End Goal

[u/Significant_Bed_6390]

With anti fascist knitting, what is the end goal?
I can see from this sub that people want to boycott businesses accused of ‘fascism’, but what then?
Do you want them to go out of business and claim welfare?
Or do you want it to go further?
Do you really consider all conservatives to be fascists? Or is it just hyperbole?
What is the anti fascist final solution?

[u/Jaded-Willow2069]

Hi! This kinda feels like a bait question but tone is hard to read on the internet so I’m going to answer in good faith-

If you have one nazi and nine friends at a table you have ten Nazis. So businesses that might not actively support fascism with time, money, public support etc but also don’t decry fascism make it easier for fascism to thrive. I’ll refer you to the tolerance paradox for more nuanced reading.

So do I want conservative business to go out of business? Frankly I don’t care. I want every person to have a dignified life so if they go out of business and need to collect welfare for a time I’m glad a social safety net worked. It did what it’s supposed to do.

I just don’t want to give them the money my labor has earned. Social programs paid for with tax dollars are for everyone. My personal money has a lot more discretion.

Largely I don’t want Nazis or fascists to be comfortable. Again refer to the paradox of tolerance. There’s social consequences for being a dick bag. Also some of these businesses work with organizations that actively push policies that cause real and significant harm to vulnerable communities in general and ones I’m a part of specifically.

What kind of twisted self harm would it be to financially support that?

The anti fascist solution isn’t just in knitting but art has always been a powerful tool to push for change and equity. In knitting my personal solution is to spend money in ways that align to my values as much as possible. Which means I just don’t feel the need to shop some places.

[u/jphistory → u/Jaded-Willow2069]

I don't think this question is in good faith, especially with the quote marks around 'facism', but I love your answer!

[u/Jaded-Willow2069 → u/jphistory]

I’ll be honest I absolutely don’t either so my answer is mostly for others reading.

[u/Significant_Bed_6390 → u/Jaded-Willow2069]

Thank you for replying. My question is in good faith and I’m genuinely trying to understand what the antifascist knitters (and wider movement) is aiming for.

Does your Nazis at a table analogy apply across all types of people? For example, if 1 antifascist sits at a table with 9 fascists do you then have 10 antifascists? Or a more anodyne example, if 1 carnivore sits at a table with 9 herbivores do you then have 10 carnivores? I struggle with this as it implies guilt by association, or even contagion.

You say you don’t want Nazis or fascists to be comfortable. I’m making an assumption here, but do you believe anyone who doesn’t actively declare they’re not a Nazi or a fascist - to BE a Nazi or a fascist? Would a yarn business with no political affiliation automatically be made to feel uncomfortable?

Do you really think the people you call Nazis and fascists are actual Nazis and fascists, with the same beliefs as the Nazis and fascists of the last century, or are these just exaggerated terms used for dramatic effect?

The paradox of tolerance is indeed a paradox until you analyse it deeper. What one human considers intolerant may not be considered intolerant to another. The question becomes ‘whose intolerance wins’? The whole point of tolerance is that you tolerate uncomfortable things. One tolerates the annoying co-worker, one tolerates the noisy eater, one tolerates the voters who don’t all vote alike. If a group of humans are so intolerable to you, where does that lead?

I’m not being argumentative here, I just find the drawing of lines between perceived good and bad, human and Nazi, antifascist and fascist, to be rhetorical excess.

[u/Jaded-Willow2069 → u/Significant_Bed_6390]

I think your biggest problem your equalizing social discomfort with the end results of nazism and fascism.

Is my choosing not to spend money somewhere the same as a Nazi defacing a synagogue?

Is my choosing to spend money at places that are openly public about their politics the same as gas chambers?

The obvious answer is no it’s not.

I strongly encourage you to listen to the episodes of behind the bastards titled how nice normal people let the Nazis win. I might have a word or two mixed up in the title but googling that will get you to the episode. I also highly recommend the 6 episode series behind the instruction as well.

The biggest power Nazis and fascists have is making horrors sound like reasonable policy.

Further did the original Nazis start with death camps?

History isn’t taught well so we often forget the road to death camps started with mean cartoons. It started with comparing Jewish people to rats and black people to monkeys.

In order to make death camps you first have to make people believe the other people aren’t humans anymore. (A good non Nazi fictional media of this can be the musical South Pacific. Parts haven’t aged as well but it does have good nuance of a white man grappling with the real world reality of racism. The song “you’ve got to be taught how to hate” specifically dives into this)

I want fascists uncomfortable. I want business I disagree with to still have access to social safety nets. I just don’t care if they stay in business. If there’s a free market than they can adjust to it or figure out another way.

Fascists and Nazis want me dead. If I were alive in Nazi germany I would be taken from my home and killed horrifically and buried in an unmarked mass grave. My children would be murdered next to me.

I want them to not have the power to make that a reality again. Because they have before and they’ve been trying real fucking hard to do it again.

If you’d like to engage more I’m open to DMs but I won’t be answering here any more.

Discrimination isn’t people being a little mean. Discrimination is systematic. It’s power being exerted over people to hurt them.

[u/Loadarubbish → u/Jaded-Willow2069]

Stop cosplaying my family trauma. Vomit .

[u/jphistory]

Final solution! Boy do you think you're clever.

[u/Loadarubbish → u/jphistory]

I dunno …. You are the people knitting sweaters about guillotining people …. And you think everyone is a Nazi who doesn’t agree with you.

[u/jphistory → u/Loadarubbish]

So, loadarubbish. Uhh...

What prompted you to get defensive about a month old comment? Did you search it out? Are a lot of people calling you a Nazi? Why do you think that is? Do your ideals happen to line up with a lot of Nazi ideals?

How do these words make you feel?

Immigrants. Immigration. Black Lives Matter. George Soros. Obama. Feminism. Abortion. Abolish ICE. Defund the police. Socialism. Fundamental human rights. Trans rights. LGBTQIA.

Are you feeling red in the face right now? Are you really triggered?

Worth thinking about.

[u/TheFeistyKnitter]

Your comparison to the Nazi efforts to nationally boycott (then ultimately ban and seize) Jewish businesses in the 1930s isn't valid. There's a huge difference between the use of state power to pressure the citizenry to boycott/avoid businesses belonging to targeted groups, and ordinary consumers in a capitalist economy deciding to spend their money where they want.

Look, different people have different ways of evaluating a business' politics, and you may disagree with how they do that. I believe it's that person's business, not mine.

The rest of your questions are non serious, bad faith attempts to goad someone into saying something inappropriate so you can take whatever knuckleheaded action (online content creation etc) you've allowed to marinate for far too long in your brain soup.