NEO-NAZI MOVEMENTS

I am surprised but not surprised to read of neo-Nazis in Switzerland. Neo-Nazis and Neo-Nazism are international and with their cousins the Skin Heads make for considerable trouble if they so choose. Germany in particular has seen a dramatic rise in Neo-Nazism especially in Bavaria even though Nazism is outlawed. However, there is also a large group of Neo-Nazis in Taiwan, 50,000 - 100,000, who are demanding that they be allowed to register as a legitimate political party. The Taiwanese Neo-Nazis say they revere Hitler but that he made mistakes they will avoid. And of course we have our own home grown Neo-Nazis in America including in my city Baltimore.

So far wherever Neo-Nazism rears its head it appears to appeal to primarily young, uneducated males who have a history of doing poorly in school and petty criminal behavior. They are in effect outsiders within their communities and becoming a Neo-Nazi gives them an identity - and to their minds one of superiority - they cannot get otherwise. I do not see these Neo-Nazi movements reflecting a well thought out political agenda but rather they are an expression of anger and rage that is more counter culture than political when expressed in anti-social and violent behavior.

Yet, they are very dangerous because I do not see avenues for a Neo-Nazi to “grow out of” being a Neo-Nazi. Where would they go? How else can they express their angst, their anger, and their pain at being outcasts? When a good day is measured by how well you disrupt a gathering of people who are proclaiming positive social values or demonstrating for individual rights and liberties, you have reached the end of the road because you have not internalized even the basic values and norms of the greater society. Thus, to abandon the Neo-Nazi lifestyle requires not simply rehabilitation but habilitation and that is much more difficult than rehabilitation. It is more difficult because to rehabilitate means to "reeducate" and to "relearn" what one already knew - and presumably accepted - while to habilitate means the inculcation of that which was never known and never accepted.

Why is this process difficult? We can see the difficulty via analogy of the two primary aspects of what it means to be human: gender and sexual orientation. If one is a male or female they have no understanding of what it means to be the opposite gender. They have not internalized that experience. Likewise if one is heterosexual or homosexual they have no understanding what it means to be the opposite sexual orientation. They have not internalized that experience.

I suggest the same mechanism exists in the inculcation of social values and normative behavior. If one has never experienced it, has never internalized it, such as in the case of Neo-Nazis, the process of leaning and internalizing them is as daunting and difficult to accomplish as to change one's gender or sexual orientation.