But also: the GOP is absolutely a fascist organization.
The existence of other authoritarian regimes doesn’t erase the existence of that one either.
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Well that’s a pretty ridiculous thing to say. Here are the 14 points of ur-fascism laid out by Eco. While some apply to the DNC, every single one applies to the GOP, which makes it look like you have no idea what Fascism actually is:
The cult of tradition. “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 rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
Disagreement is treason. “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.”
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.”
Appeal to social frustration. “[…] 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.
The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] 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.”
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Machismo and Weaponry. “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.”
Selective Populism. “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.
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “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.”
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convoluted non-standard
Umberto Eco’s description of ur-Fascism is widely accepted as the most complete and accurate definition that exists.
There are plenty of bad things in the world that aren’t fascism. But if you want a detailed description of this one specific bad thing, how it operates and why it’s dangerous, this is it.
This is like someone saying Noam Chomsky wrote about a convoluted and non-standard version of western imperialism.
Laurence Britt also has a fantastic writeup mirroring Umbertl Eco’s writing, diving a bit more into the tactics of fascism than Umberto’s breakdown of the fascist mindset.
ur-fascism is a text about semiotics, not politics.
while it can be useful in decoding political stuff, it’s not a tool intended for that use, like scraping paint with a flathead screwdriver.
while i don’t think it’s out of the ordinary to reference the fourteen points, ur-fascism is absolutely convoluted and not considered a standard interpretation of the politics of fascist movements. in ecos defense, most semioticians are incapable of writing without convolution for obvious reasons.
i’m not saying this to be pedantic, but to maybe help someone reading along to understand why anyone would reference ecos fourteen points. they make a lot more sense when theyre taken as an outline of fascism’s semiotic content, not a checklist of actions some regime needs to meet before it’s officially fascist or else be considered merely sparkling corporatism.
TIL that Stalin was a fascist.
You seem easily confused. How is saying that some of these terrible things apply to the DNC defending them?
And just because you can’t be bothered to read it doesn’t make it convoluted and non-standard; it’s a pretty widely cited list.
Aside from the arbitrary addition of masculinity everything here applies to the DNC.
Cool story bro.
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We have no effectual representation other than right of center.
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elaborate?
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That’s why it’s valuable to call it Authoritarianism. It isn’t about how money is spent or the social policies put in place - it’s how the state responds to disagreement.
Democracies will have a path for public feedback to influence a review of the implementation of the policy. Tyrants impose a set of rules via force and tolerate no feedback.
But it is a prerequisite of fascism. It is not a prerequisite of socialism.
After the revolution everything is going to be so cooperative and voluntary and kumbaya, you guys
True, it’s not a prerequisite. But sadly, in reality, the left tends towards authoritarianism just as readily as the right. Because once you have consolidation of power and resources, whether in private or in government hands, you get corruption.
Exactly. I’ve seen it with faaaaaar too many tankies and even populist leftists. Instead of advocating for empirically-driven policy that would measurably improve the world, there’s a ton of rhetoric about how we just need to punish capitalists/fascists/landlords/neolibs/billionaires/etc. harder to fix the world’s problems.
At this point, I think it’s just a deep-rooted flaw of the human psyche that we’re just inclined towards trying to force our solutions through by punishing those who oppose us, rather than trying to deeply understand the dynamics at play and changing the underlying structure to incentivize the outcomes we want.
And if we fail to address the tendency towards knee-jerk, brute-force, authoritarian “solutions” to problems within our own ranks, we’ll meet the same fate as every other revolution-turned-brutal-dictatorship.
Isn’t the whole purpose of a state to have a monopoly on violence? Order is established when noncompliance results in pain, imprisonment, or death.
Yes, but suppressive suggests using it on a higher level.
One person’s definition of order != Order
Order in the sense of self-preservation (on the part of the state). The ideological state apparatus reproduces its power through institutions like schools and police, which enforce a degree of compliance in the population that prevents the state’s authority from being too severely circumvented.
The consequences of noncompliance are varied and range from social status to economic pressure to life expectancy, but the highest degree of power that the state wields is the ability to punish or eliminate those determined to be a threat through a monopoly of violence.
No, but they are synonymous with it, married it, had children with it.
It’s true. ML leans heavily on violent suppression.
They fucking love that shit lmao.
Daily calls for nuking half the planet because they’re hurt the fascists haven’t let them have a turn at the wheel.
