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You missed the just-aborted far right coup in Montenegro, or the way France is looking to see a run-off presidential election between a hard-right candidate and

• gaius 10y ago
  Fascist is the most overused word of recent years. The original fascists in Italy were WW1 veterans who had read Marx and observed that being put in a uniform and militarized erased distinction between classes, and sought to replicate that at a societal level to end class conflict. The patriotism, the strong hierarchical government, the diversion of industry towards armaments production, were all parts of this, but they weren't the end in and of itself. And the Italian fascists didn't really have any sort of racial agenda. They worshipped technology, industrial progress, youth, futurist artists, and so on. People called Farage a fascist, but there was very little overlap if any at all between what he believes and advocates, and what fascists do. Farage doesn't want a strong government, it's questionable if he wants any sort of functioning government at all, he's closer to an anarchist than a fascist. Same with Trump, he doesn't believe what fascists believe or want what fascists want. Now a lot of people don't like them, and fair enough - but if words are to mean anything at all let's retire "fascist" as a general purpose pejorative for any badman...
  • cstross 10y ago
    Your definition of fascism is totally inadequate. Here, try reading Umberto Eco on the subject: he grew up under Italian fascism, and has some insights: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/
    • gaius 10y ago
      I see your Eco and raise you Orwell http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come
      • EthanHeilman 10y ago
        I like Orwell, but you can't see an Eco with an Orwell. For a raise you'd need at least an Orwell, Russel and Huxley. The fact that people abuse the word fascist, especially its use by the Soviets who used it describe anything Anti-Soviet when they grew bored of calling things imperialist, does not mean that no coherent phenomena exists which has been consistently described as fascist. A closer reading of your Orwell essay shows that Orwell does believe that fascism is meaningful, mostly he is just complaining that people often abuse the word: >But still, when we apply the term ‘Fascism’ to Germany or Japan or Mussolini's Italy, we know broadly what we mean. It is in internal politics that this word has lost the last vestige of meaning. For if you examine the press you will find that there is almost no set of people — certainly no political party or organized body of any kind — which has not been denounced as Fascist during the past ten years. Here I am not speaking of the verbal use of the term ‘Fascist’. I am speaking of what I have seen in print. - George Orwell, What is Fascism (1944) [0] Furthermore note that Orwell wrote this in 1944, the world war hasn't even ended, the histories and analysis we now have access to haven't yet been written. The perspective Orwell has when writing this is fairly limited, as Orwell himself says it is too early to say what fascism is (while admitting it is a political system): >But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword. - George Orwell, What is Fascism (1944) [0] Eco on the other hand grew up in Fascist and post-Fascist Italy and then studied it for many years. With the distance of time, personal experience and access to the work of historians, it is not surprising Eco has more to say about fascism that Orwell. [0]: http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc