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1. The cult of tradition. 2. The rejection of modernism. 3. The cult of action for action’s sake. 4. Disagreement is treason. 5. Fear of difference. 6. App

• sazz 4y ago
  In Germany you can currently study how Newspeak is introduced. It started with Corona with "Corona Leugner" (denying the existance of Corona) and now with "Putinversteher" (that Putin strategy is actually reasonable and not based on insanity). The solely purpose of both words is to state that there is only one valid position and people having different opinions either shouldn't be taken serious or being treated as enemies to democracy as they are basically extremist or spreading misinformation. Especially "Corona Leugner" is in line with "Holocaust Leugner" and intends to label every person criticizing Corona to be put in the Nazi camp. And Nazis of course you do not discuss but fight them. And this is actually taking place. People protesting against government laws are now being labeled as right wing or Nazis. Even "Corona Leugner" is already recognized by judges being a defamation but it is still used in discussions on public broadcaster. For me this is actually Newspeak and a step further towards Facisms. To promote that there is only one valid political position and different views should not be seriously discussed.
• petermcneeley 4y ago
  • mmastrac 4y ago
    I think you're going to struggle to paint one side with all of these
    • tamaharbor 4y ago
      Sounds like democrats and republicans in the US can each be assigned several of the attributes from the list.
      • davidbarker 4y ago
        I'd be interested to hear which you think can be attributed to Democrats.
        • tamaharbor 4y ago
          Items 4, 10, 13, and 14 (at a minimum).
          • xtian 4y ago
            8 in rhetoric about Russia and China. 7, Russiagate and Jan 6
    • laverya 4y ago
      I think the point is that you can paint almost every movement with many of these.
      • brnaftr361 4y ago
        Orwell's essay on "What is Fascism?", and the latter part of Homage work to illustrate that these terms and similar are just used to paint an enemy and are bereft of meaning, so that Eco's definition is somewhat undefined isn't surprising, regardless of it's derivation.
  • KarlKemp 4y ago
    Nope: - "Diversity" is, like, a banner issue for the left currently. - If anything, the left is accused of failing to try to "appeal to social frustration" by focussing on the generally more optimistic middle class. - The is no "plot" in the sense that someone is pulling the strings, although maybe Global Warming has plot-like character. - The enemy, for the US left, is both strong and dumb, not strong and weak. - Pacificm is excellent. - The weak are to be protected, as are the weekends. - A just world should be devoid of heroes, because there is no adversity requiring them. Plus: institutions are better than relying on individuals. - Machoism is so out, it's called toxic masculinity - nobody ever accused the US left of being into weapons Of note, there have been left-wing dictatorships. Personally, I've witnessed East Germany and Cuba, and they are/were similar to a degree that is just funny, considering how different the places are in terms of geography and climate. A left-wing dictatorship is, first and foremost, boring. It is a bureaucracy that will drive you insane. Nothing ever works, even though everything could work if, only once, you didn't have to wait five hours in line to buy stamps. (two months ago, I bought the entire stock of stamps in a decently sized Havanna post office. All six of them. The got new ones after lunch. I'm fairly certain they had removed them from the postcards I had since dropped into the mailbox). If you happen to oppose the regime, are ambitious, or join the wrong music scene as a teenager (punks, say), you'll have a hard time. If you don't rebel, you'll generally live a peaceful if boring life, even if you happen to be gay, stupid, Quaker, diabetic, nudist, vegetarian, or black (all risk factors in fascism)
    • petermcneeley 4y ago
      I would put climate action as #3
      • KarlKemp 4y ago
        I did put climate action as #3, but I think it's fairly weak. "Nature" isn't quite the evil scheming enemy fascists "plots" come up with. For a while, global finance & banking was maybe in such a role, but that populism wasn't limited to the left, and it just doesn't feel as vitriolic: nobody on the left today is envisioning tribunals and guillotines which, as it happens, is a constant obsession with Q-Anon, the anti-vaccination crowd, and the January 6th crowd. Plus, obviously, climate change is real.
• thriftwy 4y ago
  A lot of these will manifest in any large company's software development department.
• ogogmad 4y ago
  It's interesting how similar this is to many of the Twitter accounts I've followed. Some even claim to be libertarian. Also: 3. The cult of action for action’s sake. What does this mean?
  • throw0101a 4y ago
    > Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering's alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," "universities are a nest of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values. * https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf * https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ * https://archive.ph/BKXAX https://archive.ph/BKXAX > "The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Umberto_Eco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Umberto... As I understand it (AIUI), don't bother thinking of the consequences or long-term effects, just get shit done. If one thinks Trump was an Ur-Fascist, it would be him ordering the border wall built—which turned out to be fairly useless. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wall
  • rzzzt 4y ago
    Sounds similar to the Politician's syllogism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
  • TeeMassive 4y ago
    Aa an example, "direct action" often promoted by antifa
• ufmace 4y ago
  It strikes me as being kind of like a horoscope - you can apply some bits of it to almost any political movement, but it doesn't really fit anything 100%. Which means it's therefore useless.
  • alehlopeh 4y ago
    I’ll contend your shallow dismissal. This is not a list of all possible sociopolitical properties a political movement may have, which is what you seem to be describing. It’s a list of the ones that, found together, characterize a particular political movement as being Ur-Facist.
  • ineedasername 4y ago
    Consider things further. As with any other data or observation you're correct in that any one single point isn't useful to declare a trend. This list isn't an "or" conditional. Eco doesn't mean that meeting any single point is sufficient. It's when you can go through the list and check a bunch of these boxes, or at least a couple that are much stronger indicators than some others, like "disagreement is treason". And of course it's a spectrum, not a binary yes/no. You're not going to get a formulaic assessment that is a perfect indicator of any major social or political trend of this sort. To go back to horoscopes, they are successful because they throw a bunch of things at the wall but get people to focus on only the one piece that's correct. In the case of this list, you need multiple hits, and
• jabthedang 4y ago
• FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  Ok, I'll flip everything: 1. The superstitions of the savages must be replaced by modern, scientific progress. 2. Primitive technologies and social arrangements should be replaced with civilized government. 3. Political action should be moderated, and conducted after slow deliberation. 4. Freedom of speech, within reason, has always been a superior characteristic of our civilization. 5. Certain territories are benighted by backwardness and xenophobia, as is demonstrated by their treatment of our visitors. 6. The social order may not always be perfect, but our institutions are essentially just. 7. The world is not shaped by conspiracies of elites, but by inevitable economic forces. You will sooner alter the seasons. 8. No power can seriously threaten our Empire, on which the sun never sets. At most there will be little peacekeeping actions -- the savage wars of peace. 9. Pacifism is the way forward, just like Oswald Mosley said. 10. We are all lambs, who are protected by our Good Shepherd, the Crown. 11. A proper education teaches each of us to do our own small duty within our rightful place. 12. We are not brutes but gentle-men. 13. The masses require guidance from the better sort. 14. The English language was perfected in Shakespeare's time, and it is for us simply to speak it correctly.
  • KarlKemp 4y ago
    Sounds like a civilized country, with maybe a Mosley-shaped exception. And your method does a far better job to show how harebrained all these sounds-like-everything-comments are. (Which I am having considerable trouble believing, but maybe it's a language thing)
    • FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
      To give away the joke, my post should be read in the stereotyped voice of a British conservative with a mustache and harrumphing. Maybe not a full-on "fascist" (the Mosley sympathies I have projected onto him notwithstanding), but also very much not the person that Eco, or the people who want to use this ammunition, would want to lionize. Also, some of the statements in my post, like (6), are at direct odds with what's currently trendy to say. The main point, though, is that although I like Umberto Eco, this article has still never made a lot of sense to me.