#nationalists and reactionaries rarely do. there never was any prelapsarian golden age or whatever the fuck. idiots.

[uiruu]

woah i just learned that the word Nazi was originally derogatory, and the Nazis never used it to refer to themselves because it was kind of an insult lol. apparently, the original meaning was like “country bumpkin” or “hillbilly” or “redneck”, deriving from a nickname for the german name “Ignatz”, which was a common name in Bavaria, which is where the Nazi Party started. like, the word in the Nazi sense does come from National Socialism, cause “Socialist” (Sozialist) was shortened to “Sozi”, and so “National Socialist” was shortened to “Nazi”... specifically because it was a pun on Sozi and the derogatory “stereotypical dumb farmer” word. the reason we call them Nazis is because political opponents of the Nazis (leftists, especially those who fled Germany and were living as expats in other countries and, i suppose, would have been primary sources for what they experienced of what was going on in Germany at the time, what they knew was building up there) called them that in order to deride them. They didn’t call themselves Nazis, as it would be like cops calling themselves “pigs”. We call them Nazis because the people who hated Nazis called them Nazis. 

it’s just wild to me how that has been completely lost, cause like even in German, that just became the standard word for those people like immediately after the war. it’s derogatory and vile for all sorts of other reasons now. in some ways, it’s nice to know that they’ll forever be known by a word originally used by opponents of Nazism in order to call them stupid, though

#i got this from the etymology section on the wikipedia article for nazism... im literally just regurgitating what i read there #i ended up there because i first looked up the etymology of swastika #its a sanskrit word obviously (i already knew that much) but i wanted to know what it meant #its such a shame how a symbol of prosperity and good luck has been so thoroughly corrupted #all because of some misinterpretations of the fact that hindi is related to european languages #europeans thought it meant that ancient ancestors of theirs conquered india and they were called aryans #and ''aryan'' was the secret ancient name for the white race #in reality aryan just means iranian #literally the word ''iran'' is a cognate #hindi and indo-aryan languages like persian are related to european languages like german (hence the term indo-european) #but not because of some mythical master race or whatever...... #i mean indoeuropeans probably did barge in and conquer india... and that's why sanskrit was spoken there instead of just dravidian language #or something.... but like.... this is far less mythic and far more ancient than the nazis thought #and basing your racist identity on that is stupid. and like that word... aryan... really only just ties you to india and iran and such #and im guessing nazis probably werent fond of the people who live in those countries #nazis were despicable racists and genocidal monsters but they were also just like... massive idiots #with very little understanding of history #or cultures #i was gonna say ''or cultures other than their own'' but they really didnt understand their own culture either #nationalists and reactionaries rarely do. there never was any prelapsarian golden age or whatever the fuck. idiots. #o