I don't think destroying all native Americans and the entirety of the middle east and parts of southeast asia along with south america was worth it for capeshit movies tbh

Genocide trivialization is a common refrain of fascist discourse, the point of course is to normalize mass slaughter and paint it as an unavoidable feature of human society, while erasing the sociopolitical uniqueness of every genocide....."it happens all the time its not a big deal, and if it happens again big whoop survival of the fittest"

The a-historical insistence that EVERY "civilization" has committed genocide is another tactic of fascist rhetoric. That attempts to obscure the fact that it's actaully STATES with a specific class character and political project that committ genocide, while merging the idea of states and civilization as being coterminous with each other and that they can't be distinguished...... "we're all guilty thru out time and space so it would be hypocritical and traitorious to oppose genocide committed by one's own civilization"

That form of rhetoric also tries to simultaneously collapse the concept of continuity.... "it happened so long ago get over it" while also incoherently extending historical continuity past its breaking point..... "oh so you condemn the genocide of native Americans, well what about the genocide carried out by the Mongols hmmm"

Basically fascists are ghouls and historically illiterate freaks

Reminds me of that one lib on here who said slavery wasn't all bad because now there's rap music.

There are a lot of Americans who really struggle with the idea that America might not be the greatest nation ever to exist. They have to create ever more elaborate excuses why any negative thing is actually fine and does not tarnish americas perfect name.

drinking with co-workers once the topic of US vs China competition for hegemony comes up- the "smartest" and most well traveled person in the room argued with me that he'd prefer the US be on top of the world because they prefer the cultural products (marvel movies) of the US.

I asked, " is it really worth all that bloodshed for another remake of a movie you've already seen?!" and the guy actually hesitated with that one so idk

edit: I should mention we don't even live with the great satan itself, but adjacent to it

"...Listen -- I'm American"

Sorry, that's just history

Beyond the fact that, no it fucking isn't, can we send the lemmytors back to the smug den whence they came? I'm sure they'd fit back in swimmingly.

"Sorry, that's just history."

Capitalist realism but for the past as well. Fucking bleak position to be unaware that not all of human history is just genocide and mass slaughter

"All societies are genocidal" is some incredible Westerner cope.

really simple paradigm shift:

ask why they downplay their atrocities in some contexts but brag about them in others

IE: all over reddit, or anywhere Americans congregate, has a slew of comments like "Iran's about to find out why we don't have free healthcare" and the like, which are obviously prideful/bragging

The reason they do this is that there are two paradigms--a power and a fairness paradigm--the former prides itself on brutality/killing while the latter on equality/kindness

All the comments you see on reddit are americans getting drunk off power paradigm in order to feel a vicarious sense of self-esteem

The problem is that power depends on implicit consent of the less powerful to be governed. And if things are too inequal for them, they will fight back, and the whole system will become unstable and less powerful. This is why liberals fake niceness towards POC, it's also why Russia/China/etc are allied, etc.

Comments like OP are just trying to have their cake and eat it too. They will never shut up about "positives" (american inventions/culture) but when confronted about negatives (genocides and war killings) , they always say "uh uh but wait, every people committed genocide at some point in history". Imagine if whenever someone was talking about Galileo or something, I said "uhh but actually India invented numbers and China invented gunpowder". You would say I was being insecure and defensive, and you'd be right if I did that EVERY TIME that happened, and this is also exactly equivalent to what every American does when there's a discussion about American genocides and war crimes--they respond with extreme defensiveness because the reality is that yes, China and India were behind for the last few hundred years, and America/Europe did commit the biggest genocides of the last 500 years.

This deflection is an attempt to save face during value inversion--when the values are inverted into fairness morality, and violence/brutality are now bad, suddenly America becomes unexceptional and just a footnote compared to every other human empire that existed. When we're back on reddit however, "Vietnam barely even won, look at our K/D ratio"

On one hand, constant offensive wars and support of apartheid states. On the other hand, the Juicero, so y’know it evens out at the end.

"Listen all civilizations were genocidal. Amerikka is just the best at genocide. USA #1"

This person might be , but more likely they're a :matt-egglesias: type that thinks that taking the most possible view of human nature makes them

"every country kills people so its pointless to say that we shouldn't do that anymore, its just the way of the world" is such a braindead take.

But whose blood is shed matters.

This must be the lemmy user occamzrazer again. That bozo was on here saying the EXACT same shit to me about "art and technology" when defending Amerikkka and the founding fathers

Americans also shamelessly take credit for all the technology and art of the rest of the world

they see something wonderous and just assume an American made it