Saturday, June 28, 2014

the rise of the nipster


rollingstone | Coincidentally or not, the emergence of the nipster has taken place at the same time as the rise of a new far-right political scene in Europe: In this May's European elections, the National Front — the anti-immigrant party headed by Marine Le Pen — won the biggest voting share of parties in the French elections, and the British United Kingdom Independence Party won 27.5 percent of the vote in the U.K. Many people link these parties' success to their ability to package themselves as a friendlier, less-threatening far right. Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde has argued that these parties largely swept into power by linking the euro crisis "to their core ideological features: nativism, authoritarianism and populism." 

The current German wave of, for instance, hip, vegan neo-Nazis functions in a similar way. Rafael says they attempt to slide into debates where young people wouldn't expect them, and then sell their politics as a palatable outlet. "They use subjects like globalization and animal protection as entry points, and then offer a very simple worldview that makes complex subjects very easy to understand," says Rafael. "Of course, in the end, it's always about racism and anti-Semitism and nationalism."  The danger — in both cases — is that extreme-right positions might quietly shift into the mainstream.

Over the past two years, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an associate professor at American University in Washington, D.C., has been conducting research with young people in Berlin schools who are on the periphery of the extreme-right. She says that, if anything, the change in neo-Nazi fashion has made it more difficult to step in when young people are being embroiled in the scene. "If you were a teacher," she says, "you used to be able to identify a skinhead in your class and you could think of ways to intervene. But now it's harder to mainstream society to understand who these young people are and to engage with them."

Miller-Idriss suggests that for a generation raised on Facebook and Twitter, it may no longer feel ridiculous to, say, love Rihanna in real life but disparage black people on Facebook. "The social media space allows young people to have different expressions of their identities in different places," she says. "This generation of youth likes the idea of having more control over their own identity. They've realized your style doesn't have to be connected to your ideology. You can dress however you want to and still be a neo-Nazi."

With this in mind, Koehler thinks there is a need in Germany for a new, broader educational campaign on how to identify members of the extreme right. "A short while ago we did a study with judges and lawyers, who thought they weren't encountering neo-Nazis because they weren't seeing any skinheads," he says, "but they have no idea anymore what a neo-Nazi looks like."

12 comments:

Vic78 said...

What's with these guys and the damn gene talk? Genes are manipulated throughout one's life. So is it possible that a person manipulates the genes through intense practice? Is there a gene for liking something?

Vic78 said...

Those guys do know where rap comes from. It's not like rock where the history was white washed. The rap's a little recent and the pioneers make sure you know who they are. This reminds me of the time I found out white supremacists were getting prepared by studying Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu jitsu. I think the word is irony.

CNu said...

What's with these guys and the damn gene talk?

lol, you know exactly what's with these guys and their damn gene talk. Why I keep this subject uppermost in my topical expressions. Light, heat, and more damn light is what's required to keep these roaches from permeating the baseboards and permanently and irreversibly infecting the science. Science is not an inherently values-neutral activity. It has to be vigorously scrutinized and challenged to keep it objective and truth-oriented.

CNu said...

Errbody gotta have a hobby, even the biggest losers...,

BigDonOne said...

Translation: The gene-related PRR keeps getting more difficult to "refute" by just declaring it to be Junk Science....

CNu said...

It's a twin study BD. Nothing particularly new or exciting here. Without exception, you're still grounded on the twin shoals of junk and bunk with no prospects for a eureka resolution anywhere in sight.

Braveheart said...

Im not afraid of difficult,but untouchable is nonsense.

Vic78 said...

Gladwell said to be a phenom you had to put in 10,000 hours. You can master something in less time. 10,000 is for those at the top.

CNu said...

To do something requiring skill, like it was your job for 5 years - doesn't seem like a phenomenal investment of time and effort to me. With the overwhelming majority of these humans involved in nothing more than food-powered make-work clerical activities, instead of the real work of making and growing things, I think we've just collectively forgotten what real knowledge, skill, and ability is made of. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/opinion/inferior-products-and-labor-drive-modern-construction.html

CNu said...

I'm telling you that you wouldn't touch him. There are monsters running riot over the fictional human rights of peasants this very minute. You haven't done anything to them and you're not going to do anything to any of them either. You better just hope that one of these monsters operating under color of authority doesn't get you in its firing line, because if it does, you're toast.

Ed Dunn said...

I know, i like Braveheart persona but I went after monsters and they are not for the lightweight and simple talkers. You have to be as skillful as you are ruthless and remember at the end of the day, no one gives a fuck or a care and there will be plenty of level 1 and level 3 orcs that have to be taken out of the way. Even in that case, the enemy is untouchable and what make them untouchable is not them physically but the mass of people who remain ignorant and their ignorant validates their existence.


The only reason evil prevails is when good people do nothing Braveheart - when you understand that concept, then you realize why people are telling you some of them are untouchable..

Vic78 said...

Here's a good one: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-the-rich-are--mistakenly--worried-about-the-middle-class-151842954.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory

Master Arbitrageur Nancy Pelosi Is At It Again....,

🇺🇸TUCKER: HOW DID NANCY PELOSI GET SO RICH? Tucker: "I have no clue at all how Nancy Pelosi is just so rich or how her stock picks ar...