The Nazi room

Some friends have said that they regret using Facebook because it makes them like their peers less. That someone they would probably like in person becomes someone they can’t stand because of the opinions they post. I understand this sentiment, and at times I can relate to it. But at the same time, it’s hard to believe that somebody’s defining beliefs and overall worldview would never be expressed face to face if you know them well enough. And if they are hiding certain values, I’m not sure I’d rather be unaware of what those values are.

In the past, I have written that there is no single “true” self. People are multifaceted, and we can be kinder and more complicated than our belief systems. I don’t believe that a human necessarily has only one set of values; they can have several at odds with one another. But even if their values aren’t a neatly matching set, others can still feel alienated by a particular belief they have—even with the awareness that it isn’t their only belief. I know I will distance myself from a person if they express specific beliefs, just as I know I’m not exempt from alienating others with mine.

The internet is a paradoxical place. It’s a space where humans are bolder and more confrontational about expressing themselves, and at the same time more cautious if their words are for public consumption. It’s a place where individuals can perform a one-dimensional version of themselves, and where they can also share sides of their psyche that are not usually seen. It’s a meeting ground where people dismiss each other more readily because it’s easier to see a human as a set of pixels or an algorithm, but people also might offer each other more time. Because the online world is us, an outgrowth of both space and time.

Just as the internet is people and the internet is a place, people are places. Some are homes. Some are locations we think are homes, but turn out to be stops along the way. Some are havens we visit routinely, but where we don’t ultimately live. That’s why I think of a personality as a house. Some houses have consistent themes throughout. Those homes are cozy and predictable. Some prefer that, others find it dull. Some houses are neat and affable in the rooms that are meant for showcasing, but complete chaos in the private quarters. And others don’t hide their mess.

This is the type of home I’d find most disconcerting: The social, guest-receiving rooms are open and embracing. The living room contains an MLK poster and books about environmentalism and civil rights. Then, somewhere tucked far down a hallway, there’s a study full of KKK propaganda and Nazi memorabilia. The resident is flustered upon guests discovering it, but insists it’s “not a racist thing.” They say they have no problem with (X minority group), they just “don’t want them in their country.” (So what does “having no problem with them” mean? Not objecting to their basic existence, provided that existence occurs far away and they never have to inhabit the same space?) The person who owns and maintains this house may not see the space dedicated to bigotry as their “true” room. They may see it as just one coexisting with all the others, no more of a core space than anywhere else. They may even like to have minority friends in the house; just not in that area. But the guests who liked the main quarters won’t feel comfortable there anymore, and it would be especially scary if the house was a place where they’d regularly enjoyed spending time.

That figurative house is who some people are. Some may not actually be aware that they contain that specific room. Others might know about it but blame others for putting the contents inside, not acknowledging that they choose to hold onto those things. And I know my definition of welcoming is subjective; some would feel a lot more embraced in the bigotry room than in the main socially presented areas. But that is how I see it, and I think the internet provides a window into rooms that might not otherwise be seen—even by those who live in the house. The difference lies in whether or not the homeowner justifies that room; whether they respond to its discovery by more carefully hiding the contents, by bringing them out into the open, or by trying to renovate.

Can you believe terrible things without being a terrible person?

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to definitively answer that, since illustrative examples are include too much gray area for any person of any ideology to feel fully comfortable with.

Hating already-marginalized groups is certainly more likely to lead somebody to do terrible things. As I’ve said before, beliefs don’t exist independently of consequences. They profoundly affect the way you treat everyone around you. People of all belief structures will often say their worldview has brought them peace, but inner peace counts for nothing if it doesn’t also entail bringing that peace to the outside. By “peace,” I don’t mean complacency or avoidance of conflict if those conflicts are needed to bring about positive change. I mean making an active effort to comfort people, to encourage them, to expose abuse and to do our best to end injustice. I mean motivating others toward goals that will instill social peace in the long run and right the wrongs in society.

If someone claims to have “inner peace” on account of their political or religious perspective but then only uses that perspective to make people feel hopeless or bring agitation for no reason, then their “peace” is not productive. I’m thinking of Christians who tell non-Christians they’re going to hell. I’m thinking of atheists who troll internet prayer groups and tell someone whose mother has cancer that there’s no use praying for her because heaven is a fairy tale and she’ll only end up as worm food. I’m thinking of conservatives who proudly embrace bigotry because they think it makes them brave and unique, free from the “politically correct” masses. I’m thinking of far-leftists who tell more mainstream liberals that all of their views and causes are worthless unless they become radicalized and embrace Leninism. I have met people who fit every single one of those descriptions.

I used to say you can tell you’ve become an extremist if you think it’s impossible to go too far within your own belief structure, and if you think anyone who disagrees with you is extreme. I still maintain that for the most part, although I don’t think it’s possible to go “too far” with the belief in equality, because equality by definition is fair. Most people will say they champion equality, but will differ in their ideas on how to achieve it—as well as in their perspective of who is actually being persecuted. We all believe we root for the underdog, but we’re largely defined by who we believe the underdog to be.

Even white supremacists think they are defenders of equality. They’re convinced that the way to achieve it is to restrict the rights and freedoms of non-white people, because they are genuinely certain that racial minorities are privileged and that whites are being oppressed by said minorities, as well as by self-hating white liberals. You see it in their propaganda all the time. “Anti-racist is really code for anti-white.” “Diversity=white genocide.” Of course their beliefs are not deserving of equal consideration or respect. They’re wrong, plain and simple. Wrong in a way that’s empirically and statistically provable, as well as morally bankrupt. They have a long-standing history of doing horrendous things in defense of their beliefs.

But I think it’s important for everyone to remind ourselves that even if we believe the right thing, we’re also capable of taking it in negative directions.

In recent years, I have been called an extreme ultraliberal. Maybe I am—although I have only been called that by people who are far-right conservatives, rather than those I would consider mainstream. Maybe the fact that I see them as radical means I am radical, or maybe they really are extreme. But I do know there are people who are further left than myself, and further left than I’d strive to be. For example, I’m not a socialist. I have socialist friends whom I highly respect, but it’s not a camp I fall into. I was raised intensely conservative. My father used to say that most Democrats are closet socialists, and that socialism will lead to communism in the same way that HIV often leads to AIDS. He said that communism is socialism perfected. I grew up fully believing that, but then I met plenty of liberals who don’t identify as socialists or communists. I met socialists who say that communism goes too far. Eventually I became liberal, and I recognize the difference. Liberalism is by no means a monolith.

To my dad’s credit, he never discouraged me from making friends with leftists. Some of his closest friends are liberal, and he once told me that sometimes it’s not worth it to argue with people you like. The lessons I’ve chosen to retain from my upbringing are scarce, but that’s one I still carry.

One of the problems with believing liberalism=socialism is the assumption that all socialists are socially progressive. The Nazis are solid proof that it’s not true. Many conservatives like to hold up Nazi Germany as a socialist boogeyman, but their beliefs and practices were heavily socially conservative. They restricted abortions and birth control for the Aryan women they encouraged to reproduce, while forcing eugenics on those they deemed “undesirable”—the non-white, non-Christian, mentally ill, LGBT, poor, and disabled populations, all of whom are still popular scapegoats for social conservatives today. They used fundamentalist Christianity and an entirely literal interpretation of the Bible to drum up hatred of Jews and other non-Christians, which is still a common tactic among the religious right. I am not going to make the same sweeping assumptions about All Conservatives that I used to make about All Liberals. There are conservatives who don’t espouse bigotry, but most of these types of bigotry do seem to be espoused by those of a conservative bend.

At the same time, it’s definitely possible for a left-leaning person to behave terribly and think it’s excusable because they hold progressive beliefs. I’ve known my share of liberal activists who treated others with complete inconsideration and rudeness on an individual level, but thought that was justifiable because they cared about humanity in an abstract sense and because they were fighting for the correct political causes. I had one former friend who stands out particularly in that sense. She thought she’d become a better person because she had honed her Marxist philosophy, but she was still just as narcissistic and manipulative as ever. She didn’t become a better person, just a better communist. Some might say that meant she wasn’t a “true” communist; that real communism would have resulted in the improvement of her character. But whether or not that’s true, it falls too close to the No True Scotsman territory.

Some beliefs may justify or excuse someone’s preexisting negative traits, but it’s hard for me to believe those views are entirely responsible for creating them. Unkind people tend to be drawn to unkind ideologies. A good person may be brainwashed into a terrible worldview, and they may say and do awful things as a result, but I have faith that their natural drive toward decency will save them in the end. And a cruel, vindictive person can adopt a benevolent belief system but refuse to practice it properly, using it to rationalize their abusive tendencies instead.

It’s hard to tell for certain where beliefs start and identities end. I just think they form circles which often overlap one another and sometimes even eclipse.