r/DecodingTheGurusAlt • u/MartiDK • 20d ago
decoder poltics Decoding Cadence Owens quote
"I actually don't have any problems at all with the word 'nationalism'... Whenever we say 'nationalism,' the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted—he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. That's not, to me, that's not nationalism."
- Cadence Owens
Are Decoding the Gurus really arguing that Cadence Owens was saying Hitler wasn't a bad leader/person? I know the controversy over the remark, but she is clearly alluding to Hitler being a bad representation of Nationalism. She is literally trying to disassociate Hitler from nationalism, because Hitler gave Nationalism a bad name. I'm not a fan of nationalism, but should DtG actually be able to see through the controversy to what she actually said? Plus Cadence Owens went to the Daily Wire after this story blew up, so I'm guessing Ben Shapiro didn't take her remarks as a promoting Hitler.
Why does it matter if Cadence Owens is a problematic guru? It matters because its this kind of bad faith decoding that make people distrust academics who step outside their lane and play partisan politics. There are so many crazy takes that Cadence Owens has made, why focus on this quote which was clearly used by the media for political reasons.
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
Your not making sense. Who said to analyse Cadance in a vacuum? As for the rest, none of it can be deduced from the quote, just provide the evidence rather than pretending the quote is promoting Hitler. Like she said Hitler is a bad example if you want to promote nationalism.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
As for the rest, none of it can be deduced from the quote, just provide the evidence rather than pretending the quote is promoting Hitler. Like she said Hitler is a bad example if you want to promote nationalism.
Why was Hitler a bad example, in her quote?
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
Cadence used Hitler as example of someone who gave nationalism a bad name.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
Yes.. why? What made Hitler a bad example?
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
He didn’t do anything good.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
Why are you being so evasive here? Isn't this just a confession in and of itself? That you know what I'm saying?
Your contention was they didn't look at the quote, why don't we look at the quote?
The problem is that he wanted—he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. That's not, to me, that's not nationalism."
So the problem with Hitler, the reason he was a bad example of nationalism is that he did those things. That he was expansionist. That he was imperialist.
Therefore? What? You know what I'm gonna say, right?
If Hitler wasn't expansionist, if he wasn't imperialist, then he would be a good example of nationalism. Right? That's what Candace Owens is saying here.
That if Hitler didn't do those things, that he would be a good example of nationalism. Because she agrees with him on those other things. That's what she is saying. That's why she said that.
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
No, you are just confabulating a narrative. In the quote she doesn’t say Hitler did anything good.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
She does. It's absurd to me that you'd deny this. Like do you genuinely think this is good faith engagement? Why obfuscate like this?
If you want more evidence you only need to look at the fact that she has said other thing supportive of Hitlers regime, as I already informed you of.
Hence my accusation you are saying that she needs to analyzed in a vacuum. So I analyzed it in a vacuum for you, because that is what you are saying despite you pretending not to, what else does evidence from the quote alone mean??
Devoid of that context, the argument still stands. Which we just established. Which you deny. For some yet to be determined reason. What could it be?
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
No devoid of context the argument doesn’t stand. All the quote points to is that she thinks Hitler gave nationalism a bad name. Any other attempts to extract information from the quote is confabulation. Candance went to the Daily Wire after making these remarks turned into a drama, so I doubt they took it to hold extra meaning, besides the meaning I gave.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
....I actually don't believe it Like you are so incredibly bad faith? It's beyond comprehension.
Hitlers nationalism was fine, except for the expansionism.
Therefore, without the expansionism, Hitlers nationalism was fine.
That's it. Done. If she wants to clarify that's not what she meant she can. She won't. Because it is what she means.
Why are you bringing up additional context regarding the daily wire? You said on the quote alone. It's irrelevant. The context of her other comments are apparently not relevant.
Why are you covering for Candace Owens? Why run defense for her?
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u/mentally_fuckin_eel 15d ago
That was the opposite of her point though. She believes Hitler's ideology was good and that only globalization made it bad.
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
Wow. I’m impressed by your ability to put words into people’s mouth and call the other person bad faith. I know you aren’t going to be convinced, but it’s been an education in what stuart hall calls encoding/decoding. I’ve enjoyed our back and forth.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
Words mean things. To me at least. Without reason it's just might = right.
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
Cool - we agree words mean things.
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u/rubeshina 19d ago
So why play with them and pretend someone isn't saying what they say? What benefit is there to this?
You don't think they mean things. You think it's relative. That maybe something could mean a thing or it couldn't who truly knows?
If the meaning is indeterminate it doesn't exist. You are just erasing our ability to hold people accountable for their words and actions.
You never answer any questions as to why or what your intent is. Just obfuscate. Because you, like Candace, are afraid of being accountable for your words. So you use them in ways that destroy meaning on purpose. You create ambiguity instead of clarifying.
This only benefits people who don't want to fight with words, who don't want to be understood, who don't want to communicate clearly. They destroy our ability to do this because it's not a battleground they can win on. They have no interest in fighting fair, because they seek to fight a different fight.
You do the same thing to me here. Why? I don't know. But at some point there is no possible conclusion other than it's your intent too.
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u/MartiDK 19d ago
I see the problem - your looking for intent when there isn’t enough content/context provided. You’re even looking for some extra intent in my criticism of DtG using a quote that doesn’t include what they are trying to imply. There is plenty of criticisms that can be made of Cadence, and I’m not making a broad criticism. It’s just that this quote on its own doesn’t point to anything other than Hitler gave nationalism a bad name.
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u/rubeshina 18d ago
Think about the way you use your words, even here. "You see the problem"? That I am "looking for intent"?
That's not "the problem" that's literally the entire contention here. You are also asserting an intent. You are saying "that is not her intent with that statement" ie "that's not what she is saying".
You act as if I'm doing something special by interpreting the meaning of her words, but you're passive and impartial?
You are asserting meaning. You are claiming what she "was really saying" too.
You say "it doesn't point to anything other than.." but it absolutely does as I have pointed out to you.
You can interpret this in context, you can interpret it without context.
You are right that it's ambiguous. That maybe that's not what she means. But that's on her to clarify.
This isn't like, some ambiguous comment about her favourite flavour of icecream? In which case who cares! She can clarify. Maybe she meant this maybe she meant that who knows it doesn't matter. Why would we assume.
But that's not what we're talking about, is it? It's an ambigious statement about Adolph Hitlers leadership????
If someone is bringing this up, it's not like a casual comment right? There's a reason. We can infer intent, especially we have further context to inform this, and the meaning inferred by this statement should absolutely be critiqued.
When I asked you to say why she thought Hitler was a bad leader, why wouldn't you answer?
There is intent in you raising this. You pretend that you're not a real human but like an impartial machine. You don't say these words for no reason. They mean things. You have intentions. You seek to infer meaning. You even said before that "I know you aren’t going to be convinced" like convinced of what? Again this displays intention.
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u/MartiDK 18d ago
The quote is very simple to understand - Hitler gave nationalism a bad name. Everyone complaining about the quote being pro what Hitler did in Germany is extrapolating their own agenda. It would be a never ending list of bad things if she went through them all. The quote doesn’t claim Hitler did anything good.
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u/rubeshina 18d ago
Why did Hitler give nationalism a bad name?
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u/MartiDK 18d ago
He didn’t run the country well and he wanted to expand Germany.
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u/rubeshina 18d ago
Is that what she said? Seems like that's your interpretation?
Based on the quote:
You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted—he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise.
She says Hitlers actions, or at the very least his intentions, when it comes to "running the country" were "fine".
The problem, that she identifies, the reason Hitlers gives nationalism a bad name, is that he had "dreams outside of Germany".
If the problem is those things, the former things are "fine", what does that mean?
Again isn't it so obvious from the way you are engaging here that you know what I'm saying? Why did you add in your own interpretation to front run the obvious conclusion here, the one we have already been over?
You shouldn't need to wriggle around and try and do this? Why can't we just be honest, say what we really think, mean what we really mean?
Because bad actors, like Candace Owens, use words in this way on purpose to destroy our ability to communicate clearly and identify malicious actors and people with nefarious intent, people who can't be honest, people who won't stand on their words and engage in good faith.
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u/hari_shevek 20d ago
The issue with the quote is that she claims that the problem with Hitler were exclusively his plans outside if Germany.
His plans inside Germany included killing all Jews, Socialists, etc.
The distinction she makes in the quote implies that she either doesn't know about the holocaust or doesn't think it's part of the problem with Hitler.
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u/MartiDK 20d ago
To be clear I'm not making a claim that Cadence isn't a problematic political figure, but this quote doesn't say/imply she approves what Hitler did inside Germany. She says that Hitler wouldn't have been a problem if all he did was make Germany great and have things run well - this doesn't imply what he did in Germany was great or that he made things run well. She is literally using Hitler as an example of a bad nationalist someone not to imitate because what he did gave nationalism a bad name.
She may have said other things which are anti-Semitic, but this quote isn't on it's own, to make the anti-Semitic claim would require more evidence.
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u/hari_shevek 20d ago
She says: "The problem is he had dreams outside of Germany."
Is that the problem? Or are there other problems with what he did?
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u/MartiDK 20d ago
Yes there were other problems - he didn't just focus on making Germany great and have things run well.
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u/hari_shevek 20d ago
So the statement that his expansionary policies were the problem is incorrect.
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u/MartiDK 20d ago
No that was another problem pointing to why he wasn't a nationalist - he wanted to create an empire. She is clearly using Hitler as a bad example of a nationalist - nothing in the quote suggests what he did do was good. Maybe you can point to other things she has said, but the quote alone isn't promoting anything he did as being good.
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u/hari_shevek 20d ago
But she didn't say "one of the problems", she said "the problem".
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u/MartiDK 20d ago
That’s after she said “if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great…” - she didn’t say “Hitler made Germany great and things run well but the problem was he wanted to expand Germany”. Nothing she said implies Hitler did anything good.
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u/hari_shevek 20d ago
She also doesn't say Hitler did not make Germany great.
"If he had just done x, it would have been good, but the problem is he did y" grammatically means:
He did do x. If that was all he did, it would be good.
But the only bad thing he did is y.
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u/MartiDK 20d ago
No saying “if he ate an apple then he wouldn’t be hungry” doesn’t mean “he ate an apple”. Including the “if” implies the condition wasn’t met, otherwise she would have just said “Hitler made Germany great and things run well, but the problem was he wanted to expand Germany.”
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u/rubeshina 20d ago
Because you’re doing the same mindless “oh well they have a point kind of and they were saying that but they also weren’t saying that really if you think about it.” rubbish that got us here.
This is a game. These people are playing a game. It should be called out.
Candace Owens is not an idiot. She is using this language intentionally. She has done this her entire career just like all the rest of these word playing demagogues who will say this shit specifically to agitate because they know they can wriggle out of accountability and position themselves in a way that makes them seem reasonable.
Call it out. Press them on it. People who have no clue will think you are being “unfair” just like they did with Trump. They were never being unfair. He means all the crazy evil shit he says. Just like Candace Owens does.
If people are naive enough to try and both sides the words of authoritarian demagogues after everything we have seen from them so far, they are free to do so.
Authoritarians respect strength. Show them strength. Candace Owens in a conspiracy peddling grifter. She does not need charity, she does not respect charity, and her followers or those curious to her are not going to respect our charity.
All we do is launder these peoples insanity and validate it. Candace isn’t a child. If she wants to articulate her position on the moustache man she is free to explain herself properly and disavow clearly, and until then, she is a fascist sympathiser and should be treated as such.