Thursday, December 15, 2022

"Who Goes Nazi?”

Leah Finnegan in 2017:

The article’s premise is very simple. Thompson imagines a dinner party attended by well-heeled guests. Then she tells us which ones she thinks are, or will become, Nazis. “Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality,” she writes. “It appeals to a certain type of mind.”

According to Thompson, the most successful Nazis are not overt in their Nazism. Subtle, ruthless, cerebral, and bitter people are more likely to “go Nazi.” “The frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success — they would all go Nazi in a crisis,” she writes. Other people go Nazi, she says, because they are really dumb, or will want to be close to power when the timing is convenient.