Freedom and liberation are an unending task.
1 2 3 4
abc bcd cde def
Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counter-revolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of them indulgently accepted by the Roman Pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages—in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little known religions of Asia.
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs,” “universities are a nest of reds.” The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.
4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old “proletarians” are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson’s The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Falangists was Viva la Muerte (in English it should be translated as “Long Live Death!”). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. One of the first sentences uttered by Mussolini in the Italian parliament was “I could have transformed this deaf and gloomy place into a bivouac for my maniples”—“maniples” being a subdivision of the traditional Roman legion. As a matter of fact, he immediately found better housing for his maniples, but a little later he liquidated the parliament. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.
On the morning of July 27, 1943, I was told that, according to radio reports, fascism had collapsed and Mussolini was under arrest. When my mother sent me out to buy the newspaper, I saw that the papers at the nearest newsstand had different titles. Moreover, after seeing the headlines, I realized that each newspaper said different things. I bought one of them, blindly, and read a message on the first page signed by five or six political parties—among them the Democrazia Cristiana, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Partito d’Azione, and the Liberal Party.
Until then, I had believed that there was a single party in every country and that in Italy it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I was discovering that in my country several parties could exist at the same time. Since I was a clever boy, I immediately realized that so many parties could not have been born overnight, and they must have existed for some time as clandestine organizations.
The message on the front celebrated the end of the dictatorship and the return of freedom: freedom of speech, of press, of political association. These words, “freedom,” “dictatorship,” “liberty,”—I now read them for the first time in my life. I was reborn as a free Western man by virtue of these new words.
We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” Freedom and liberation are an unending task.
Let me finish with a poem by Franco Fortini:
Sulla spalletta del ponte
Le teste degli impiccati
Nell’acqua della fonte
La bava degli impiccati.Sul lastrico del mercato
Le unghie dei fucilati
Sull’erba secca del prato
I denti dei fucilati.Mordere l’aria mordere i sassi
La nostra carne non è più d’uomini
Mordere l’aria mordere i sassi
Il nostro cuore non è più d’uomini.Ma noi s’è letto negli occhi dei morti
E sulla terra faremo libertà
Ma l’hanno stretta i pugni dei morti
La giustizia che si farà.
* * *
(On the bridge’s parapet
The heads of the hanged
In the flowing rivulet
The spittle of the hanged.On the cobbles in the market- places
The fingernails of those lined up and shot
On the dry grass in the open spaces
The broken teeth of those lined up and shot.Biting the air, biting the stones
Our flesh is no longer human
Biting the air, biting the stones
Our hearts are no longer human.But we have read into the eyes of the dead
And shall bring freedom on the earth
But clenched tight in the fists of the dead
Lies the justice to be served.)
—poem translated by Stephen Sartarelli
Let’s talk about 14 characteristics, 10 stages, and where you are….
Published: July 1, 2019
1) Lawrence Britt: 14 Characteristics
2) Umberto Eco’s: 2003 article
Transcript
well howdy there internet people let’sbow again so tonight we’re going to talkabout 14 characteristics and ten stagesif you know where this is going to stickaround you’re gonna find out somethingyou don’t know at the end so I’m gonnalist 14 characteristics of a certainkind of government give you examples ofthe ones that aren’t plainly obvious andthen we’re going to talk about somethingelseso those fourteen characteristics firstof which is powerful and continuingdisplays of nationalism you know pictureflags on everything very patrioticslogans Trump hugging the flag the nextis a disdain for human rights thatshould be plainly obvious you knowsupport of torture black sitesconcentration camps that sort of thingidentifying enemies and scapegoats usand them those Muslims those thoseillegals we got enough of the bad peopleare right the others supremacy of themilitary in these regimes even if thereare widespread problems at home themilitary receives a ridiculous portionof the budget like here rampant sexismthat one should be obvious grabber bythe she’s a good pizza yeah she waspretty obvious the other thing that’sinteresting is that in this categoryalso is included discrimination againstgays and opposition to abortion seemscooler along the nose doesn’t it justsee you know this was written in 2003it wasn’t tailor-made for Trump it justseems like it is control of the massmedia is really important to these kindsof regimes maybe suggesting that there’sa state-run news outlet to counter allthe fake newsthere’s a an obsession with nationalsecurity and this is more aboutgoverning through fear we’ve got to tellyou who to be afraid of so we can tellyou we’re gonna protect you from themand you’ll give us your rights in orderto do that it’s what it’s about theblending of religion and government nowthis is really just innately Americanthere’s always been religious rhetoricin government since very early on veryearly on the one ripe I have with thislist is it says that corporate power isprotected whereas most other experts onthis subject would say that corporatepower and government are blended notjust protected and this would be youknow the privatization of governmentfunctions like prisons detainmentfacilities contracting along the borderthese kinds of things and an obsessionwith the corporate well-being ofentities within the country laborsuppression now that one’s a little alittle more obscure but let’s just sayin the u.s. there are two agencies thatdeal with unions one regulates theunions and make sure that they’re notdoing anything wrong the other regulatesthe companies that have unions one ofthese had their budgets slashed the onethat regulates the companies the otherhad their budget increase the one thatregulates the unions a disdain forintellectuals in the arts I loveuneducated voters an obsession withcrime and punishment I’ll pardon thosepeople that do stuff wrong because youwant to punish those you feel that aredoing something illegal and it extendsto creating a situation where the policecan get away with anything bang theirhead you don’t have to treat them tooniceKoni ISM and corruption I’m fairlycertain that nepotism would fall underthat or using government funds to go toyour own hotels and then the last one isfraudulent elections see the most recentSupreme Court case most of the time thisis accomplished through judicial reviewand gerrymandering these are thefourteen characteristics of fascism youare here to those that are saying wellthat doesn’t sound so bad there’s neverbeen a fascist regime in history thatdid not go through these ten stages thefirst of which is classification that’swhere you divide them up us and themgood guys and bad guysthe next is symbolization where wedefine them by other terms you know notpeople but illegals maybe come up withother terms to use them for and wecreate a mascot form a boogeyman toscare everybody with like ms-13 next isdiscrimination and that is where westart to deny the rights nowhistorically this is done throughlegislation in the u.s. we’re justsaying oh they don’t have them becausethey’re illegal but they doconstitutionally that precedent has beenset for a very very very long timethe next is dehumanization and you knowthat’s where they become animals anddisease carriers why we’ve got to checkthem at the border right because they’reall just dirty brown people so really onthe nose isn’t it the next stage isorganization and that’s where themilitias start to pop up and you see alot of replacements in governmentpositions shaking things up and there’sa cuttin a lot of times it’s adecentralized network that pulls thisstuff togetherthen there’s polarization and that’swhere you have hate groups start toemergeand become very vocal and theymainstream these ideasdon’t worry though there’s nice peopleon both sides then we get to preparationand this is more mental preparation ofyou where they start using terms likepurifying the nation mass removal wellthey won’t assimilate they’re not reallypart of us are a we’ve got to dosomething about and then we get topersecution and that’s concentrationcamps that’s when those show up you arehere the next step the next stage isextermination the stage after that isdenial yeah that’s that’s where crapwe’re really close and right now there’speople saying you know we’re not goingto commit genocide that’s ridiculousmm-hmm maybe but genocide like the termethnic cleansing is misunderstood in theUnited States genocide doesn’t just meanmass killings it’s not what it meanslike ethnic cleansing and genocide arenot interchangeable termsaetna cleansing could be renaming streetsigns if at the end of World War twowhen we had control of Berlin we renamedall the roads after us generals thatwould be ethnic cleansing that there’sthe common usage and then there’s thelegal term under the legal term ofgenocide there are five components fivethings that qualify one is the forcibletransfer of children to another groupthat one’s already happening not justtheir adoption but in a truly Americantwist we’re taking them and putting theminto facilities where because of thecronyism our friends are making moneythat one’s already happening the nextone is to prevent births from thattarget group because you know we got toget rid of those anchor babies rightalready happening deliberatelyinflicting poor conditions on that groupand in hopes of destroying them in partsuch as well you know they don’t needsoap toothbrushes or beds food alreadyhappening doing things to intentionallycause them physical and mental harmchild separation the conditions in thesecamps already happening in fact the onlyone that isn’t happening under the thelegal definition the genocide is masskillings that’s it you are hereit’s a little sobering but it’ssomething that I think we really need topay attention to you have all of thesethese lists that have been around a longlong time and we’re matching them upalmost like we’re following them like ablueprint and nobody wants to dare callit what it isI don’t normally at the end of my videosI don’t normally say hey share thisshare this one there there are peoplethat need to understand this they needto understand where we’re at becausevery soon they’re gonna have their haveto make a choice are they gonna doubledown on their mistake or are they gonnaattempt to correct it are they gonnaspeak out anyway it’s just a faulty’all have a good night
Why fascism is so tempting — and how your data could power it | Yuval Noah Harari
In a profound talk about technology and power, author and historian Yuval Noah Harari explains the important difference between fascism and nationalism — and what the consolidation of our data means for the future of democracy. Appearing as a hologram live from Tel Aviv, Harari warns that the greatest danger that now faces liberal democracy is that the revolution in information technology will make dictatorships more efficient and capable of control. “The enemies of liberal democracy hack our feelings of fear and hate and vanity, and then use these feelings to polarize and destroy,” Harari says. “It is the responsibility of all of us to get to know our weaknesses and make sure they don’t become weapons.” (Followed by a brief conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson)
Being Honest About Trump
His language remains not merely sloppy or incendiary but openly hostile to the simplest standards of truth and decency that have governed American politics.
.. Jeb Bush knows what Trump is, but still feels obliged to say that he would “feel sad” if Trump lost.
.. To their great credit, the editors of most of the leading conservative publications in America have recognized Trump for what he is, and have opposed his rise to power. Yet the habit of hatred is so ingrained in their psyches that even those who recognize at some level that Trump is a horror, when given the dangling bait of another chance to hate Hillary still leap at it..
.. The Times, to take one example, ran a front-page analysis criticizing Trump for being insufficiently able to exploit a political opening given by the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail, with the complaint seeming to be that Trump just isn’t clever enough to give us a good fight—to be the fun opponent we want. If only he had some more skill at this!
.. Trump is unstable, a liar, narcissistic, contemptuous of the basic norms of political life, and deeply embedded among the most paranoid and irrational of conspiracy theorists. There may indeed be a pathos to his followers’ dreams of some populist rescue for their plights. But he did not come to political attention as a “populist”; he came to politics as a racist, a proponent of birtherism.
.. It is the essence of fascism to have no single fixed form—an attenuated form of nationalism in its basic nature, it naturally takes on the colors and practices of each nation it infects. In Italy, it is bombastic and neoclassical in form; in Spain, Catholic and religious; in Germany, violent and romantic. It took forms still crazier and more feverishly sinister, if one can imagine, in Romania ..
.. What all forms of fascism have in common is the glorification of the nation, and the exaggeration of its humiliations, with violence promised to its enemies, at home and abroad; the worship of power wherever it appears and whoever holds it; contempt for the rule of law and for reason; unashamed employment of repeated lies as a rhetorical strategy; and a promise of vengeance for those who feel themselves disempowered by history. It promises to turn back time and take no prisoners.