@nooneinparticular Said
You propose to do away with the past scale because of this issue, and then create your own scale that is "more useful" but has the exact same fatal flaw that led you to abandon the old one to begin with? How does that work?
I'm not sure I said we should do away with it. I'm fairly certain I said I no longer believe it is useful. These are not the same thing. People can do whatever the hell they want.
You don't have to agree with me that freedom is a more useful metric these days.
Having read back over your first couple posts to see how this began, you mentioned that whether Nazism is seen as on the left or right is largely a "counting game." I agree. And most academics who've done the counting in the past, and even more so now, are on the left, with many self reporting as on the far left I believe (although I don't have that data to hand, but there is at least one study undertaken in the US I've seen cited that says this, and anecdotally working across a few universities over the years, it is beyond merely plausible). [see footnote 1]
To claim they have a vested interest in palming off undesirables is reasonable. As such I'm disinclined to accept their assertions without some justification. So far you have said that the Nazis harked back to a form of traditionalism in their desire for an ethnostate (this is me paraphrasing you, not claiming you said this exactly, so chill).
That is a reasonable argument. However, the obvious rebuttal is that the Chinese and Vietnamese governments have done similar things in appealing to racial virtue (for example, the Chinese government invoked Taosim when it suited them to).
As an aside: I think where these discussions always seem to go wrong is when people start asking me to write a virtual doctoral thesis in defence of my positions, when I never, ever, at any time, present an hypothesis from a doctoral thesis in a discussion here. And I don't expect other people to produce such a thing either. I don't ask for that from others as a rule and have no interest in being forced to do so for my ideas.
As far as Tommy's politics I'm not asking you to take my word for it, just giving my opinion as someone who has followed him for a few years. My anecdotal account was not aimed at being considered valid proof - this is not a doctoral thesis but a discussion/informal debate. You are free to accept my claim, reject it, call me a liar, call it irrelevant etc... whatever...
"Identitariansm" as a far right, white thing seems to me to be a politically expedient fabrication from left wing academics. I happily admit I have little interest in the work of most of them. It comes from dozens of years of working with and around them. An academic is as biased as the rest of us, and peer review is now little more than naval gazing.
I can see the sense in differentiating the Identitarian essentialism of any ethnonationalist, irrespective of their race (as it is not just Europeans/white people who have considered themselves racially superior to others. Japanese, Chinese, some African tribes etc., have also considered themselves superior to others based on race), and the current identity politics of the left which would deny such essentialism while engaging in a range of inconsistent ideas around a non unified narrative.
That's fine.
I see no reason to accept it as a right wing thing though, without some justification being given for it. Any statement to the effect that "academics say thus" is not one I am inclined to accept. Appeals to authority aren't valid.
If there is a reason I'm happy to consider it, and you can cite someone or not. I care about the argument, not who said it.
You say being pro-capitalist and anti globalist are at odds with each other. But this is an oversimplification as I see it. Sure, certain characterisations of capitalism see the role of government being very limited, and private capital being able to move freely when, where and how it wants, including in global corporate entities. However, when capitalism was first discussed by people like Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations (from memory), this idea of globalised capital was not even a consideration. There is no reason why capitalism should be said to automatically include corporatism.
Just as there are varying concepts on the left, from complete state ownership of all means of production and abolition of private property, through to a heavily regulated private sector privately owned but controlled by government and mandated to work for the "common good," so too there are different ideas on what capitalism is, and what to if any extent it should be limited by government in the interest of the nation.
[Footnote 1]
An extensive study of 8,688 tenure-track professors at 51 of the 66 top-ranked liberal arts colleges in the U.S. published by the National Association of Scholars found that the ratio of faculty members registered as Democrats compared to those registered Republican is now a stunning 10.4 to 1. If two military colleges that are technically described as "liberal arts colleges" are removed from the calculations, the ratio is 12.7 to 1. https://www.dailywire.com/news/30222/how-politically-biased-are-universities-new-study-james-barrett
I'm not sure the rampaging left wing bias of academia in the Arts needs to be argued, but provided this for you just in case.