Has the word “Nazi” lost impact / meaning?

[MiddleRoad]

The left spent the last 5 years calling their opponents “Nazis.” This is still done to this day. The right during the Bush years called liberals “Nazis”

Outside of the historical context of the word, regarding the real Nazis of 1930s-1940s Europe, has the word Nazi lost its impact / meaning through being overused?

[Christian Man]

I think it's overused but there are still unfortunately plenty of Nazis in this country, some of whom have a decent following.

[Reaganfan Democrat]

I think it's overused but there are still unfortunately plenty of Nazis in this country, some of whom have a decent following.

In this forum, even.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In the sense of actually being a reliable indicator of Nazi beliefs, absolutely.
Any pejorative can be rendered diluted or even meaningless with overuse.

[DaleCooper]

Yeah, totally meaningless now. But to be fair, many political labels are the same way. Neoliberal, socialism, colonialism, imperialism, racism, it's all been so overused that any of them could potentially be referring to anyone on any side of the political spectrum.

[Schiff for Senate]

Yeah, totally meaningless now. But to be fair, many political labels are the same way. Neoliberal, socialism, colonialism, imperialism, racism, it's all been so overused that any of them could potentially be referring to anyone on any side of the political spectrum.

This.

The way 'Nazi' has been overused to the point of being more or less meaningless is actually outrageous. The term 'Nazi' is thrown around by left-wingers and right-wingers alike to refer to those they disagree with. Same goes for Holocaust - mainly right-wingers, but at the drop of the hat the comparisons to Nazis and the Holocaust start. Like seriously. We need to stop trivializing WWII and stop throwing around terms like 'Nazi' and 'Holocaust' unnecessarily.

[Mr. Smith]

The farther away an event is, the more it can be apocryphized.

But the extremes semi-justly do take up such mantles to resemble Nazis or Commies or Imperials or Racists when democracy fails their noble aims, and once enough people do that and it gets normalized, then it's no longer an insult.

[Thank you for being a friend...]

In a way that would probably bewilder and horrify World War II soldiers, "Nazi" to some has seemed to become another word for someone you find overbearingly oppressive and nasty, like that "Soup Nazi" character.  Joan Rivers (a comedienne I really liked) had suggested that her opponent on the Celebrity Apprentice was such, in her words "worse than Hitler". 

I think Nazi/Hitler is the epitome of evil in our culture so when we're really angry we jump to that without even realizing that it's never wise to compare anything to Nazi/Hitler.  There's been countless outbursts over the years from people that later had to apologize and backtrack because they compared something to the Holocaust or a person to Hitler.

[parochial boy]

When the word Nazi is used pretty much everyone has some conception that it is referring to authoritarian or nationalist ideas. Same as with neoliberalism where pretty much everyone understands it as meaning broadly being supportive of pro-free market economic policies. In that respect, the people who go around claiming the words are "meaningless" are really stretching the meaning of what "meaningless" means. Which is quite ironic when you think about it.

More to the point though, it is not exactly difficult to understand that words can have a sliding scale of meaning from the quite broad way in which both are used coloquially, to the more precise, more academic versions which actually do have very useful and important meanings because if you start to try and exclude all use of the word "neoliberal" or "nazi" then you are left with a gap in how you describe certain phenomena, in that in terms leads to it becoming rather more difficult to understand them.

In that way, I'm always very wary of the "word x doesn't mean anything more" crowd, because what that really seems to be trying to do is to delegitimse criticism of those concepts by the way of saying you can't criticise them because they don't exist. Quite an Orwellian form of authoritarianism when you think about it.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Yeah, totally meaningless now. But to be fair, many political labels are the same way. Neoliberal, socialism, colonialism, imperialism, racism, it's all been so overused that any of them could potentially be referring to anyone on any side of the political spectrum.

And now "grooming" is this year's latest trend, which is gross because it's not even meant to be political.

[OSR stands with Israel]

When the word Nazi is used pretty much everyone has some conception that it is referring to authoritarian or nationalist ideas.

The Nazis were the most evil regime in the history of at least the modern world if not all of human history , in a world that has had countless authoritarian regimes over the many centuries. Treating the Nazis like any other authoritarian regime completely underplays the evil that was Nazi Germany so please stop using it in this manner .

[DaleCooper]

Yeah, totally meaningless now. But to be fair, many political labels are the same way. Neoliberal, socialism, colonialism, imperialism, racism, it's all been so overused that any of them could potentially be referring to anyone on any side of the political spectrum.

And now "grooming" is this year's latest trend, which is gross because it's not even meant to be political.

Grooming, pedophilia, harassment, and abuse are also words that have become meaningless.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In a way that would probably bewilder and horrify World War II soldiers, "Nazi" to some has seemed to become another word for someone you find overbearingly oppressive and nasty, like that "Soup Nazi" character. 

I doubt that as they were the people who started doing it. A common British expression amongst members of that generation for any petty workplace autocrat was 'Little Hitler'.

[DaleCooper]

In a way that would probably bewilder and horrify World War II soldiers, "Nazi" to some has seemed to become another word for someone you find overbearingly oppressive and nasty, like that "Soup Nazi" character. 

I doubt that as they were the people who started doing it. A common British expression amongst members of that generation for any petty workplace autocrat was 'Little Hitler'.

There's a Judy Garland film from 1945 (I think) where she's trying to deal with some obnoxious New York City bureaucrat that won't budge on the arbitrary rules. She walks away and says, "Who does he think he is, Hitler?"

[TheReckoning]

When the word Nazi is used pretty much everyone has some conception that it is referring to authoritarian or nationalist ideas. Same as with neoliberalism where pretty much everyone understands it as meaning broadly being supportive of pro-free market economic policies. In that respect, the people who go around claiming the words are "meaningless" are really stretching the meaning of what "meaningless" means. Which is quite ironic when you think about it.

More to the point though, it is not exactly difficult to understand that words can have a sliding scale of meaning from the quite broad way in which both are used coloquially, to the more precise, more academic versions which actually do have very useful and important meanings because if you start to try and exclude all use of the word "neoliberal" or "nazi" then you are left with a gap in how you describe certain phenomena, in that in terms leads to it becoming rather more difficult to understand them.

In that way, I'm always very wary of the "word x doesn't mean anything more" crowd, because what that really seems to be trying to do is to delegitimse criticism of those concepts by the way of saying you can't criticise them because they don't exist. Quite an Orwellian form of authoritarianism when you think about it.

This is pretty ridiculous. “Nazi” had a very definitive definition- someone who was a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or after they rose to power, someone who worked for their government. After the fall of the 3rd Reich, the term “Neo-Nazi” emerged, referring to people who were ideological Nazi, although not affiliated with the NSDAP, or the government.

Furthermore, Nazi ideology was, and still is, very well defined. There’s nothing hard about knowing what the term “Nazi” means, because the NSDAP was very clear about its ideology, and what they wanted. If someone doesn’t adhere to that ideology, they are not Nazi. Simple as that.

I also know you’re a strong proponent of “definitions matter,” as you argued vehemently that the common definition of “fiscal conservative” that was used on Wikipedia was indeed incorrect.

[parochial boy]

This is pretty ridiculous. “Nazi” had a very definitive definition- someone who was a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or after they rose to power, someone who worked for their government. After the fall of the 3rd Reich, the term “Neo-Nazi” emerged, referring to people who were ideological Nazi, although not affiliated with the NSDAP, or the government.

Furthermore, Nazi ideology was, and still is, very well defined. There’s nothing hard about knowing what the term “Nazi” means, because the NSDAP was very clear about its ideology, and what they wanted. If someone doesn’t adhere to that ideology, they are not Nazi. Simple as that.

I also know you’re a strong proponent of “definitions matter,” as you argued vehemently that the common definition of “fiscal conservative” that was used on Wikipedia was indeed incorrect.

Erm, you know there is a difference between sying "word x is meaningless" and "word x doesn't mean that" you know?

So on the one hand, nazi can be a specific label but can also be a colloquial expression to describe certain traits - because it has a broad meaning. Whereas using "fiscal policy" to describe raising the minimum wage is flat out wrong - because that is not what the word fiscal means. You understand the difference here right?

It's like if I said "Oh it's boiling outside today" to describe a hot summer's day. It's not literally boiling as in over 100°C, but it's an expression that people understand as being figurative. Whereas if you said, "oh it's snowing outside today" to describe the same weather. Well, that would be wrong.

(and fwiw, I would suggest re-reading the wikipedia article on fiscal conservatism, it does make it quite clear that it is about fiscal policy primarily - "with an ideological basis in free markets etc..." implies that it, well, the basis of it - but not the specific expression of it)

[TheReckoning]

This is pretty ridiculous. “Nazi” had a very definitive definition- someone who was a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or after they rose to power, someone who worked for their government. After the fall of the 3rd Reich, the term “Neo-Nazi” emerged, referring to people who were ideological Nazi, although not affiliated with the NSDAP, or the government.

Furthermore, Nazi ideology was, and still is, very well defined. There’s nothing hard about knowing what the term “Nazi” means, because the NSDAP was very clear about its ideology, and what they wanted. If someone doesn’t adhere to that ideology, they are not Nazi. Simple as that.

I also know you’re a strong proponent of “definitions matter,” as you argued vehemently that the common definition of “fiscal conservative” that was used on Wikipedia was indeed incorrect.

Erm, you know there is a difference between sying "word x is meaningless" and "word x doesn't mean that" you know?

So on the one hand, nazi can be a specific label but can also be a colloquial expression to describe certain traits - because it has a broad meaning. Whereas using "fiscal policy" to describe raising the minimum wage is flat out wrong - because that is not what the word fiscal means. You understand the difference here right?

It's like if I said "Oh it's boiling outside today" to describe a hot summer's day. It's not literally boiling as in over 100°C, but it's an expression that people understand as being figurative. Whereas if you said, "oh it's snowing outside today" to describe the same weather. Well, that would be wrong.

Nazi doesn’t not have a “broad meaning.” The actual Nazis - you know, the people who invented Nazism- would be very upset if you called anyone with authoritarian tendencies (such as Stalin) “Nazis.”

[Statilius the Epicurean]

In a way that would probably bewilder and horrify World War II soldiers, "Nazi" to some has seemed to become another word for someone you find overbearingly oppressive and nasty, like that "Soup Nazi" character. 

I doubt that as they were the people who started doing it. A common British expression amongst members of that generation for any petty workplace autocrat was 'Little Hitler'.

There's a Judy Garland film from 1945 (I think) where she's trying to deal with some obnoxious New York City bureaucrat that won't budge on the arbitrary rules. She walks away and says, "Who does he think he is, Hitler?"

Orwell was complaining about the overuse of the term 'fascist' in 1944

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

[parochial boy]

The actual Nazis - you know, the people who invented Nazism- would be very upset if you called anyone with authoritarian tendencies (such as Stalin) “Nazis.”

"don't overuse the word Nazi as it will hurt real Nazis' feelings" is definitely a strong argument right there.

[TheReckoning]

The actual Nazis - you know, the people who invented Nazism- would be very upset if you called anyone with authoritarian tendencies (such as Stalin) “Nazis.”

"don't overuse the word Nazi as it will hurt real Nazis' feelings" is definitely a strong argument right there.

More like “don’t use the word Nazi in a way that is totally different as the people who actually defined and created Nazism defined it, as it’s so obviously ridiculous.”

Let me ask you a question: we all know Biden isn’t a communist. How? Because we know what communism is (as Marx defined it) and Biden doesn’t advocate communism. Therefore, he isn’t a communist.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Obviously not. Nazis were and are very real.