I don’t know whether you should punch neo-Nazis or not outside of immediate physical self-defense, but I’m a lot angrier at the people who say you shouldn’t than the people who say you should, even if I can’t quite jump on the hard “should” bandwagon. Because the people arguing hard you shouldn’t — it sounds like a dog whistle indicating that they don’t understand how grave and serious the situation is. The people who think you should…I really hate hurting people. Do we HAVE to hurt people? I’m not sure we’re necessarily there yet. By “I’m not sure” I don’t mean that we’re definitely not there. I mean “I’m not sure.”
Neo-Nazis are so good at doublespeak and covering up that I don’t know how many of them there are, how many undercover enablers they have, or how quickly they could take over the country. So they likely pose a real threat, but I’m not sure how serious the immediate threat is. I think that some can be fought with reason and friendship in some cases, because people have actually done that, but I also know that a technique many have is to convince you that you can defeat them on an open battle of ideas when you actually can’t, so I’m not sure that’s always the best method. Also, it’s cruel to tell someone to make nice to someone who is abusing them, and I don’t think anyone should be encouraged to do that, as a matter of principle.
So if talking doesn’t necessarily work or is not necessarily advisable, there’s violence. But first…what’s the threat? The actual violent threat? Can we effectively fight against armed militias? Most liberals don’t believe in guns, it seems, and those that do…aren’t equipped, necessarily, to fight armed militias. And we could try to catch up, but is that a winning strategy? Would that start an arms race? Is that a necessary evil? Or will that accelerate violent actions by neo-Nazis? If we open with violence, won’t neo-Nazis be more violent back?. I don’t know if we have the power to win or not, if that is the case, because I don’t know how powerful neo-Nazis are, how many enablers they have, or how many followers they have. If we fight them, will we squelch them? Or will we just send them deeper into hiding and growing, preparing for the next attack? This is especially a concern in the age of Trump.
Trump uses violence to get his way. He incites violence, on purpose, to separate people and invigorate his base. He is good at this. It’s how he won. It is, incidentally, largely how his buddy Putin basically got a dictatorship in Russia — setting people to war on social justice issues while he attends to his agenda.
There’s also the troubling issue of neo-Nazis and white supremacists being the actual instigators of violence. Many on the left say that they are actively encouraging violence on their side, and that antifa (who is a distinct group, not just people against fascists — let’s be honest) is protecting people who have been attacked. If that’s the case, then I fully support self-defense. I don’t know how often that’s the case; honestly, I’ve looked at several videos, and sometimes it seems as if antifa is fighting “peaceful” protestors, and sometimes it looks like it’s the other way around.
It’s been argued to me that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are intrinsically violent, and thus fighting them is always justified. This is a strong argument, but I am not sure that violence is the best way to attack them. Not because it’s wrong in and of itself, but because I am not sure about the consequences, as discussed earlier.
I also think that the reasoning here seems a bit confusing. Are we attacking these people because they have physically assaulted us, as an immediate response? Or is the argument that, even if they haven’t, we should fight them as a matter of principle?
If it’s the latter, a secondary question regards who we should consider a Nazi. Some people seem to actually mean self-proclaimed neo-Nazis, while others expand that to white Supremacists, others to the right, and still others insist that it includes many who would be categorized by most as centrists. The difficult part of drawing the line is that we aren’t just fighting against neo-Nazis — the war gets larger when you include those who focus disproportionately on black-on-black crime and undocumented immigrants of color; the majority of white Americans still think that racism against whites is worse than racism against blacks. One of the questions I have been struggling with regarding this larger category some on the left label “white supremacists” is how closely affiliated they are with neo-Nazis. I already know that in many ways they are enablers, but are they so inseparable that we have to be violent towards them, too? And would we win?
Because let’s be honest – one of the reasons why we have laws against violence is that we don’t want people to be violent against us. At the end of the day, my main goal isn’t to kill all neo-Nazis – it’s to protect people of color, and by extension people in general. That’s honestly what I’m here for.
There is the possibility that the threat of violence, and the moral view that this violence is OK, may hush up neo-Nazis, whether it is acted on or not. However, many people of color already have the reputation of being violent, so I’m also worried about ripple effects. We already have cops who shoot first and ask questions later – if the reputation of black people being violent becomes more prominent, then how much worse would things be? I’m not sure.
I also think that, partly, there is a dichotomy here that is delicate. Some violence is justifiable, possibly, but I want to be clear about why I’m in favor of it. If I’m not in favor of the violence primarily because it was self-defense, but rather because it involved neo-Nazis (or Nazi enablers), I’d like to be concrete about that. Many seem impatient when I wait on the facts concerning whether violence by groups such as Antifa are responses to concrete instances of physical violence or instigated by them, and it seems to me that the reason many want to see them as responses is because it doesn’t matter if they are responses are not; Nazis should be punched on account of general principle, and the people holding this view are thus more prone to believe further justifications of that violence. But those further justifications are not necessary if Nazis are supposed to be punched as a matter of general principle.
But, back to the question a few paragraphs ago: If we aren’t just talking about self-admitted neo-Nazis, but also about the larger “alt-right” category, or the even larger conservative/libertarian category, or the larger conservative/libertarian/centrist category….when does the violent fight become unjustifiable? Is it possible to simply focus on neo-Nazis, or must we focus on this larger category of Americans? Because that could scare a lot of people; whether it is right or not, even if we won, it might require fighting against nearly half (if not more) of the country, and while there may be some glorious stories of martyrdom, my main goal – which is to keep innocent people from getting shot – may not actually happen on this rout. If there is a localized and specific problem, we could remove it much more easily and with more focus than something decentered and vast. While the rest may be enablers, removing what they are enabling might be the most effective route of action. This is not to say that the enablers wouldn’t be attacked, but the focus would be on neo-Nazis, and the hard task would be to expose these enablers (even to themselves) as enablers.
I’m of course well aware that the Civil Rights movement often put people through quite a bit of violence to accomplish goals. This was largely due, I think, to black people who purposefully went into harm’s way, convicting the moral consciousness of much of the United States. I am not sure that method is viable now. First, many have repeatedly shown, in my experience, an averseness to MLK, especially his practice of marching without a permit, when they condemn Black Lives Matter. Second, most people these days aren’t willing to take violence lying down; I doubt MLK’s nonviolent program would work. Although it’s true that many of MLK’s methods were unpopular at the time; still, I’m not sure how effective this violence will be under a Trump administration.
There’s also the reality that violence brings destruction. It’s true that the destruction can be constructive, in that it often gets attention from administrations and can be an attack on sources of oppression. At the same time, at some point much of what is destroyed may have to be built back up. So one thing I’m wondering is that – if we really burn things to the ground – are we willing to build things back up? Because that’s difficult. On a large scale, there’s a history of destruction of hierarchies eventually leaving a vacuum. Who would fill it? If the fight is based on violence and destruction, who is to say that the leader who arises will not be violent and destructive teirself, or that the resulting populace will not have a penchant for violence and destruction? This is not to say that destruction cannot be engaged in, but that if it is engaged in it might help to have a game plan for what happens if we actually win. This is also a very difficult project, so I wonder if it might be more advisable to just work on changing the current system than building the entire thing from scratch.
There’s also the matter of what to encourage other people to do. Encouraging people to be violent can have very dangerous consequences for the people who are convinced. I wonder if it might destroy their lives more than it helps them (getting them thrown in prison, etc. — many black people I’ve seen have said they won’t be violent, although they approve of it, because of the possibility of negative consequences to their person). So, I wonder – are there safer, effective ways to fight? I suspect there may be.
This is not to obligate someone to nonviolence. If someone must be violent to neo-Nazis, I think it should be understood that they may have a visceral reaction that somewhat justifies it, and I am always in favor of self-defense (however, I’m not necessarily sure about physical violence as the best way to fight institutionalized violence in the age of Trump, although it is certainly the best way, it seems, to fight physical real-time violence in by neo-Nazis). I also doubt that discussions as to whether a violent reaction is right or wrong in an abstract moral realm are actually productive – perhaps it would be more advisable to focus on making actions productive. We could demean violence and thus hurt the fight against neo-Nazis, or we could encourage understanding of violence without necessarily stating that it is the best strategy for future efforts. My concern is less on morality and more on the simple fight to not get harmed by neo-Nazis.
Anyways…I’m thinking about several facets of this, and will continue to. It seems a bit complicated to me, but at the end of the day my position on the issue is focused on what seems to work. And I don’t think the same thing works for every person. I’m not a great organizer, for example. But when I write, several people read. So I choose my battles based on what I’m good at. I think our fight requires a certain amount of consideration for different ways of engaging; people can and should serve where they are most needed, which it seems takes some focus, self-awareness, and a bit of courage.
The end goal, again, is not on disembodied morality, for me. It’s on what works. What will actually make things better for black individuals, and how can what I advocate contribute to that? And there may not be a perfect answer to that, but we still each have to act from our vantage points, with our abilities, based on what we know, with the flexibility to shift with an ever-changing situation.
Thank you for reading.
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