Thank you
Those who have parents who are holocaust survivors, and friends of the same, probably don’t want to deal with this Nazi symbol of evil.
Yes, I would find something like that offensive.
I dunno, genocide tends to put a damper on the celebrations. And the Third Reich lasted for all of 12 years and ended in military defeat. I admit that I’m unaware of the sorts of attitudes modern Mexicans exhibit towards the Aztec death-cult.
Cecil on the swastika: Was the swastika actually an old Native American symbol? - The Straight Dope
It’s not a Nazi symbol of evil that’s the whole point.
It’s been in use for thousands of years before that.
We didn’t have rock-solid records of exactly all the terrible things that the Mongols, Aztecs, Romans, Vikings, etc., did, unlike the Nazis. I kind of doubt that any significant number of Germans will revere Hitler or the Nazis in the moderate-term future (in the long-term, who knows, but I think the Nazis will be remembered quite differently from the Vikings, Mongols, etc.).
I think you guys are missing the point that the swastika ISN’T exclusively a symbol for the Nazi Regime.
No one is missing that. In the US, though, that is the overwhelming association.
What is it you are trying to debate here? We have a forum called IMHO if all you want to do is tell us how you wish you could use the swastika in public in the US. But in this forum, you’re supposed to offer a debate.
What’s the debate?
My apologies, I got off topic of the original question.
There were swastikas plastered all over the temple in the American children’s cartoon Xiaolin Showdown like 10 years ago and nobody really made a fuss. I think people can generally handle context.
Educated people know this, so I don’t think you’ll find much disagreement here.
No, it’s not evil. It’s actually a pretty nice geometric design. Do you think Hitler’s crowd chose it because it looked evil, or because it looked good?
What about the name “swastika” of the symbol? Is that a historical name associated with any of the older pre-Nazi usages? Or did the term “swastika” arise in conjunction with the Nazi usage? Is it a German word, or of German origin? (Hibernicus has already mentioned a different name for the Japanese usage.)
If the symbol is able to regain widespread respectability in other non-Nazi usages (new or ancient), should the symbol also be given a different name?
Swastika is not a Nazi-coined word. [del]I think they may have called it a fylfot, actually.[/del]
ETA: Looks like they called it a Hakenkreuz. They presumably identified it with the south Asian “swastika” but used a German name. “Fylfot” is Anglo-Saxon.
I’m pretty sure Svastika is the sanskrit name.
As a Hindu, who grew up in a primarily Jewish neighborhood in New Jersey, and whose mother painted swastikas (and other symbols) all over our steps during religious holidays, I don’t think we’re giving Americans enough credit. Plenty of Jews walked past our house and no one ever complained. I used to tell my mom to stop, but she was wiser and knew that our educated neighbors would know that we used the symbol for completely different reasons. My mother made a great point that finally convinced me: if Hitler had selected the cross as the Nazi symbol, I think we can all agree that churches around the US would still have left their crosses up.
On the other hand, all it takes in 2015 is some asshole with an agenda posting a picture of the Swastikas by your house on Twitter without context to make your life miserable. Or maybe they’d turn against the person who posted it. It’s hard to predict the direction internet mob justice will take.
As has been noted, the swastika is pretty ubiquitous in India in religious iconography and everyday life, often being painted on houses to ward off evil/promote good. If the Nazis hadn’t appropriated it (and tilted it 45 degrees) then I can easily imagine that it could have become a trendy hippy/New age symbol.
A similar thing is happening with the so-called Islamic State and the word “ISIS”. Up until recent years those letters have principally been recognised as standing for the Ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. She sounds pretty cool - “ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic” - and was, and presumably still is, worshipped by some neo-pagan types.
Which is why I prefer, as the White House does, to them call them ISIL. It sounds dull, not evil villain, CNN-headline sexy and also doesn’t appropriate a word that already has a previous meaning, and a pretty cool one at that.
Isn’t there a difference in the orientation of the Swastika, and religious symbols: Like the Nazi symbol goes clockwise and the ancient eastern one goes counterclockwise. Am I the only person who would look for that before I was offended?
I would like to see the symbol lose it’s evil associations given its long history before being appropriated by the Nazis. If you can get past the Nazi stuff, it’s a cool looking symbol. It will eventually. Not real soon thought. I think we need to get a few generations away from the people who remember the Nazis. We’re not really close to that yet.
Japan, Nepal, India and Thailand still heavily use the swastika in buddhist and hindu temples and decor. Probably China and Korea as well although the 4 countries I mentioned above I have personally seen them in many places.
Give it another two generations in the west and I think using the swastika for buddhist / hindu meaning will be more accepted.
No, that’s not true. That link is complete and utter garbage.