Notice how the strip shows Karl Popper shrugging? It's cause he knows he's an idiot. At best. At worst he's being actively deceptive. I really hope he's just an idiot.
Why?
Because Nazism was founded upon tolerance. And that tolerance created the Holocaust.
Yup.
National Socialist. It's right there in the name. Hitler's genius was in convincing the most extreme wings of the Nationalist and Socialist parties that their methods were complimentary in the formation of a stronger Germany. Through sheer force of personality Hitler forced tolerance between the factions and created an ideal that others could get behind: the creation of an ideal society that rose above its dark past and allowed it to progress into the future.
If you don't see the similarity you're just as stupid as Popper.
What, you thought them copying out of our eugenicist playbook (all the Planned Parenthoods in the black neighborhoods, y'all!) was going to stop with just that?
See the note about Popper's intelligence.
But the Jews would not live like the other Germans. It's the simple reason why anti-Semitism is such a historical thing: they are not like you, will not pretend to be you, and their existence will continue despite (or because of!) your interference. The very existence of the Jews was an existential threat to Germany, because it questioned the very foundations of it. Hell, one could argue that rules like kosher and whatnot rendered Jewish life superior to the German way of life, cause pork's bad for you and all that. Horrible oversimplification, yes, but it does point out the societal problem of parallel societies and why they’re so frequently chased after.
The problem is that Popper's argument isn't wrong, it's just that it's way too limited. The strip indicates that somehow this way of thinking is unique to us, that progressives are the first to have this idea, and that they think their ideas are so unique that literally no other historical case applies to what they're doing.
They're absolutely wrong on all counts.
To think that every civilization before us didn't think of itself as inclusive is stupid. Arrogant. Everyone has come to the same conclusion that Popper did: if our society allows large-scale dissent from the popular ideology then chaos will come back. And chaos is so bad, so awful, that anything is preferable to it. Right?
So y'know what that's called? Scapegoating. As in, the process of finding someone to blame for all your societal problems and then transferring your mass negative feelings to them. Don't think we do that these days?
If, by this point, you're wondering where the "catechism" (as in something religious) is, we're getting there. My point (Gerard makes it better than I, but I intuited it before I knew of him) is that civilization, hell all religion, is based off of taking the rage and other negative emotions that would rip the society apart and putting it on a class of scapegoats. Marxism isn’t wrong about oppressors and oppressed but it messes up literally everything else about the process. And I don't think Marxism even gets things right, nevermind anything else. Trump is a scapegoat for the left’s rage. Prostitutes are scapegoats for a society’s lust.
Taking any overwhelming feeling and pushing it on a group of people is scapegoating. And we blame the victim. If we don’t the catharsis isn’t complete. All religions do this. All humans do this. It is in our nature to blame the victim of our scapegoating. They were asking for it, being so unacceptable! This is normal human behavior, whether you like it or not. Paganism is built entirely off of it, with the more hardcore versions owning up to the process and doing human sacrifice and temple prostitutes; there were temple prostitutes for Reason in the glory days of The French Revolution, just for the record. The idea of a purely rational humanity is an idea for the underclass, even at the height of the Enlightenment's glory days. Humans do scapegoats, like it or not. And it blames the scapegoat because man that feels good and keeps us all from murdering each other. This is a historical fact.
Except, oddly enough, Christianity.
For you see, in Christianity the scapegoat is God, come down to earth to become scapegoat and make us a member of His family, The Trinity. The script is flipped. The scapegoaters are shown for what they are: hypocritical, scared, oblivious to the true value of those they kill. God took the side of the scapegoats and showed us a new way, that of dying to oneself and arising. We give up scapegoating and thus become gods. Anastasios, the Greek word the Catholics and Orthodox use for resurrection, has an additional meaning: revolution. The siding of God with the scapegoat started a revolution that led to the resurrection of the dead. By taking the external forcing of negative feelings and holding each individual accountable for themselves and how they feel, Christianity created a level of progress and peace hitherto unknown.
If you claim otherwise you really need to crack open a history book.
Desperately.
Now, does this mean that humans who claim to be Christian don’t scapegoat? No, why would they stop? Humans are idiots, of course they’re not going to do it naturally. Scapegoating is natural. There is not a soul alive who doesn’t do it.
But the story of one man who claimed to be God dying and rising has a funny effect: we know it’s possible to fight this urge, to say “I am a sinner” in all confidence, in hope!
For if you are a sinner why should you scapegoat others?
You’re just like them, after all.
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