The Language of Nazism and Its Discursive Space
The author of the article proposes a program for studying the language of Nazism by using an analysis of the language codes that define and structure the dominant discourse of Western social thought. The first stage of the study consists of a comparative analysis of the linguistic facts accumulated during the periods of Hitlerism (1930–40s) and late Atlanticism (2020s).
The Atlanticist narrative is defined as representing the ideology of the struggle against world evil for the metaphysically and fatalistically understood progress (“progress of everything”, Progress with a capital letter, which is both its own goal and criterion), while the victims of this struggle are presented as inevitable “collateral damage” in the course of human development.
It is noted that the semantics of the concept “Other” in contemporary Nazi language is split into two meanings: the official, “desirable” Other and the unofficial, “undesirable” Other (otherwise: “the Other Other”), which does not fall into the zone of tolerance, does not succumb to Westernization, and therefore is supposedly “aggressive” and “dangerous” (“patriarchal”, “traditional” or “populist”). The reproduction of ideology in the Atlanticist Nazi language is defined as a four-step process: pluralism — nihilism — Nazism (racism) — splitting of the Nazi discourse, revealing its ambivalence.
The semiotic system of the contemporary Nazi language is described in the article as having a core (generating the semantics of Nazi myths) and a conceptual “protective belt”, which includes, in particular, the “retro-discourse of classical liberalism”, formulas of “liberal war” (“military pacifism”, “humanitarian bombing”, “coercion to peace”, etc.), themes of “new ethics”, “post-material values”, “multiple identities”, a general attitude towards technocracy and digitalization of social relations.
Foucault, M. Nadzirat’ i nakazyvat’: Rozhdenie tiur’my. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press, 2015.
Hock, R. F., and O’Neil, E. N. (eds.) The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Ricoeur, P. Konflikt interpretatsii. Ocherki o germenevtike, transl. I. S. Vdovina. Moscow: Akademicheskii Proekt, 2008.
Shchipkov, V. A. Smekh, tabu i drugie gumanitarnye tekhnologii: Uchebnoe posobie. Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet, 2017.
The Atlanticist narrative is defined as representing the ideology of the struggle against world evil for the metaphysically and fatalistically understood progress (“progress of everything”, Progress with a capital letter, which is both its own goal and criterion), while the victims of this struggle are presented as inevitable “collateral damage” in the course of human development.
It is noted that the semantics of the concept “Other” in contemporary Nazi language is split into two meanings: the official, “desirable” Other and the unofficial, “undesirable” Other (otherwise: “the Other Other”), which does not fall into the zone of tolerance, does not succumb to Westernization, and therefore is supposedly “aggressive” and “dangerous” (“patriarchal”, “traditional” or “populist”). The reproduction of ideology in the Atlanticist Nazi language is defined as a four-step process: pluralism — nihilism — Nazism (racism) — splitting of the Nazi discourse, revealing its ambivalence.
The semiotic system of the contemporary Nazi language is described in the article as having a core (generating the semantics of Nazi myths) and a conceptual “protective belt”, which includes, in particular, the “retro-discourse of classical liberalism”, formulas of “liberal war” (“military pacifism”, “humanitarian bombing”, “coercion to peace”, etc.), themes of “new ethics”, “post-material values”, “multiple identities”, a general attitude towards technocracy and digitalization of social relations.
References
Der Untermensch. Berlin: Nordland Verlag, 1942.Foucault, M. Nadzirat’ i nakazyvat’: Rozhdenie tiur’my. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press, 2015.
Hock, R. F., and O’Neil, E. N. (eds.) The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Ricoeur, P. Konflikt interpretatsii. Ocherki o germenevtike, transl. I. S. Vdovina. Moscow: Akademicheskii Proekt, 2008.
Shchipkov, V. A. Smekh, tabu i drugie gumanitarnye tekhnologii: Uchebnoe posobie. Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet, 2017.
PDF, ru

This work is licensed under a Сreative Commons Atribiution - NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Keywords: Atlanticism; multiracialism; Nazism; Nazi language; naturalization of ideology; undesirable Other; project Nazism; splitting of discourse
DOI Number: 10.55959/MSU0868-4871-12-2024-2-1-65-79
Available in the on-line version with: 15.01.2024
To cite this article

This work is licensed under a Сreative Commons Atribiution - NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
