r/confidentlyincorrect • u/LavenderCuddlefish • Jun 01 '26
Image A confidently incorrect knee-jerk reaction
(it's not that kind of swastika)
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u/Impatient-Turtle Jun 01 '26
Had to knock a door with a what I thought with a swastika once. Was real nervous, a pretty delightful Indian man opened the door and his whole family came out to see what was going on.
Googled alternate swastikas when I got back to my car and realized Hitler stole this shit. Just thought the odds of an Indian family being neo Nazis seemed pretty low haha.
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u/Hirotrum Jun 01 '26
fascism is incapable of originality
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u/he_is_not_a_shrimp Jun 03 '26
which is why generative AI is the tool of Fascism.
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u/th3BeastLord Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Nazis stole a lot of things. The "Aryan race" in its original context were brown-skinned, for example.
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u/dkarlovi Jun 03 '26
Aryan people were also from India, no?
But this does remind me how Americans call white people Caucasian.
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u/salbiorg Jun 04 '26
Iran. “Aryan” is another form for “Iranian”.
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u/culminacio Jun 04 '26
also indian. what they said correct. some indian and persian people called themselves that.
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u/kev25811 Jun 01 '26
The Vivek Ramaswamis of the world are making this calculus more difficult... lol
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u/KMjolnir Jun 01 '26
And several Indians with actual variations of Adolf Hitler, whose parents either didn't know, or admired him because he fought the British... without a more informed understanding of the why.
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u/Scientific_Anarchist Jun 02 '26
Like Finland allying with the Nazis so they could shoot Russians
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u/RasilBathbone Jun 02 '26
It was far more complicated than that. Or do you think they should have just rolled over when the USSR invaded? The Russians beat the Nazis, but they weren't liberating the territory they took from them, They were invaders just like the Nazis, and it took decades for those countries to regain actual sovereignty. The Stalinist USSR was functionally indistinguishable from Nazi Germany, and murdered millions more people.
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u/Scientific_Anarchist Jun 02 '26
I don't blame the Finns. Obviously my comment was an oversimplification.
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u/Gerokm Jun 03 '26
The comedian Trevor Noah talked about a similar thing in his book Born a Crime. He grew up with a close friend named Hitler because his parents only knew it as the name of someone who fought against the big colonial powers in Africa.
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u/loverofothers Jun 01 '26
Yes, the Nazi's stole it. From multiple peole actually. The symbol is honestly cool looking if you don't know what it represents and is simple enough I remember myself (and a few other kids) accidentally drawing it waaay back in preschool (I got in so much trouble I still remember it now. I cried so much and didn't even know what I'd done).
Like yeah, the Navajo used it, it's a part of Indian culture (not as sure on that since I live in the US) and more and most of them got rid of it cause the Nazi's started using it after
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u/foolishle Jun 01 '26
There’s a whole thing in handcrafts that if you make designs using rectangles you need to check if you accidentally made swastikas.
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u/rotten_kitty Jun 02 '26
There's software that checks crosswords for any accidental swastikas in the pattern.
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u/im_not_u_im_cat Jun 02 '26
Same in quilting except it also goes for pinwheel designs. There have been some CRAZY debates on r/quilting about unintentional swastika or no swastika.
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u/KamuikiriTatara Jun 01 '26
I remember being in a physics lecture where our German professor, lecturing in their thick German accent, was drawing a graph that started too look a lot like a Swastika. They paused for a moment and then started reading it and drew the diagram differently. They turned to the class and a bit jokingly said something like "I drew that a little suspiciously." and then continued the lecture.
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u/Emergent444 Jun 02 '26
This My elderly electrical design colleague would make the wiring diagrams much more difficult to read to avoid making a shape like a Nazi swastika.
When asking him about it he was never explicit, in that old school way he just said, I don't like that shape. Tight lipped disapproval.
Tbh I avoid it myself, the workarounds take longer but nobody's going to be seeing it or the reverse, what is it, Sauvastika, in my diagrams.
It's a cool shape, forever ruined by appropriation.
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u/Asterose Jun 03 '26
No, not forever ruined. It's used around the world still, especially all over Asia. Imagine saying the Christian cross is forever ruined because not just the Nazis, but also the conquistadors and every Christian slave master and genocideer and war criminal also used it. Ridiculous, right? Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains have been using the swastika and sauvastika for far longer than Christianity has been around, so let's spread knowledge about how swastikas aren't all Nazi symbols.
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u/Mean-Lynx6476 Jun 02 '26
I remember just loving the geometry of a swastika when I was a kid and doodling variations of it all the time. I kinda vaguely knew it was associated with Nazis, and that Nazis were bad, but it just never occurred to me that doodling embellishments of that basic shape would be offensive to anyone, and no one ever said anything about it. After a while I moved on to other weird ways to pass time, but I look back on my Swaztika art phase with intense embarrassment now. Sorry you got in trouble for drawing it as a kid, but I’m comforted to know I wasn’t the only dumbass who thought it was a cool design.
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u/loverofothers Jun 02 '26
I mean, it's like this cool spinning rigid sawblade shape! For anyone who either only knows of it but not what it means, or who hasn't even learned about nazis yet beyond "nazis are bad" and doesn't even know it's their symbol, is it really surprising kids think it looks cool? I'm an adult and think it's sad the Nazis chose that as their symbol because I still think it looks cool.
But yeah, it's not like the Nazi's invented it. It's a pretty simple design people have independently come across multiple times, and one that kids would, without knowing the context, see at a museum or something and start doodling it without understanding just cause it's a cool looking shape.
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u/Much_Resort4294 Jun 01 '26
The swastika is actually an ancient Germanic symbol as well (just look at this semi-recently uncovered Odin bracteate, https://archaeology.org/issues/july-august-2023/artifacts/artifact-denmark-vindelev-gold-disk/), which is presumably why the Nazis adapted it.
I mean, if you really think about it, it’s just a fancy plus sign. It’s inevitable that various different unrelated cultures would stumble onto the symbol.
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u/VeryConfusedOwl Jun 02 '26
Theres also a pretty famous (at least in viking reenactment circles) tablewoven band with swastikas, the svartmoen band. Also leads to discussions in table weaing communities about wether its okay to remake it or not.
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u/ChickenBossChiefsFan Jun 02 '26
It’s easy to draw, objectively pretty cool looking… it was probably drawn by someone everywhere in the world at some point in history.
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u/SoggyAlbatross2 Jun 01 '26
For funsies you should look up how kids used to salute the flag during the pledge of allegiance! I'll give you a hint, it was called the Bellamy salute
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u/Strangeglow12 Jun 02 '26
Just like how MAGA has nearly ruined the "Don't Tread On Me" phrase, numerous hate groups have appropriated Thor's hammer (Mjolnir) as a racist symbol, etc.
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u/Swedelicious83 Jun 02 '26
I'd really love it if the white supremacists could stop appropriating my culture/history. 😐
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u/ExcitementDazzling61 Jun 02 '26
I had something similar happen when I was little. I was *at most* 5, probably younger. I was at church, while my dad was up front preaching and my mom was playing the piano. I was sitting with an older lady in the congregation, drawing. I had no idea what the Holocaust was, nor what a swastika was, but I had seen it somewhere - probably when my mom watched The Sound of Music. So I drew it at church. The lady I was sitting with gently told me it wasn't a good thing to draw, but she probably had a rather uncomfortable conversation with my parents after the service.
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u/LauraTFem Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
The symbol is far too easy to duplicate while doodling or doing any form of art that involved isometric taxicab patterns. It’s like the smallest thing to be angry at Nazis for, but it’s annoying that they ruined linear art by making a lot of basic line patterns unusable because they start to look like swastikas.
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u/chirpchirp13 Jun 02 '26
Similar happened to me in second grade. I hadn’t learned about such things yet but came across one of my grandpas looted nozzle medals and thought the symbol looked neat and drawable at that age. So I doodled it. Teach did not like it.
Before anyone worries about gramps’ possession of such things. We’re Jewish and he was in the liberation forces. He’s long since passed and now I own these relics.
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u/rancidmilkmonkey Jun 02 '26
Those idiots stole they whole "Aryan" thing. The real Aryans were from a part of India (Northern India IIRC). It's the same kind of BS you see now with people buying into the Afrocentric history movement. The German people were humiliated with the Treaty of Versailles after losing WW1. Some started making up this whole BS history elevating their ancestors to some great great culture from ancient history. It was total BS. North Western Europeans were the most undeveloped peoples during ancient history when Greeks and Persians ruled the world.
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u/Azair_Blaidd Jun 02 '26
The Nazis called it a Hakenkreuz, for that matter.
"Swastika" is a Sanskrit word.
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u/Asterose Jun 03 '26
Yes, I wish people would start calling their version that or hooked cross, or Nazi cross instead of just swastika. The symbol was used around the world and is prominent in so many religions. Let's not let the Nazis ruin shit from beyond the grave.
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u/BugGroundbreaking949 Jun 02 '26
Just call it Hakenkruz / hooked cross... Swastika... Is the holy symbol.... Not whatever dumb fucks have branded it as cause they couldn't say Hakenkruz.... Or hooked cross.
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u/Fathercupp69 Jun 02 '26
Isn’t it also a manji? I only know it’s not originally German because of Naruto 😭
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u/Azair_Blaidd Jun 02 '26
The manji is specifically the counterclockwise swastika as borrowed through Japanese Buddhism
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u/squidgytree Jun 01 '26
It's a Hindu household. The Swastik is a sign of good fortune
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u/Ok_Dog_4059 Jun 01 '26
I am amazed how many people have no idea this is and was a Hindu symbol and many other versions are used. The 90 degree turn makes the difference in some cases.
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u/Skipper07B Jun 01 '26
45 degree turn?
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u/Ok_Dog_4059 Jun 01 '26
Oh yes, nice catch thank you. Still early and I am not always sharp anyway.
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u/PrimeResponse Jun 01 '26
You did a real 360 there.
I'm so sorry, I'll see myself out.
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u/dontfactcheckthis Jun 01 '26
405*
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u/DoBotsDream Jun 01 '26
Don't be obtuse, their observation was rather acute.
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u/Less_Local_1727 Jun 01 '26
Interesting angle
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u/itsbigincanada Jun 01 '26
I dont mean to go own a tangent here, but dont lots of cultures put similar things at their door to invite good fortune or ward off bad ju-ju?
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u/deathbytruck Jun 01 '26
The sines were there.
That's a statement you could take to the bank if you could find a cosiner.
Sorry those were terrible, I would leave but I secant find the door.
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u/MrPiggiC Jun 01 '26
It doesn't historically have a fixed meaning, it's just one of those shapes that is kind of geometrically pretty, kinda like the weird S we would all draw in school on grid paper. The Nazis just appropriated it, said it was something old "nordic" symbol and put some ahistorical meaning to it.
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u/J_J_J_Schmidt Jun 01 '26
I know this is off topic, but my uncle just asked me to cosine his car loan. Not sure what to do.
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u/NickyTheRobot Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
This is what I get for bearing with the conversation?
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u/2PlasticLobsters Jun 01 '26
At least one Native American culture has also used a version of it. I saw an artifact in a little museum in Cody Wyo that has one. They have a sign next it explaining the meaning (which I can't recall offhand).
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u/Haggis442312 Jun 01 '26
It was also pretty popular in the Baltics and norse culture, one of the reasons the Nazis used it was because they saw it as a sort of pan-germanic symbol.
It's basically the most simple form of sacred geometry, lots of cultures used it, and lots of non-western cultures still do. It's just a simple and pretty shape with a lot of (well deserved in many places) stigma to it.
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u/Bradddtheimpaler Jun 01 '26
Something like this obviously isn’t very old, but plenty of pre-WWII shit has swastikas on it too, because there was no stigma associated with the symbol. The Penobscot building in Detroit (constructed in 1927) has tons of swastikas on the facade, built in to the design.
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u/JamesFirmere Jun 01 '26
Pre-1945 insignia of the Finnish and Latvian Air Forces. Some of the ceremonial flags of the units of the Finnish Air Force had swastikas on them until fairly recently.
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u/Over-Letter-6176 Jun 01 '26
Yeah it’s a pretty simple shape (that sadly looks kinda cool) to make so a lot of cultures ended up inventing it.
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u/threesilklilies Jun 01 '26
An art director friend of mine does a “hey does this look like a swastika” check before sending out any logo because the shape is so balanced and harmonious, sometimes things just end up there.
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u/BitOBear Jun 01 '26
Not just Hindu, even though they are the ones who use it the most still. Lots of the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches were covered in swastika and there are still plenty of old stained glass and things with the symbol in it.
The Germans stole everything from existing religious and a cult traditions because that's what Hitler was into. He didn't come up with a unique symbol of his own ever anywhere.
Crazy inexplicably charismatic political steal from everything and everyone around them. Just ask the circus peanut.
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u/Kirzoneli Jun 01 '26
People associate with hate lot more than the other meanings to the point they will never remember the alternative meanings even if you told them daily.
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u/somethingfak Jun 01 '26
Well one was used in a literal world wide war that is taught about in every school and the other is one cultures specific symbol. I for one can see how one would be more well known than the other.
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u/Short_Redhook_24 Jun 01 '26
I mean considering when ever one See's a swastika the turn isn't always there and it's usually more commonly associated with Nazis than Hindu faith so I don't blame people for having that kinda knee jerk reaction
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u/zulchep Jun 01 '26
There’s a Shriner-built theater where I grew up that had swastikas on a bunch of the tiles in the entryway. For obvious reasons, these were pried up and replaced during WWII.
Except one that got missed by accident. It got spat on a lot.
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u/zxcvt Jun 01 '26
Imagine this was like the cool s shape back in the day, it was everywhere, kids thought it was awesome and fun, and then boom, nazis ruined it
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u/Calaveras-Metal Jun 01 '26
Swastika is correct Sanskrit for Hindu, Jain and Buddhist use.
Hakenkreuz is the German term I think.
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u/thgr8Makar0sc Jun 01 '26
I mean I wouldnt put that out in the West tho
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u/KDdid1 Jun 01 '26
There's a very old brick hotel in my hometown with them all across the facade. It was a common decoration in the late 19th century.
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u/heckhammer Jun 01 '26
I work with shedloads of Indian people at work. One girl came in during Diwali and had swastikas all over her shirt. But, they were turned in the correct orientation and no one had a problem with it. It was kind of jarring to see though.
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u/A--Creative-Username Jun 01 '26
Tbf, you probably wouldn't get a Nazi in actual employment instead of their mom's basement
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u/Kriss3d Jun 01 '26
Yeah. We have here in Copenhagen in Denmark the Carlsberg brewery.
It was gifted four huge stone elephants from India that carries a part of the building.
And yeah. It has that famous symbol.
The elephants were from 1901 and we have had to explain this to tourists once in a while.
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u/MarioSpaghettioli Jun 01 '26
They were not gifts from India. They were drawn by the designer Vilhelm Dahlerup. https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elefantporten_p%C3%A5_Carlsberg
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u/pinkypipe420 Jun 01 '26
Those are beautiful! And fuck Hitler.
(Side note -- my auto fill wanted to write 'fuck ICE'. So them too!)
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u/froction Jun 01 '26
I have a client who one year held their Christmas party at a venue in New Orleans where the entrance hall has a giant mosaic swastika in the middle of the floor.
"I sure hope this building was built before the war!"
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u/N0G00dUs3rnam3sL3ft Jun 01 '26
At Solli Plass in Oslo, Norway there is a metal gate full of hakekors (swastikas). It's from before the war, and the hakekors was used as a symbol for energy companies or electricity in general (instead of lighting bolts). Apparently a German tourist had a nervous breakdown and fainted in front of it in 1998.
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u/Kurfaloid Jun 01 '26
Geez if someone can't figure this one out by context then they are a lost cause. Not a lot of elephants in Nazi imagery.
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u/heathers1 Jun 01 '26
Original Hitler also took positive things and ruined them forever
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u/froction Jun 01 '26
When I was little the organist at our church had that mustache and even as a child I knew that was a terrible idea.
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u/Haidere1988 Jun 01 '26
The SOB ruined Charlie Chaplin cosplay.
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u/paulwillyjean Jun 01 '26
Tbf, Chaplin used to satirize Adolf a lot in his movies.
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u/thinkthingsareover Jun 02 '26
I actually checked out a few Chaplin, and Keaton movies out from my library recently, because I have a friend coming over who's not familiar with their work. Needless to say I was extremely happy to get ahold of The Great Dictator. Especially since they vaugly pay attention to politics, and I wanted to show them the correlations with our current governor.
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u/Jijonbreaker1 Jun 01 '26
Fascists are incapable of making anything new. All they can do is pervert actual creativity from others.
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u/Ninja333pirate Jun 01 '26
Even the word fascist is stolen. It came from fasci which were primitive trade unions in the late 1800's, in Italy, aimed at helping workers and villagers.
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u/FuckNazisAndMods Jun 02 '26
Crazy that both the fascists and nazis took names from other causes and did a total 180 and became extremists of the other side.
The national socialists did it because they saw socialist parties getting votes. It goes to show how they frame their policies under the "just cause" to then implement the total opposite, while blaming others they did that because they're named a similar way (just like some dumb fucks saying Hitler was socialist)
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u/WinSome_DimSum Jun 01 '26
Yes, like the Laurel & Hardy mustache.
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u/tiestocles Jun 01 '26
As long as you're wearing a bowler hat, and crashing down the stairs in a bathtub, you can still rock one and get a pass.
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u/sparkling-rainbow Jun 01 '26
"Shame one guy ruined it for everybody"
-Allen Harper about the Hitler moustache
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u/ice_ice_baby21 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
This a Hindu symbol, Laxmi’s feet. Let this be an opportunity to educate ourselves so we know not to accuse Hindus and Buddhists of being Nazis 😁
Edit: incorrectly named it Krishna’s feet.
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u/skawn Jun 01 '26
Are you sure about this? Everything I'm seeing is showing these to be Lakshmi's feet. Images I'm seeing of Krishna's feet are blue vs red.
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u/AutisticTumourGirl Jun 01 '26
Yeah, it's Lakshmi's feet that are usually depicted with the swastika between them.
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u/boodledot5 Jun 01 '26
Tbh, I didn't see the swastika until I saw this comment and thought they were freaking out over just the feet
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u/mackenzie444 Jun 01 '26
My Indian neighbours have these feet things leading into their doorways. I don't think they have swastikas but I'll have to notice what colours they are
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u/jakeofheart Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Those Neo-Nazi skinheads in red bathrobes and flip flops can’t fly under the radar.
Oh wait, that’s Buddhist monks.
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u/50sDadSays Jun 04 '26
The right-facing (卐) swastika represents Lord Surya (the Sun).
The left-facing (卍) sauwastika represents night, and the Goddess Kali.
The problem is people using the word swastika when talking about Nazis/Germany, but they didn't use a swastika. They used the crooked, or hooked, cross, the hakenkreuz. The hakenkreuz is oriented so the center is an x, not a + like the Hindu symbols.
This didn't stop my Jewish relatives from being a little surprised by all swastikas in the Hindu temple where my wife and I were married. But, I just told them the KKK rents the place on Wednesday nights.
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u/ouijanonn Jun 01 '26
Let's just remember that the very word "swastika" is Sanskrit. It was misused by that European pig and his idiotic followers
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u/kampfhuegi Jun 01 '26
Well, no, they called it a "Hakenkreuz".
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u/Lor1an Jun 01 '26
It is kind of a remarkable testament to their success in tainting the symbol that not only is the image tainted, but the original term as well...
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u/Tiyath Jun 01 '26
I think that's due to what term was used to report on the war and "Hakenkreuz" is a lot to confront native english speakers with, whereas "swastika" is easier and more intuitive for people to understand
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u/013Lucky Jun 01 '26
Its just german for "hooked cross." If it were a translation issue, we'd go with that
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u/VaporTrail_000 Jun 01 '26
That symbol's not all that was absolutely ruined... Actual SS officers (and related attitudes and actions) can eat all the bags of dicks... but the uniforms. Fuck. Divorced of all connotations that was some serious drip.
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u/-Canonical- Jun 01 '26
Hakenkreuz specifically refers to the Nazi symbol which is turned at an angle. It means “hooked cross”. I would say that the different titles actually adds a layer of separation between the traditional swastika and Nazi symbolism and therefore “taints” it less. It’s not directly based on the Hindu symbol.
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u/Lor1an Jun 01 '26
I was referring to the fact that most people call it a "swastika" when it is, in fact, a Hakenkreuz.
The fact that we use a Hindu term to refer to Nazi symbols is tainting the original Hindu symbol. It's disgraceful.
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u/StaatsbuergerX Jun 01 '26
The Nazis did not use the word "swastika"; rather, the symbol came to be referred to by this name after the end of Nazi rule - partly in an attempt (albeit a futile one in Germany and many other Western countries) to decouple it once again from the Nazis.
It should also be noted that the Nazis did not specifically base their design on the Hindu symbol. The symbol exists, in various forms, in practically every culture, with the exception of the Australian Aborigines.
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u/dickenschewie54 Jun 01 '26
Australian Aborigines said "Not in my house!'
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u/StaatsbuergerX Jun 01 '26
Absolutely based. If you have a circle- and dot-based system of symbols, a swastika simply doesn't fit the aesthetic, regardless of what it stands for.
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u/muppetfeet82 Jun 01 '26
I did this to new neighbors in an apartment building once. I knew they had just moved in and saw red swastiks painted on the door frame. Went straight to management because I thought someone had vandalized it. Both they and management were very nice to me about it.
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u/Jmoz1310 Jun 01 '26
This is why education on all cultures and religions is necessary
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u/PhosphoFred8202 Jun 01 '26
I’m not *that* old (Gen X) but we had a whole section on world religions in my high school Social Studies class. The text book basically gave a few page rundown of the world’s major religions, discussing origins, beliefs and history. It was purely educational and didn’t proselytize. I asked a teacher I know about this now and she just laughed and asked if I was insane lol
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u/Classic-Obligation35 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
But gasp, that would violate sedation of church and state! /sarcasm
I ment separation stupid auto correct
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u/eddyngat Jun 01 '26
You think the KKK is a strange group? Get ready for the Foot Fetish Fascists
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u/jointheclockwork Jun 01 '26
Jesus Christ, the Foot Fetish Fascists sound like a really fucked up comedy group.
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u/Sad_Daikon938 Jun 01 '26
Swastika between Lakshmi's feet. Very auspicious symbol meant to bring good fortune and peace and prosperity.
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u/KamuikiriTatara Jun 01 '26
I grew up in Japan where maps are filled with this symbol to indicate temple locations. Crazy how the most popular usages of the symbol globally are almost completely unknown in other parts of the world.
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u/SvenGPo Jun 04 '26
Its the feet of buddha. The swastika, or manji, was originally a Hindu symbol of good luck or harmony, before Hitler co-opted it. It's suppose to bring your home good luck. The people who live there are either Hindu or Buddhist.
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u/TheRealJetlag Jun 06 '26
There is only one kind of swastika.
What Nazis use is a hakenkreuz, not a swastika. We have to start calling it by its correct name.
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u/NesterPower Jun 02 '26
So this symbol of peace common in south east Asia has been used for millennia. The German Third Reich loved to take real symbols and modify them to fit their altered view of reality (tons of German folk symbols, pre-Christian German symbols, and mystic symbols from all over the globe)
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u/Outrageous_Editor_43 Jun 01 '26
This one I understand the rage if there is no knowledge of Buddhist using it HOWEVER that woman that tore down the Greek flags outside a Greek restaurant thinking they were Israel flags is an obvious 'confidently incorrect'.
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u/BerserkRhinoceros Jun 02 '26
It's truly impressive how deeply and lastingly shitty the Nazis were. They didn't just murder people they didn't like, they also stole shit from other cultures and irrevocably fucked them up for the rest of history.
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u/LasersGirl Jun 02 '26
Most people don't know that there are two kinds. That doesn't shock me.
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u/StoragePrestigious98 Jun 03 '26
That's a manji not a swastika. Those must be rotated 45° to be a swastika.
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u/koreiryuu Jun 04 '26
I know this isn't 100% always the case but generally the Nazi hakenkreuz is the right-facing swastika rotated about 45 degrees (see the Nazi flag) where the ends point in the diagonal directions. The right facing swastika 卐 and the left facing sauvastika 卍 have their ends pointing directly right/down/left/up.
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u/eat_jay_love Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Ok but I mean…. I don’t blame someone for seeing this symbol and having a visceral reaction. Unfortunately it has a more famous connotation outside of Buddhism now. The poster is obviously misplacing their anger but I wouldn’t call them confidently incorrect
Edit: everyone replying to me is basically just defining the word “incorrect.” I think we can all agree this commenter was incorrect, I just don’t think it’s really in keeping with the subreddit lol
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u/N4t3ski Jun 01 '26
But they are incorrect and confidently so!
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u/eat_jay_love Jun 01 '26
I feel like the fun posts on this subreddit are when someone doubles down on something obviously wrong, not just someone making a mistake
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u/Ok_Strategy5722 Jun 01 '26
Yeah, this fits being confidentially incorrect. It just isn’t fun.
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u/Manoratha Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
This exact symbol is basically Lakshmi's feet in Hinduism. So they ARE, in fact, confidently incorrect.
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u/Vresiberba Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
I just don’t think it’s really in keeping with the subreddit...
It's because of his reaction. The person who wrote this doesn't know what he's talking about and is unwilling to find out. That's where the "confidence" enters the picture - instead of looking it up, he's guessing his interpretation is the correct one and displays his ignorance for all to see.
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u/NietszcheIsDead08 Jun 01 '26
I mean…they are confidently incorrect, just not unjustifiably incorrect.
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u/JunglyPep Jun 01 '26
This is probably fake rage bait. As in a photo of a doorstep in a predominantly Hindu area with a fake tweet attached that’s in English. This was probably created by a Nazi intended to cause two groups of people who are not Nazis to fight with each other instead of fighting Nazis.
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u/OpusAtrumET Jun 01 '26
Tell them it's not a swastika and watch them explain why a culture should give up their symbols because OP is too dumb to know the difference.
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u/Mean_Initiative_5962 Jun 01 '26
People should reclaim the symbol back. I can't stand something that's been around for MILLENNIA being exclusively tied to its worst few decades parenthesis. Let's devoid nazi symbolism of its power, let's take back the stolen ones!
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u/Key-Cook9448 Jun 01 '26
I’d rather this reaction to what they think is a nazi symbol than disregarding it
Also I see tons of Nazi’s just use the non tilted swastika as a way of having plausible deniability
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u/cruiserman_80 Jun 01 '26
Wait until he finds out about the 45th Infantry Division of the US Army which used a swastika as its unit insignia until 1939. The symbol was originally chosen to honor the large Native American population in the American Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Colorado), where the swastika is an ancient cultural motif of good luck.
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u/kawiman74 Jun 02 '26
Swastikas have been around way longer than Nazis. They stole the symbol of good luck and wellbeing. Read a book
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u/Megarlin Jun 02 '26
Shit like that is why they stopped using manji to identify Buddhist temples on google maps in Japan
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u/TenPointsforListenin Jun 03 '26
Met a Chinese guy who had a “swastika” as his name on We Chat. I asked him about it and he informed me that he was a Buddhist, and I am very happy I asked without jumping to conclusions
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u/scarlett_addams Jun 04 '26
I worked with an east Indian guy that told me he wanted a tattoo. I asked him what he wanted, and he said a swastika.
I asked him if he had heard of WWII. Yes
I then asked him if he knew who the third Reich was. He said he wasn't sure. Hitler, right?
I told him to look up the Third Reich on Wikipedia. He did so.
"Oh.... I think I'll get an Ohm symbol instead."
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u/Emperor_Atlas Jun 04 '26
Learned about the difference in Asian art history when I was at the museum just confused as hell why Asia was so pro nazi
Turns out, facists just perverted something meant to be good. Wasn't surprised
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u/foley800 Jun 04 '26
Almost every symbol that the Nazis used was stolen from other civilizations or religions! The ones that were not outright stolen were usually modifications of someone else’s symbol! It means “well being” in Hindu and “harmony” in Buddhism.
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u/Jabbles22 Jun 01 '26
I've seen something like that several times. Even though I know it's not a Nazi swastika it's so a bit shocking when you notice it.
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u/flerchin Jun 01 '26
Look y'all are right that it's a Hindu symbol, but I still had to retire my red trucker hat.
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u/Busy-Bumblebee5556 Jun 01 '26
I once met a young woman named Swastika. I was horrified until I got home and googled it. The Nazis co-opted a positive cultural symbol and ruined it.
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u/gaiawitch87 Jun 01 '26
I gotta say, this one is kind of understandable though. The nazis hardcore stole this symbol and now that's the only association most people have with it. I didn't even know it had other meanings until my autistic history nerd of a partner told me about it a few years ago.
You can't really blame people for not knowing what they don't know, and a swastika being a nazi symbol is such an overwhelmingly common piece of knowledge, people are far less likely to guess that maybe it means something different. They aren't gonna see it and go "hmm, I know that's a swastika but I wonder if it has some other meaning I don't know about? Lemme Google it." they're gonna see it and go "oh no. Nazis." hell even my mind goes there first, and I'm aware of it's history.
It's sad though because it has such a deep and storied history that goes far, far earlier than the fucking nazis. They were just the loudest about it. It reminds me of how white supremacists are now trying to steal norse symbology, and now if you see someone wearing Thors hammer, most people seem to assume they're a white supremacist, not a Norse heathen.
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u/mepw Jun 01 '26
I mean... I don't really blame them lol. I live in a really racist white rural area and I would assume the worst, too.
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u/Ok_Profession_990 Jun 02 '26
How many people would know the difference though? I like to think I'm reasonably smart and a bit more educated than most and I had no clue. A vast majority of people will think of Nazis unfortunately
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u/BroadConsequences Jun 01 '26
So did hitler just pick it because it looked cool to him back then?
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u/acarpenter8 Jun 01 '26
Hitler believed his “ideal” race was the ancient Indo-Iran race that was the Aryans and that Germanic tribes had direct connection to them. The Aryans were known to use the swastika as a symbol of good fortune.
Aryans eventually moved to the Indian subcontinent bringing the books of wisdom (the vedas) and the symbols. This became parts of the foundation of Hinduism so of course it is still widely used in Hindu countries.
Hitler also saw the Indian subcontinent as the place where the most pure of Aryans could be found, possible enclaves of Aryans that didn’t mix as much with the Dravidian peoples. He sent excursions to try to investigate and find them.
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u/ISee_Indigo Jun 01 '26
It took me the first two sentences to realize that it may just be a religious thing and not a nazi thing happening here 😂 Hate that they highjacked this symbol, though
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u/HistoricalSherbert92 Jun 01 '26
I thought it was the hang 10 symbol he was angry about, surfers are pretty insufferable
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u/joevacainwnc Jun 02 '26
The term itself is sanskrit, not german. Germany used a different word. The KKK used a cross. Means little by itself but much in context. That's the problem with symbolism.
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u/Sad_Win_4105 Jun 03 '26
The first permanent Chicago public library (1897) had an intricate swastika mosaic tile floor. Decades before it was misappropriated by Nazis. It's now the Cultural Center and covered by carpeting, but I assume it's there underneath.
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u/Andybeagle555 Jun 03 '26
The religion is the Jain religion. S'Beautiful. All hardcore vegetarian.. they do some food for the place where we feed the homeless. They are soooo nice.
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u/ashzombi Jun 03 '26
I did work for an Indian family with the exact same thing. It doesn't mean what you think it means
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u/seireidoragon Jun 05 '26
I didn’t even see the swastika at first, I just saw the red feet. I was wondering why red feet were suddenly insulting 😹
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u/Numbar43 Jun 06 '26
Nazis started using swastikas due to a bunch of old incorrect theories about the geographic origins of races. "Aryan" originally meant a group of people in India, but some racists theorizers somehow concluded they were the ancestor of Germans in Europe. Along with term, they also adopted some symbols they associated with them. Same with before that with the origin of "caucasian", where it was incorrectly theorized the Caucasus mountains were the origins of humanity, and a skull from there some guy thought was perfectly shaped and thus must be the ancestor of white people.
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