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Fascism is a political strategy involving fear of change and scapegoating. If you’re trying to imply that use of force automatically translates to fascism, then
by youareostriches 6y ago
Fascism is a political strategy involving fear of change and scapegoating. If you’re trying to imply that use of force automatically translates to fascism, then you need to consider situations of community defense against fascists, which ultimately requires force. Self-defense and defending democratic rights is quite different from terroristic violence in the service of subverting democratic and human rights.
I reserve the term “violence” to situations described in
Hannah Arendt‘s similarly-named essay, in which terroristic violence has historically been used by failing dictators against the legitimate power of the people as a whole.
- koheripbal 6y agoI don't think it's useful to argue semantics. If using violence to combat opposing political speech isn't your definition of fascism, then it's as equally sinister and takes us to an equally dark place. We have seen many examples in the last few years of people feeling so entitled to combat what they consider fascism, that they use violence against anyone they perceive as the enemy. Maybe we don't agree on the definition of words, but this is a bad development.
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoAuthoritarianism would probably better describe the modern left and that's plenty bad, even if for different reasons. Like many in the US, I don't support the right but I don't support the modern left either and they ought to be very worried about that.
- pas 6y agoCould you explain that a bit? What's your definition/model of authoritarianism, and how the modern left fits it?