Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

[dada]

"The currently popular doctrine of social determinism, which conceives human life as a mechanism of cause and effect and views history as subject to immutable laws, conflicts with our understanding of life as a ceaselessly interactive synthesis of freedom and necessity—as creativity or as history. A deterministic view of history likens its movement to the wound-up mechanism of a clock and therefore considers itself capable (in principle if not in fact) of scientifically predicting the future, of “prognosis” based on a calculation of causes and effects; sociology then becomes a sort of inferior or incomplete astronomy"

-Sergei Bulgakov, Philosophy of Economy

[kelley]

and yet

here we are

it would be quite a feat to undo the illusion of causation in material terms

just as it would to rip binary thinking up by its roots and begin to sow the fields afresh

imo this implies something akin to what would be understood as 'meta-modern'

what else is there but creativity and history? and the means by which these concepts are expressed

when dialectics may be subsumed within the structure of work itself through the understanding that modernity is indeed 'an unfinished project' what possibly remains is a materialism which gives way to the ideation involved in the making of said work

iow

the idea is the work

this of course is a paradox-- one of the oldest ones-- but it is our tools which allow us to establish this position and 'create' a type of epistemology, or knowledge, actually based upon what one knows, which in turn stands as a type of 'history' at the local level

how may places may be found for that which exist in the world not as mere things

but as relative viz their position or place at any given moment?

this is but one of the tasks before us today

[dada]

Both creativity and history would be syntheses of the ongoing dialogue between freedom and necessity. Synthesis is not a passive effect, but an active resolution. If it were only an effect, the dialogue between freedom and necessity would always end at either 'life as creativity,' or 'life as history.' But it isn't one or the other.

So, what else is there besides creativity and history, would be life itself. Life, synthesized as creativity, or history, or whatever else we might conclude that life is.

But there are other ways to look at things besides dialectically. A hermeneutic is not a dialectic. Ripping binary thinking out by its roots may not be necessary, could even prove dangerous. It has its place in a greater context.

[dada]

A hermeneutic being an uncovering of meaning. Not all at once, but layer by layer. Each revealed layer of meaning is necessary, it and only it leads back to the next layer.

I'd say to read a hermeneutic dialectically would be to miss the point of the hermeneutic, but not reading a dialectic hermeneutically is to miss the point of the dialectic!

[kelley]

I'd say 'freedom' and 'necessity' sound like generalizations. They might even be reductive, or essentialist, and who wants that? What's good for the goose may not be so for the zebra, and humans are animals of an entirely different stripe. If hermeneutics imply metaphor, this is another story, and one I'd like to follow.*

*which in doing may note cultural differences

[dada]

Well I think it's metaphor that implies hermeneutics. But yes, 'when strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training.'

Old saying. I'm thinking that by freedom, Bulgakov means freedom from need, desire. Necessity would be needs and desires.

"it would be quite a feat to undo the illusion of causation in material terms"

I'd say it's the mechanisation of causation. The illusion to be undone is the illusion of mechanisation. Cause and effect itself isn't an illusion. I'm thinking of a John Cage quote: "There is nothing that is free of the network of cause and effect. Everything causes everything else. Everything results from everything else"

[kelley]

With all respect, Cage is talking about randomness and choice. This is a different topic. Cage sought to rewrite conventions of his practice viz the interpretation of what it brought forth. He wasn't oblivious to vagaries of context, but the description of cause and effect noted above seems to ignore specificity for the sake of expediency, to establish a false equivalence in service to a soft version of determinism, or a parody of such, in a uh um er neo-dada sense of it.

[dada]

I don't know, everything Cage said and did was not all about randomness and choice. Pretty good philosopher, for a composer. Anyway I can choose randomness, the two aren't diametrically opposed.

I think he also may be saying something about the dogma of the linearity of time. But I think that where you're seeing 'the description of cause and effect noted above seems to ignore specificity for the sake of expediency, to establish a false equivalence in service to a soft version of determinism, or a parody of such, in a uh um er neo-dada sense of it,' I'm seeing a view that looks closer to the modern scientific view of cause and effect. The 'hard versions of determinism' look like the parodies, or imitations of the real thing, to me.

"Cage sought to rewrite conventions of his practice viz the interpretation of what it brought forth. "

Isn't this kind of saying that the perceived effect determined the cause? The distinction between cause and effect, effect and cause gets fuzzier as it comes into focus. But if we must say there is a cause and an effect, which is which? Perhaps it only appears clear when we lose focus.

edited to change 'caused the cause' to 'determined the cause,' for the sake of something resembling clarity.

[dada]

Randomness and choice reminds me of destiny and free will. Free will means choice is something you determine, control. Destiny is out of your control, a determined randomness.

But if we're destined to have free will, it doesn't matter. Then the freest wills are the ones who have chosen destiny, almost as if they didn't have a choice.

[dada]

Deciding if I should pay to read this. Can't find it for free:

Global fascism: geography, timing, support, and strategy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-global-history/article/abs/global-fascism-geography-timing-support-and-strategy/BA0A90F4C91B0F34CFE66C95A893B695

From the article's abstract: "While agreement exists on where and when fascism reached its apogee, there is little concurrence of opinion over the extent to which the world wars were determinative in its birth and death, and how far beyond European boundaries it has ventured. There are also wide-ranging discussions concerning the identity and extent of its backers, with some writers pointing to the formative role of the lumpen body politic, or various class fractions, and others to that of an elite vanguard, or even individual alienation. A similar spectrum of opinion over the basis of fascism’s appeal extends from studies emphasizing, and elucidating, its ideational content to those that focus on the pragmatic value of action."

Trying to come up with an answer to the question of the thread, what exactly is fascism, and how do you recognize it. Pin it down, by getting at what makes it unique.

Not so easy to sum up in a tweet-friendly thought-package, is it.

Roger Griffin "locates the driving force behind all fascist movements in a distinctive utopian myth, that of the regenerated national community, destined to rise up from the ashes of a decadent society."

I guess. Actually, kind of sounds like the myth at the core of Q, when you put it that way. But isn't it the externalisation of the myth that is the driving force, and not the myth itself. An enshrinement of the myth, its absolute literalization.

[kelley]

I was about to mention Griffin

Can't at the moment

Later

[kelley]

All animals share life. While sometimes overlooked, if not indeed suppressed, this includes humans. Although it can also be said of other species, the social organization of humans, like that of countless different beings, is unique.

Humans use tools. They build chronological order. Certain other animals do similar things without them being quite the same. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” So, then, what of the zebra? Indeed, what of us? The acts of a goose, or of zebras, as they are, lack intention beyond immediate need. It’s the idea of doing for a reason, with a specific result in mind, driven by a picture of that held there, which constitutes a level of self-awareness characteristic of our species.

Motivation is perhaps actual. Results, however, while material, are illusory. What is there beyond this? Simply put, humans make artifacts, and pass them amongst themselves. What is daily becomes calendrical, becomes ancestral, becomes regime. These activities, in toto and up to a point, establish context, and make some sense of human existence. Yet it may be a mistake to say the fulfillment of purpose, and the accretion of achievement, creates meaning. One would require the ability to see this, to say it, and to make it so. The unsettling passage of time more often than not strips observation of its relationship to veracity, with the world in turn becoming what it isn't. Despite imaginative abilities beyond those with whom we dwell on the earth, this reveals exactly what humans lack: Skills to resist remaking the world into something else, while ignoring that which it already is.

What ever turns out the way it’s been planned? The gears of thought seize, and eventually grind to a halt. There’s silence. This is where the vastness of infinity might be glimpsed, before said vision slips away, as do the living themselves. I’d hazard this concept of limitlessness— heaven, nirvana, void— is likely metaphor, the final one shared across cultures. It’s created to assist us in recalling a history of our kind, and that of others.

[kelley]

Fascism is an artifact. This doesn’t imply it’s antiquated or obsolete. It’s a product of "homo faber," or the man who makes.

Fascism is an ideology. In practice, its a death cult. In economic terms, it finds a companion in capitalism, which is designed around the destruction of what is, replacing it not necessarily with a double, but that which markets see fit, or that which performs according to its requirements.

Fascism shapes individual psychology. It’s seeded through replication in the mass. It may be our species is living through a type of selection which encodes ‘fascist’ genetic material within its subjects as a means of shaping behavior over generations.

Recall Richard Dawkins, he of "The Selfish Gene", on this subject. It perhaps becomes pertinent how the American hybrid of fascism— to examine but one example— has grown, especially from the widespread sowing of memes throughout popular culture. Roger Griffin writes of a “palingenetic nationalism” which may be of interest here, using similar biological metaphors as Dawkins did before him. Griffin understands the concept of “rebirth” as it figures into the imagination of making the old “new” again, or of a replacement of the actual, with an ahistorical ideal.

[kelley]

"Memes and Everyday Fascism: A Triptych on The Collective Techn-Conscious as Incubator of a Men's Ideal"

https://networkcultures.org/blog/2018/1 ... ens-ideal/



"How The Internet Spawned 21st Century Fascism"

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/30/how-th ... y-fascism/


Biological metaphors are trending hard. Am not inclined to think this is coincidental.

[dada]

"Griffin understands the concept of “rebirth” as it figures into the imagination of making the old “new” again, or of a replacement of the actual, with an ahistorical ideal."

I'd say that the absence of the transhistorical, between the actual and an ahistorical ideal, is the absolute literalization of the myth. The myth becomes something to be taken literally.

As for what separates man from the animals, I think it's desire. Desire is the level of self-awareness we're at as a species. We say animals, and our animal natures, have needs. Humans and humankind have desires. Desire has the power to transform need, rearrange the priorities. Immediate need becomes just a reason and a picture.

But it isn't the living who slip away like the vastness of infinity, that's the dead. For the living, the limitless heavens are no metaphor. Each angel is its heaven, what it sees is what it is. Each angel's heaven is the mirror of its own soul.