I'm wondering if fascism is a self fulfilling prophecy against activism. And it always gives both sides exactly what their little mad fever dreams always want: escalation and confrontation and infamy and immortality.
I think fascism is a self fulfilling prophecy under modernism.
Fascism is made a carry-all for anything people don't like, so we have to assume something is fascist when it has attributes of fascism. This includes state worship, censorship of opposing views, expansionism, militarism, and reliance on violence. It might at first glance look like fascism is dead, but these attributes still live under the surface. I'm using a definition here closer to Umberto Eco’s “Ur-Fascism” essay than the definition I previously laid out as "state socialism" because if we use the latter definition, it becomes almost axiomatic, it's not even worth discussing at that point -- of course everything ends up being totalized under the state, it just does. This is also a distinct definition from Italian fascism, because if one narrowly defines fascism in this way then neither German national socialism nor Franco's Spain are fascist and neither is anything that is not explicitly Italian fascism. I think it's important to note that's the both incredibly narrow and incredibly expansive definitions of fascism are in part a dialectical tool that lets people assign anything and everything the label. This also means it's true fascism isn't a very useful label unless the definition is given up-front since it's intentional that different audiences use definitions in the same conversation.
Modernism is about finding a single coherent objective truth and building a single grand narrative.
It leads to a false certainly of black and white views of the world in a real world that has shades of grey and also many other colors as well.
When you know you're right and everyone else is wrong, totalitarianism is justified because you're saving the people who don't know any better. Militaristic expansion is justified because you're ultimately saving the people you expand into. Genocide is justified because the good people need to save the world from the bad people. Worshipping the state is justified because it is a tool to enforce the totalizing good ideology vs. the evil ideology.
Postmodernism is a reaction to this and rejects grand narratives and objective truth, but in practice it becomes modernized, an objective truth and trans narrative in and of itself.
Of course, fascism can hide under a veneer of civility. It can be expansionist and nationalistic as long as it's expansionism is Machiavellian instead of overtly aggressive. It can be nationalistic by redefining the nation as a meta-nation which exerts overwhelming control over member states. It can be violent and censorious as long as it follows certain rules in its violence or censorship.
For what postmodern fascism looks like, look at the "rules based international order" and it's reaction to Donald Trump, brexit, AfD, and the war in Ukraine.
It uses violence and censorship to silence opposing views.
It seeks to expand itself (I've even seen the idea of the EU consuming Canada in response to the "threat" of Donald Trump!)
It doubles down on more government control.
It presents anyone who doesn't agree as totally "ontologically evil"
And in Ukraine, the intention was to pretend the new global order is not militaristic, but the moment the United States says they might not want to play war anymore it's a global outcry.
If you're a modernist you'd take the above and declare the current world order evil and probably start railing against it, but all you do is replace one absolute for another. In reality we need to balance multiple, often contradictory, truths among reach other. That's why a more advanced worldview is both more accurate in estimating the world and weaker in terms of rallying people under a single banner -- complex and nuanced solutions that actually take multiple things into account are more correct, but resist being reduced into a slogan or a tweet.
Fascism is made a carry-all for anything people don't like, so we have to assume something is fascist when it has attributes of fascism. This includes state worship, censorship of opposing views, expansionism, militarism, and reliance on violence. It might at first glance look like fascism is dead, but these attributes still live under the surface. I'm using a definition here closer to Umberto Eco’s “Ur-Fascism” essay than the definition I previously laid out as "state socialism" because if we use the latter definition, it becomes almost axiomatic, it's not even worth discussing at that point -- of course everything ends up being totalized under the state, it just does. This is also a distinct definition from Italian fascism, because if one narrowly defines fascism in this way then neither German national socialism nor Franco's Spain are fascist and neither is anything that is not explicitly Italian fascism. I think it's important to note that's the both incredibly narrow and incredibly expansive definitions of fascism are in part a dialectical tool that lets people assign anything and everything the label. This also means it's true fascism isn't a very useful label unless the definition is given up-front since it's intentional that different audiences use definitions in the same conversation.
Modernism is about finding a single coherent objective truth and building a single grand narrative.
It leads to a false certainly of black and white views of the world in a real world that has shades of grey and also many other colors as well.
When you know you're right and everyone else is wrong, totalitarianism is justified because you're saving the people who don't know any better. Militaristic expansion is justified because you're ultimately saving the people you expand into. Genocide is justified because the good people need to save the world from the bad people. Worshipping the state is justified because it is a tool to enforce the totalizing good ideology vs. the evil ideology.
Postmodernism is a reaction to this and rejects grand narratives and objective truth, but in practice it becomes modernized, an objective truth and trans narrative in and of itself.
Of course, fascism can hide under a veneer of civility. It can be expansionist and nationalistic as long as it's expansionism is Machiavellian instead of overtly aggressive. It can be nationalistic by redefining the nation as a meta-nation which exerts overwhelming control over member states. It can be violent and censorious as long as it follows certain rules in its violence or censorship.
For what postmodern fascism looks like, look at the "rules based international order" and it's reaction to Donald Trump, brexit, AfD, and the war in Ukraine.
It uses violence and censorship to silence opposing views.
It seeks to expand itself (I've even seen the idea of the EU consuming Canada in response to the "threat" of Donald Trump!)
It doubles down on more government control.
It presents anyone who doesn't agree as totally "ontologically evil"
And in Ukraine, the intention was to pretend the new global order is not militaristic, but the moment the United States says they might not want to play war anymore it's a global outcry.
If you're a modernist you'd take the above and declare the current world order evil and probably start railing against it, but all you do is replace one absolute for another. In reality we need to balance multiple, often contradictory, truths among reach other. That's why a more advanced worldview is both more accurate in estimating the world and weaker in terms of rallying people under a single banner -- complex and nuanced solutions that actually take multiple things into account are more correct, but resist being reduced into a slogan or a tweet.
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