The etiquette lessons are a good idea. For starters, if RK’s coming back, there ought to be a gentlemen’s agreement that the Nazi comparisons be tossed aside. This pertains to RK in particular.

It is entirely ridiculous for either side to equate the other to Nazism.

Nazism was a product of the contradictions of German society, within the context of Germany’s political culture, German traditions, the peculiarities of the various actors, and the capacity of Germany’s material development. It was not the product of a mutual, mass-based conflict between Jews and gentiles in Germany, whereas the Israeli-Palestinian matter is an “us versus them” conflict, which escalated in such a way that bred hatred. If one were provide similes, the suicide bombings and targeted assassinations would be analogous to a couple of old, bitter enemies finally having enough, and lashing out violently against each other. The “final solution,” on the other hand, would be analogous to a serial killer, such as John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, or Jeffrey Dahmer, acting out his frustrations and arbitrarily picking out certain types of people in a killing spree.

At this point, we can still set some informal agreements to avoid having peoples’ feelings hurt. We could firmly set limits on the more outlandish hyperbole, such as the historically groundless use of the Nazi tag as a means of rhetoric.

Now, let me address the issue of mass-based conflicts (not the Holocaust – which was no mutual conflict, but sheep being led to the slaughter house) played out on Wikipedia flame wars. In general, among the parties involved in an escalated conflict, the conceptions of reality (vis-à-vis the other party) start taking on ideas that have little basis in reality. Conflict is never primordial, but when they take on a mass-based element, and escalate ideologically to a certain level, easy settlements (e.g., carrot and stick, incorporation, concessions, separation, or coalition) become extremely difficult. Attrition, more conflict, or total defeat of one group, are the only realistic outcomes.

Thus, it’s no coincidence – although other factors are certainly involved – that the total wars of the past century coincided with the modern age of mass culture, nationalism, and mass society. While cleavages breeding mass hatreds certainly predate modern times, the capacity for mass hatred between peoples was certainly facilitated by advancements in communication and transportation, the rise of the nation-state, and new social contradictions. As an aside, Israel’s leaders were not skillful enough to handle the Palestinian matter before generations were born and reared in refugee camps.

For good or for ill, a free online medium like Wikipedia will inevitably become a form for anyone with internet access who has found the site to play out these strong tensions. And any attempts to avoid this, so long as we can stop anyone from SUCCESSFULLY using the site to promote an agenda, will be futile. Anyone can log in; and if we start banning people in droves, and developing committees to keep the RK-types and proxy wars out, then we no longer have a free encyclopedia. Furthermore, with Wikipedia more popular than Britannica, oversight committees and planning becomes impossible.

Let me use another analogy. Rationalized planning worked well in the Soviet Union until a point: achieving the fastest rate of industrial development ever, fastest rate of social mobility ever, and incredible advancements in living standards (between the period in which the Soviets started reaping the benefits of industrialization and the onset of stagnation in the 1970s), but it eventually exhausted its capacity. Eventually, it was the victim of its own success, creating complexity (e.g., technological development, an intricate division of labor, so much diversification, such a high degree of occupational specialization) that the planners couldn’t handle. It worked when for the Soviets when they had a lot of peasants and a lot of hard-to-extract resources (not a humane combination…) in the beginning; and regulating things to avoid partisan flame wars on Wikipedia might work for us in the beginning. But this site is growing so fast that ability for all these conflicts to be managed by a tight community will be exhausted. It’s time to accept that we’re going to have to deal with a more de-centralized approach. RK’s rivals will do a better job managing him than committees, mailing lists, and developers.

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