeed be titled “Nazismâ€, as it is currently written about the aforementioned specific incarnation. It seems to me that this discussion should really be about whether a new article on “generic†National Socialism, so to speak, is needed. Given sparse historical examples, there would be obvious challenges to striping away uniquely NSDAP elements to describe “generic†National Socialism. Elcobbola 19:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This article's name must be changed. "See the move discussion above. The outcome was 25 to 5 against moving to National Socialism". WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. Mitsos 09:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a support for a move to "National Socialism", for the reasons cited below (in favor of support). Should be "National Socialism", not the sensationalistic "Nazism", which carries a negative connotation on behalf of those using "Nazi", implying biased POV. --Sasoriza 04:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe some historical movements deserve sensational appellation because they were, in fact, rather sensational. Nazism is one of them. There's no reason their own name for themselves is automatically any more appropriate or less POV than the name used by the Allies. You might as well change the title of an article on serial killers to reflect the fact that they prefer to be called "purveyors of the cool-aid."0nullbinary0 (talk) 12:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosities sake, in your opinion should the word Nazism or National Socialism not carry a "negative connotation." We are talking about imperialistic, militaristic, murderous racists. --Anymouse —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.192.65.5 (talk) 01:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

We are talking about imperialistic, militaristic, murderous racists — Yes, and the same applies on Islam, but its main article Islam doesn't have a slang title despite that. Why the double standard? Also, Nazism is not an NPOV title. — EliasAlucard|Talk 16:38 26 Oct, 2007 (UTC)

Semantics-- Most of the argument I see is centered around semantics. I think we can all agree on some basic premises: The NSDAP was a reaction to what it perceived as the failure of Weimar, the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles, and the plight of the German economy during the Great Depression. I think a more relevant debate would focus less on what an individual chooses to call the movement (Nazism v. National Socialism), and more on the underpinnings of the movement itself. I am not a professional historian, but I recall as a history major in college seeing the terms used almost interchangeably, with very little attention paid to any distinction between the two. Just one opinion here. Wildcarrde (talk) 12:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Without a doubt the name should be changed to "National Socialism". The most condemning evidence is the fact that the regime itself, (Third Reich per say) never called itself "Nazis" or referred to their policies as "Nazism". It was always referred to as the "National Socialist Party". "Nazi" is political shorthand and not the proper term. I believe it is safe to say that any learned individual with familiarity on the issue, would undoubtedly agree. If someone continues to disagree I challenge you to pour through records and speeches and find evidence that the regime ever referred to itself as "Nazis". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apazdon (talk • contribs) 18:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that they didn't call themselves Nazis, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't. We can't call them the National-Socialists either, because national-socialism evidently originated in Austro-Hungary in the 1890s and developed into both Czech and Austrian-German versions which coexisted for two entire decades before Adolf Hitler joined the Bavarian imitation. There was also the Black Front, a breakaway party within German national-socialism that opposed Hitler's NSDAP from a radically socialist position. I have no enthusiasm for the term "Nazi", but I concur with Elcobbola's observations above. We stand in need of some terminology — however artificial or unhistoric — which will differentiate Hitler's national-socialism from other sorts of national-socialism, and "Nazism" seems to be the available (and familiar) candidate. Gnostrat (talk) 03:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"National Socialist" has the appropriate negative connotations associated with that party's philosophies. "Nazism" is pejorative. There's a difference. Insistence on using a pejorative term over a historical term is one of the things that hurts Wikipedia's credibility in the eyes of many. Warren Dew (talk) 06:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Preferring a pejorative (but now more common) name over the self-chosen name isn't really the issue. We've discussed this further down the page — many times over — and with a consistent outcome. Wikipedia's credibility would also be hurt by the historical inaccuracy of naming this ideology National Socialism in a way which privileges it as the National Socialism, over and above all the others which have called themselves by that name, some of which have an earlier, more original (and arguably more accurate) claim to it. Gnostrat (talk) 13:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

When there is a well established primary meaning of some term then the custom is to use that topic for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. -- Vision Thing -- 16:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

That would apply only if there were no common(er) synonym for the term in its primary meaning. In this case the alternative, "Nazism", is the readily available, familiar way of differentiating Hitlerism from other national-socialisms. Why resort to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC when WP:COMMONNAME gives us the simpler, unambiguous and straightforward solution? Put it another way: what you suggest would be like reserving Dinosaur for the primary, but incorrect, narrow usage (excluding birds) and relegating the scientifically correct broad usage (including birds) to Dinosaur (disambiguation). Gnostrat (talk) 03:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

We can save a lot of time if we acknowledge that the term "National Socialism" is used by people promoting right-wing politics in the United States. Many people promote the term online. Having it here lends them the credibility they desire. 90.135.239.234 (talk) 21:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Requested move