4 ms·

That often cited list devoid of any context looks like a mishmash of things Umberto Eco personally dislikes. It looks better in the context of his own essay, bu

That often cited list devoid of any context looks like a mishmash of things Umberto Eco personally dislikes. It looks better in the context of his own essay, but even in his essay he is still unable to give a coherent explanation of why those things constitute fascism and why the term “fascism” even has any merit. It looks vaguely intuitively appealing on the surface level, but I don’t think it deserves the fame it has.

IAmEveryone 5y ago
fleetwoodsnack 5y ago
Eco’s method here is as old as time, going back to Socrates’s dialogue with Meno considering what makes a bee a bee. A way to describe something is to identify its common features with other things identified as such. It’s stood the test of time so I’d love to hear your analysis, especially a contradiction.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  First. I don’t want to deny the genius of Socrates, but we came a long way since Antiquity. Umberto Eco was a philosopher, a scholar. We should expect better from him than from Socrates. Second. We know there are cars and it makes sense to talk about cars, to study them, to make legalization and regulations about cars. We also know there are vehicles that include cars, lorries, carts, etc. The same thing with them. We can also talk about means of transportation that would also include planes, ships and so on. The same thing with them. But what if we talk about dogs, cars, oaks and planes? Let’s call the totality of those things foobars. Does it make sense to talk about foobars in general? To study foobars? Does it make sense to get a degree that is concerned with the study of dogs, oaks and cars? To make legalization particular to foobars? Are foobars a real thing in the same way vehicles are? Umberto Eco doesn’t provide a convincing argument that ur-fascism he is talking about is a sensible thing like bees or vehicles and not foobars. To be clear, I don’t deny that it is a real thing, I am just saying that Umberto Eco doesn’t show it in any convincing way.
  - crowbahr 5y ago
    You don't deny fascism is a real thing but you strawman his arguments as disconnected and therefore false. No: you must prove his arguments disconnected. He has demonstrated their connection and given examples in each truly fascist movement. The onus is on you to take any of the 14 and show why it is false. No fallacious comparisons to dogs and planes. Prove it. Show it.
    - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
      He doesn't demonstrate their connection. He just says, >But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. I want to emphasize "many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism". And as he notes before that quote, "fascism had no quintessence". So how is it a real thing? It has no quintessence and whatever properties it may or may not have are also properties of other despotic and fanatical systems. So how is it in any way a real thing that could be studied and reasoned about and compared to other systems that are not fascist?
  - dede175 5y ago
    The first point seems rather impulsive. Should we give up functional but old paradigms simply for innovation's sake, even if we know they work? Socrates clearly did not ever argue the topics brought up by Eco, so what you're saying is Eco should come up with a different way to express himself. Innovation is great, but why should anything not innovative in its method simply be disregarded? The second point seems to be an argument against any social science in general, rather than a critique or analysis of the essay. If every political science discussion had to start with a justification of why such phenomena are studied in the first place, we would get nowhere. Should we not study "democracies" or "states"? Is anything not tangible not worthy of study? This also ties in to my last point: it's very disingenuous to call fascism "not sensible" without any real argument for it. It's been a giant hurdle in the history of many nations, it makes sense to want to analyze it and understand it. If your argument is that it's not sensible as in fascism is a far too general concept for it to be an effective label, then I'd expect you to directly challenge the list proposed, as it seems to me Eco does manage to describe an acceptable way to do such labeling.
tonguez 5y ago
the term fascism is popular because it’s just an evil sounding word; the ash part sounds like you’re tearing paper; it’s scary. same reason why words like fuck or blob are popular, they are basically just sounds that onomatopoeize a vague idea. so fascism just means big scary mean evil government to 99% of people and the word fascism sounds like paper being ripped in half which is a violent sound.

IAmEveryone 5y ago

fleetwoodsnack 5y ago

Eco’s method here is as old as time, going back to Socrates’s dialogue with Meno considering what makes a bee a bee. A way to describe something is to identify its common features with other things identified as such. It’s stood the test of time so I’d love to hear your analysis, especially a contradiction.

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
First. I don’t want to deny the genius of Socrates, but we came a long way since Antiquity. Umberto Eco was a philosopher, a scholar. We should expect better from him than from Socrates. Second. We know there are cars and it makes sense to talk about cars, to study them, to make legalization and regulations about cars. We also know there are vehicles that include cars, lorries, carts, etc. The same thing with them. We can also talk about means of transportation that would also include planes, ships and so on. The same thing with them. But what if we talk about dogs, cars, oaks and planes? Let’s call the totality of those things foobars. Does it make sense to talk about foobars in general? To study foobars? Does it make sense to get a degree that is concerned with the study of dogs, oaks and cars? To make legalization particular to foobars? Are foobars a real thing in the same way vehicles are? Umberto Eco doesn’t provide a convincing argument that ur-fascism he is talking about is a sensible thing like bees or vehicles and not foobars. To be clear, I don’t deny that it is a real thing, I am just saying that Umberto Eco doesn’t show it in any convincing way.
- crowbahr 5y ago
  You don't deny fascism is a real thing but you strawman his arguments as disconnected and therefore false. No: you must prove his arguments disconnected. He has demonstrated their connection and given examples in each truly fascist movement. The onus is on you to take any of the 14 and show why it is false. No fallacious comparisons to dogs and planes. Prove it. Show it.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    He doesn't demonstrate their connection. He just says, >But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. I want to emphasize "many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism". And as he notes before that quote, "fascism had no quintessence". So how is it a real thing? It has no quintessence and whatever properties it may or may not have are also properties of other despotic and fanatical systems. So how is it in any way a real thing that could be studied and reasoned about and compared to other systems that are not fascist?
- dede175 5y ago
  The first point seems rather impulsive. Should we give up functional but old paradigms simply for innovation's sake, even if we know they work? Socrates clearly did not ever argue the topics brought up by Eco, so what you're saying is Eco should come up with a different way to express himself. Innovation is great, but why should anything not innovative in its method simply be disregarded? The second point seems to be an argument against any social science in general, rather than a critique or analysis of the essay. If every political science discussion had to start with a justification of why such phenomena are studied in the first place, we would get nowhere. Should we not study "democracies" or "states"? Is anything not tangible not worthy of study? This also ties in to my last point: it's very disingenuous to call fascism "not sensible" without any real argument for it. It's been a giant hurdle in the history of many nations, it makes sense to want to analyze it and understand it. If your argument is that it's not sensible as in fascism is a far too general concept for it to be an effective label, then I'd expect you to directly challenge the list proposed, as it seems to me Eco does manage to describe an acceptable way to do such labeling.

tonguez 5y ago

the term fascism is popular because it’s just an evil sounding word; the ash part sounds like you’re tearing paper; it’s scary. same reason why words like fuck or blob are popular, they are basically just sounds that onomatopoeize a vague idea. so fascism just means big scary mean evil government to 99% of people and the word fascism sounds like paper being ripped in half which is a violent sound.