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

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

Postby dada » Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:36 pm

I'm not sure if the racism galvanizes the nationalism, or if the nationalism galvanizes the racism. Or the myth of supremacism, class race and gender.

I'm pretty certain we could find ideologies that are amenable to antisemitism in Latin American fascist dictatorships, too, it wasn't limited to the Nazis and Henry Ford. I get what you are saying, though, the hatred is not always directed at Jews, everyone who associates with Jews, and the global party society of which Jews are a part. But the hatred expresses itself in variations on the protocols pattern. Degenerate elements of society are conspiring against the state. The element may be class-based, ethinicity-based, ideologically-based. We replace the elders with the globalist cabalists, the illuminati, the liberal elite. The protocols pattern of demonization, of subhumanization can be found in the culture of any fascist state.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby dada » Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:54 am

So I'm leaving the question 'what is fascism' to the academics for the moment, and concentrating on 'how do you recognize it.'

How about right and left? Can fascism be recognized by the fact that it is always a reactionary right wing movement within the culture, against the counter-culture. Or put another way, a reactionary counter-revolutionary movement masquerading as revolution.

Also, is it correct to say that the right wing Internet echo chamber that promotes protocols-style narratives is an indication of the spread of fascist ideas?
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby kelley » Thu Feb 18, 2021 10:48 am

'Animal Farm' associations-- or metaphor, in the form of dogs as symbols-- went unnoticed upthread

what better critic of fascism exists than Orwell

back to the task at hand
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby dada » Thu Feb 18, 2021 12:41 pm

"'Animal Farm' associations-- or metaphor, in the form of dogs as symbols-- went unnoticed upthread

what better critic of fascism exists than Orwell"

I like what you are saying. Digressions may not be as far off the topic of the thread as they seem. They may even help provide insight to the thread topic.

Roberto Bolaño might give him a run for his money, I think.

"In Nazi Literature of the Americas, Bolaño unfolds mini-biographies of fictive Nazi Latin American writers including Ernesto Pérez Mason, a Cuban “realist, naturalist, and expressionist novelist”; Max Mirabelais, a Haitian plagiarist; and Luis Fontaine da Souza, a Brazilian who exhausts himself trying to refute French Enlightenment thinkers.[9. Roberto Bolaño , Nazi Literature in the Americas, (New York: New Directions, 2008), p. 54.] This may seem a diverting counterfactual game, but, as Carmel Boullosa pointed out in her review of the book for The Nation, there were, in fact, many “philo-Fascist Latin American authors.”[10. Carmen Boullosa, “A Garden of Monsters,” The Nation, March 31, 2008, https://www.thenation.com/article/garden-monsters/, accessed 11 April 2019.] Boullosa goes further to conjecture that, by ridiculing fascist writers, Bolaño was expressing skepticism of writers who came to identify too closely with government power or political authority, right or left.

In turn, Bolaño establishes himself as somebody whose authority lies in witness and empathy with the suffering as a mode of resistance. In The Third Reich, Bolaño depicts wargamers in Madrid playing a board game reenacting World War II, rendering the contemporary world as a repetition of fascism that, if we are lucky, will this time be farce, not tragedy. And in 2666, his most ambitious works, Bolaño brings together the reclusive German writer Arcimboldi and the femicides in Ciudad Juárez to articulate a contemporary valence based on class and gender and the mystified residue of a Nazi ideology that our world has disavowed but not jettisoned. Bolaño was in Chile in the aftermath of the 1973 Pinochet coup and two of his most harrowing works, By Night In Chile and Distant Star, tell the story of people of intellect, discernment, and talent who are co-opted or fall prey to supporting the military dictatorship at the height of its brutality and menace. As Héctor Hoyos points out, Bolaño ’s world is one where the Right, in its various incarnations from populism to neoliberalism, is ascendant and has the ideological energy, where it is no longer a case of leftist evolution versus stasis and conformism but where the villains have the sense the future is in their corner"
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby kelley » Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:10 pm

I’ll suggest ‘recognizing fascism’ requires addressing conditions which resist naming it as such. The American variant isn’t so much economic or ideological— although it is both— as much as it is symbolic. It is by necessity different than its predecessors which emerged in the 1920s, even as it shares affinities with them. It is, in a sense, ‘meta’, in a comprehensive manner.

American fascism, at this moment, seeks to dominate the imagination in ways which exceed twentieth century manifestations. In a collective sense, this urge is cultural, and by specific design or not, demographic. Contemporary grievances are at base generational, and are expressions of the mind. The state reflects attitudes held in common since the failures of May 1968, for example. The lessons of those failures were internalized by a generation. Choices were made. Denial and evasion informed desire and action in the moments which followed.

Since that time, the political gerontocracy, which today represents the donor class who holds real power in America, is nearing its demise. Their grasp of reality is nil. Their existence is parasitical. The fantasy they’ve constructed mirrors the lives of those wealthy few it represents. This is a generation in decline, with no comprehension of day-to-day reality as lived by the majority of citizens in the nation they purport to serve. The paradox at hand here is at least half of these citizens have asked, since the end of the Seventies, and through popular means which exceeded that of the ballot, that their reality actually be constructed in ways which reward state interests at the expense of their own. The Reagan Democrats, for example, were the first of these to participate in their self-annihilation through the vote, and through the subsequent deracination of working class norms, which was the real tragedy with long-term destructive effect. This was a battle waged on the field of the image, with symbols, and how they were held in the popular imagination.

Class Warfare 2.0, if you will. The dawn of a new type of sociability.

The insidious toxic nature of neoliberalism is truly at home in what Erich Fromm described as ‘a freedom from’, which is at odds with ‘the freedom to’. This is seen everywhere, as an appalling lack of will is endemic throughout America at large. It’s been shaped by the various permutations in consciousness since broadcast media ceded the levers of control to digitalization.

System.

Virus.

Crash.

Reboot.

This notational structure, as a metaphor, resembles a significant part of the behavioral framework from which we might hope to escape if there's to be but a slim chance for a truly equitable society. It seems imperative we must, if there may indeed be again the possibility of that which was once referred to as a future, or that with which fascism is always at odds, and seeks to repress an engagement with . . . or an imagination of . . .

Since 2020, or 2016, or 2008, or 2001, at the very least, this 'system', as it were, is running on a corrupted version of its original program. It’ll continue to crash periodically. It’ll crash more and more frequently until the system freezes, and stops running. This situation is known in computer lingo as a ‘hang’, at which point things have reached a state beyond upgrade or repair.

We need new hardware.

Material itself doesn’t provide an answer. Construction of something with thoughtful use in mind might. This isn’t really the point. Meaning, as discovered through synthesis of thought, thing, and action, could provide insight into how answers could take shape. These processes were once properly understood as spirit, or the collective expression of an age. There’s a corollary to be found in the recognition of soul, at the individual level. On the bright side, this is how the world unfolds. It’s always been this way. Freezing pipes in Texas aside, it should continue to be so.

Tomorrow’s another day. At least for now.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby dada » Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:02 pm

"The insidious toxic nature of neoliberalism is truly at home in what Erich Fromm described as ‘a freedom from’, which is at odds with ‘the freedom to’. This is seen everywhere, as an appalling lack of will is endemic throughout America at large. It’s been shaped by the various permutations in consciousness since broadcast media ceded the levers of control to digitalization."

Is it a lack of will, though, or the corruption of liberty. The abandonment of the individual to control by the society and culture may be a willfull act. If liberty has two sides, freedom from and freedom to, the failure would be in the idea of liberty itself, at the pivot point where freedom from coercion and oppression becomes the freedom to coerce and oppress, and the freedom to give becomes the freedom not to care.

"Meaning, as discovered through synthesis of thought, thing, and action, could provide insight into how answers could take shape. These processes were once properly understood as spirit, or the collective expression of an age."

What answers take shape will depend on the nature of the thoughts, things and actions synthesized, through which meaning is discovered. We might say that good thoughts, good words, good deeds when synthesized discover good meanings, provide insight into how good answers take shape. For any synthesis to be qualitatively assessed, we need a good qualitative framework, and for that we need a study of goodness.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby kelley » Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:00 pm

There can be no study of absolute good without the first step of establishing exactly what constitutes ethical behavior. 'Liberty' means nothing in the situation. Sanity, on the other hand, does. Ethics, or code of conduct which by consensus implies what is good for one is by necessity that which is good for all, with the good of all in mind, would guarantee a society which would act in reasonable agreement as to what is 'sane'.

Please bear in mind that 'ethics' are different than 'morality'. It's not that you can't have one without the other. The practice of the first must precede the codification of the second. This is one of the most egregious obfuscatory sleights common to fascism. Again and again, it appeals to a sham morality without an ethical foundation in social equity.

At the heart of Fromm's argument was the claim that while humankind has become technological proficient beyond reason, it has remained emotionally stunted in its understanding of finding a place in the world. He sees this dilemma as such:

"As far as I can see, there is only one answer: The increasing awareness of the most essential facts of our social existence, an awareness sufficient to prevent us from committing irreparable follies, and to raise to some small extent our capacity for objectivity and reason. We can not hope to overcome most follies of the heart and their detrimental influence on our imagination and thought in one generation. Maybe it will take a thousand years until man has lifted himself from a pre-human history of hundreds of thousands of years. At this crucial moment, however, a modicum of increased insight — objectivity — can make the difference between life and death for the human race. For this reason, the development of a scientific and dynamic social psychology is of vital importance. Progress in social psychology is necessary to counteract the dangers which arise from the progress in physics and medicine."

What I actually am reading in this diagnosis applies to the moment when the avant-gardes imploded, and the counterculture arose in their place. This will not be a popular statement, but it's precisely those energies characteristic of the postwar affluent society which became, if not fascist, at the very least counterrevolutionary. This is where the idea of 'liberty' was transformed at its root, and turned against the interests of society itself.

You know, like, 'neoliberalism'.

For instance.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby dada » Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:48 pm

"There can be no study of absolute good without the first step of establishing exactly what constitutes ethical behavior. 'Liberty' means nothing in the situation. Sanity, on the other hand, does. Ethics, or code of conduct which by consensus implies what is good for one is by necessity that which is good for all, with the good of all in mind, would guarantee a society which would act in reasonable agreement as to what is 'sane'.

My argument was that Plato's Republic is satire, poking fun at the insane results of the perfectly sane logic of social theories. I wouldn't study absolute good, for building my qualitative framework I'd avoid absolutes and limit it to a study of goodness. The meanings of good words, the value of good subjects, a philosophy of goodness, paired with a logic and science of goodness. It can be exact, but it isn't an absolute science. So I'm saying that for me, the study of goodness begins in the mind of the individual, and ends in a critique of the social theory of ethics.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby dada » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:04 pm

Good subjects are valuable of their own, the conclusions they lead to are worthless. Bad subjects however, lead to valuable conclusions, it's the subjects that are worthless.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby kelley » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:08 pm

what's good is good

there isn't goodness measured by degree

otherwise it might be 'okay' or 'fine' or 'cool' or whatever

goodness needs no modifiers

if this sounds like tautology bear in mind ethics are ethics because when truly ethical they're exactly that

and serve no purpose other than that for which they exist

this is what's missing in contemporary society

the real value of that which evades transactional logic
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby kelley » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:11 pm

you don't sell a freezing man a blanket

you fucking give him one

this is good

and it's ethical

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

Postby kelley » Thu Feb 18, 2021 6:15 pm

otoh

you could fly to Cancun and leave all men to freeze
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dada & kelley

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:36 pm

Really sad I don't have time to take part in the discussion you're having. Thanks to both of you.
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby kelley » Fri Feb 19, 2021 9:57 am

thanks JR

guessing we'll still be here when you return

thanks too dada

it seems we might be more in agreement than appearances suggest
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Re: Fascism: What exactly is it and how do you recognize it?

Postby dada » Fri Feb 19, 2021 3:20 pm

I'd consider liberty a bit further. The idea begins in the feeling of true friendship. So maybe we could bring the metaphorical dogs back in here. Old literature might say brothers, or brotherhood, or neighbors. So the feeling of true friendship with society, finally with the whole world. The feeling isn't built on the idea of liberty, the idea of liberty brings the feeling of true friendship with society along with it.

Freedom from then isn't freedom from society, but a pact, an agreement,a contract between two friends. I am free from coercion and oppression by society, and society is free from coercion and oppression by me. And I am free to do something for nothing, and so is society. We help each other out for free.

Help a brother out. This presentation of liberty sounds so foreign to reality, you can barely recognize it. Maybe it's Martian liberty. True friendship even sounds a bit extra-terrestrial. Although it does still cut through the postmodern relativistic haze. Truth may be questionable, but everyone still knows what true friendship is.
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