Conspirituality - Bonus Sample: What’s a Nazi Salute, Really?
Aired: 2025-03-03
Duration: 04:59


=== Jabs and Camaraderie (04:56) ===

[00:00:03]  Growing up, you looked for pain points in your friends.
[00:00:06]  Jabs you could throw at your disposal.
[00:00:08]  Sometimes to get over on someone.
[00:00:11]  Sometimes to react to a jab coming your way.
[00:00:14]  I don't want to say it was only a boy thing because some of the nastiest jabs were thrown by girls.
[00:00:20]  And I also, with the hindsight of decades now, realized that this was cultural.
[00:00:27]  Not that ribbing friends as a form of camaraderie is exclusive to the 80s in Jersey.
[00:00:32]  I personally believe the British have some of the best sarcasm in the world and mercilessly wield it, but there are people from other times and places where such a form of bonding is not currency and who, to be frank, loathe it.
[00:00:49]  I can't help people from other times and places, which is to say we haven't really caught up to the internet yet.
[00:00:57]  So many people madly typing into the sky can't possibly coordinate well, much less understand one another.
[00:01:04]  The results of someone tone-policing how many fucks I employ only results in more fucks being used and less fucks given, which has nothing to do with malice.
[00:01:15]  The language just isn't for you.
[00:01:17]  Which is fine, but that doesn't mean that that form of language isn't fine.
[00:01:22]  Which, if that's your assumption...
[00:01:25]  Definitely isn't fine.
[00:01:27]  And yet, even with all the ways we relate to one another, and all the ways we fail to relate to one another, I imagine there are certain communication styles that, even on a global level, we can all understand.
[00:01:43]  And I know that's a rough demand.
[00:01:46]  An old friend of mine was traveling through North Africa decades ago.
[00:01:51]  And she wanted to show the village shopkeeper her sign of approval for the goods on display.
[00:01:56]  She put her index finger and thumb together in a circle, with the three remaining digits flailed out like a peacock.
[00:02:04]  You know, the sign for nice back in New York City, only later to learn that she had told the woman to fuck off.
[00:02:13]  Even simple pantomimes can inadvertently be weaponized.
[00:02:18]  But I would expect...
[00:02:20]  Or at least hope that we'd all agree on the function of Nazi salutes.
[00:02:25]  I mean, if there was ever a gimme in the broad spectrum of bodily contortions, this would be it.
[00:02:32]  But even here I'm apparently wrong.
[00:02:35]  Or so I learned after reading Richard Hanani's recent article in the Free Press.
[00:02:40]  I can explain why the Nazi salute is back.
[00:02:44]  I learned about the article because someone screenshotted Free Press founder Barry Weiss Positively promoting it.
[00:02:52]  Now, Weiss only copy-pasted the first line of the article, which is, Nazi, excuse me, Roman, salutes have become all the rage on the American right, before concluding with a question, What's going on?
[00:03:07]  Fine if you want to pretend to transcend politics or reality for the sake of the vaunted opinion section of a newspaper.
[00:03:14]  Something that we learned Jeff Bezos is unwilling to do with his new magified op-ed section of the Washington Post.
[00:03:21]  But coming from the author of How to Fight Anti-Semitism, this tweet seemed rather rich.
[00:03:28]  I mean, poor, but the fuck I know.
[00:03:31]  I take that back.
[00:03:32]  This one should be obvious.
[00:03:35]  But to Hanania, who at the very least does come out on the side of Nazis aren't good, this is all really just a troll.
[00:03:45]  First off, Hanania used to write race realism under the pen name Richard Host over a decade ago.
[00:03:52]  What is race realism?
[00:03:54]  Things like eugenics and forced sterilization for low-IQ folk who just happen to be black.
[00:04:02]  He didn't want any race mixing.
[00:04:05]  He was also a fan of a forthcoming sci-fi race war written by a neo-Nazi to justify his belief that black people can't govern themselves.
[00:04:14]  But now, he's supposedly reformed, which is how he can write an article claiming Nazi salutes really aren't that bad.
[00:04:24]  I'm Derek Barris, and this is a Conspirituality Bonus episode called What's a Nazi Salute, Really?
[00:04:33]  You've been listening to a Conspirituality bonus episode sample.
[00:04:38]  To continue listening, please head over to patreon.com slash Conspirituality where you can access all of our main feed episodes ad-free as well as four years of bonus content that we've been producing.
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