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Most of those points by Eco are just "politics". Rally around the flag, point to the external enemy, it's all pre-industrial, fascists didn't invent it. What

Most of those points by Eco are just "politics". Rally around the flag, point to the external enemy, it's all pre-industrial, fascists didn't invent it. What was unique about fascism was the ethnic superiority and the unifying totalitarianism where all public/private resources are aimed at national goals. Russia is too multiethnic for the former and too disorganized for the latter.

mcv 3y ago
Aspects of fascism are not "just politics" in healthy countries. > Rally around the flag, point to the external enemy, it's all pre-industrial, fascists didn't invent it. Flags were far less common or standardised in pre-industrial societies. People didn't fight for their lord or king because of propaganda about an external enemy (with the possible exception of the crusades), but simply because their lord or king wanted to go to war and that was their place in the world. > What was unique about fascism was the ethnic superiority That too existed before. There were many places in the Middle Ages where Jews had reduced rights, for example. It's the kind of division that fascism loves to build on. > unifying totalitarianism where all public/private resources are aimed at national goals. That's more like it. More specifically, the extreme nationalism and elevating those national goals to some higher ideal and inevitable necessity. And that's something Russia definitely does. Or tries. You're right that they're not very effective at it, but it is definitely how Putin talks, and how the fascist ideologues he relies on, talk.
- woooooo 3y ago
  >aspects of fascism are not "just politics" Yes they are. You're engaging in binary thinking here. These demagogical patterns that Umberto Eco describes were in The Iliad, they've been tropes as long as we've had writing at least, probably longer.
  - mcv 3y ago
    I'd have to reread the Iliad to check if one of the sides was obsessed with far-fetched plots, describes the other as simultaneously too strong and too weak, argued for a state of permanent warfare. Also, a cult of tradition and a rejection of modernism are not "just politics".
    - lovelyviking 3y ago
      Thank you for perfect and deep analysis. One point to add is that ‘multiculturalism’ of russia is designed to destroy and slowly wipe out any traces of any national culture. First russians did when they occupied some territory of Ukraine is to remove and prohibit Ukranian language. It is as similar to Nazi as could be except the name. Their ideology is to slowly remove any nation russia controls and claim them to be russians. Rise children as russians and kill nation if it doesn’t obey. Literally. We can argue if it’s new form of Nazi or not but perhaps it’s much worse.
      - woooooo 3y ago
        One thing the Nazis did, but not uniquely to them, was paint dehumanizing pictures of their enemies.

mcv 3y ago

Aspects of fascism are not "just politics" in healthy countries. > Rally around the flag, point to the external enemy, it's all pre-industrial, fascists didn't invent it. Flags were far less common or standardised in pre-industrial societies. People didn't fight for their lord or king because of propaganda about an external enemy (with the possible exception of the crusades), but simply because their lord or king wanted to go to war and that was their place in the world. > What was unique about fascism was the ethnic superiority That too existed before. There were many places in the Middle Ages where Jews had reduced rights, for example. It's the kind of division that fascism loves to build on. > unifying totalitarianism where all public/private resources are aimed at national goals. That's more like it. More specifically, the extreme nationalism and elevating those national goals to some higher ideal and inevitable necessity. And that's something Russia definitely does. Or tries. You're right that they're not very effective at it, but it is definitely how Putin talks, and how the fascist ideologues he relies on, talk.

woooooo 3y ago
>aspects of fascism are not "just politics" Yes they are. You're engaging in binary thinking here. These demagogical patterns that Umberto Eco describes were in The Iliad, they've been tropes as long as we've had writing at least, probably longer.
- mcv 3y ago
  I'd have to reread the Iliad to check if one of the sides was obsessed with far-fetched plots, describes the other as simultaneously too strong and too weak, argued for a state of permanent warfare. Also, a cult of tradition and a rejection of modernism are not "just politics".
  - lovelyviking 3y ago
    Thank you for perfect and deep analysis. One point to add is that ‘multiculturalism’ of russia is designed to destroy and slowly wipe out any traces of any national culture. First russians did when they occupied some territory of Ukraine is to remove and prohibit Ukranian language. It is as similar to Nazi as could be except the name. Their ideology is to slowly remove any nation russia controls and claim them to be russians. Rise children as russians and kill nation if it doesn’t obey. Literally. We can argue if it’s new form of Nazi or not but perhaps it’s much worse.
    - woooooo 3y ago
      One thing the Nazis did, but not uniquely to them, was paint dehumanizing pictures of their enemies.