This comes in response to news that I’ve heard of recently. Goes to show if you value your posthumous requests, organize them wisely.
The concept we generally call “dying wishes” are a staple in how we think of society. Just look to the ancient play Antigone for that. However, things don’t always go as planned, especially in the wrong hands. What’s the biggest difference you’ve seen between someone’s “dying wishes” and what actually ended up happening?
The whole salute thing has been debunked though.
A) The Nazi thing goes much deeper than that
B) The image of him throwing a sieg heil is literally banned in Germany
C) Don’t defend Nazis
D) All of the above
I’m definitely not defending Nazis. They can be blasted into the sun for all I care. I’m just saying we can’t assume someone’s intent and speak for them, even though we can 100% distance ourselves from others based on their impression. Don’t forget the salute came from an old Roman greeting, just as the swastika famously came from the manji (something Japan has never stopped using, even in anime and merchandise).
It’s not only the salute but other things as well.
It’s about him being able to do plausible deniability, the salute taken alone could be a mistake from a stressful situation speaking in front of thousands of people, or a badly executed heart gesture, or whatever excuses people are saying.
But the salute + pepe the frog + kek + plenty of other signs = a trail of shit.
Separated they are only unimportant signs that those who knows knows, the rest will just dismiss them. But all together they form a message.
Besides, the salute was debunked by who ? There’s plenty of historians, journalists and whatever in the world saying that it was indeed a nazi salute.
Hell even US neo nazis said it was a nazi salute, they celebrated it.
Well of course Neo-Nazis would be expected to call it a salute. They’re known for being so eager or desperate to make their case that they’ll jump at the opportunity to put words in the mouth of a person of power and say they’re on their side for leverage.
I remember when the Black Panther movies came out, white separatists alarmingly claimed en masse it “proves” white separatism since that school of thought isn’t hierarchal but tries to claim life is better under forced separation, and Black Panther had only two caucasian characters in it who were explorers while everyone else was African. They then claimed Marvel was engaging in this phenomenon we call plausible deniability since a few of the actors are from actual cults with heavy racial undertones (actual cults tend to use their power to worm people into prestigious roles which increases their power, it’s not just a Scientology thing), since the cast as a whole is selected for attractiveness, and since the in-universe mythology is Norse mythology. I mean, yeah, when I explain it that way, that’s definitely what it looks like Marvel is doing, but it’s still just a temptation to think that. Same approach with Musk, who I don’t think highly of for other reasons (mainly the fact he’s not good at what he does and it spills over in some ways, but one other reason being, yeah, some of his ideas sadly breed what we accuse him of, as someone pointed out). I also didn’t think citing a message on something Musk owns as a gesture of emphasis would be seen in an anti-US-politics community as synonymous with supporting Musk.
Hi! The salute that Elon Musk did twice looks exactly the same as Hitler himself doing it. Elon Musk made Nazi jokes afterwards, and he also made an appearance at Germany’s far-right AfD party, a party that is no stranger to creating posters with Nazi imagery. I totally understand trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, but in this case it is very blatant that Elon Musk is not a good person and genuinely holds some troublesome beliefs, which is why many people, me included, have deleted their Twitter accounts.
I mean intention-wise. Even though it definitely looks like a Nazi salute (why is Hitler saluting himself by the way), and even though many of us wouldn’t put it past Musk to have known this was coming, in the end, I would hold the view that nobody can speak for the intentions of an individual aside from that individual, and Musk is no exception even despite how tempting he makes it seem to interpret what he means, even in all his incompetent, politically-charged glory. Anyone distancing themselves from him for this is doing it based on the impression as opposed to the intention, not that this isn’t still understandable and their choice. We just can’t speak “for him”.
Intent is why we speak of Nazism as “taking” the salute (which used to just be a greeting) from the Romans, the swastika (or manji in this case) from the Buddhists, and a bunch of random Norse symbols in the first place. Japan, a nation where Neo-Nazism is much less of an issue, still uses the manji everywhere for spiritual significance, and this leads to a lot of culture shock in anime re-edits and Japanese merchandise because of this habit of forgetting our expectations don’t apply automatically.
With all due respect, Musk has made his intentions more than obvious. The links I provided regarding Elon are non-exhaustive, he’s also spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and has promoted a safe space for pro-Nazi sympathizers to spread their hate speech. All things considered, it makes it very hard for me and many others to plausibly believe there is any ambiguity regarding his intentions.
The claim of it being a “Roman salute” is a disingenuous one, because the Nazis in history also claimed that the salute was “Roman”. Whether it truly did originate from ancient Rome or not, it’s a salute that is now unequivocally associated with Nazis and the people who pretend that this isn’t the case are being deliberately misleading.
That I did not know. Would’ve helped if this was what his opponents go by, not what looked like a salute.
No problem! 🙂 A lot of this stuff about him is kinda new to me too!