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A glance at Mastodon top posts will show that the term “fascism” no longer refers to a set of political beliefs that arose in early 20th century Europe, and the

A glance at Mastodon top posts will show that the term “fascism” no longer refers to a set of political beliefs that arose in early 20th century Europe, and the associated violent regimes. It is used now for anything whatsoever that the person does not like. For example, since trans advocacy is such a big part of the Mastodon community, I have seen a poster claim that anything less than considering a person their claimed gender is “fascism”. That would make even non-Western cultures with an ancient tradition of acceptance of transpeople, but ascribing them to a third gender, comparable to Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. People are just using the term as a slur without even thinking it through.

tsimionescu 3y ago
Comparing people who don't use someone's preferred pronouns/gender association to Hitler is obviously ridiculous and I don't think there's too much to be gained from discussing with someone who believes such a thing. However, I'm not sure why this contradicts my point. Those people are simply wrong in their use of the word. Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American English zeitgeist, I doubt you could say that the language has changed such the term fascist just means evil.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  > Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American English zeitgeist A year ago I would have thought those people some weird online-only fringe. But not after travels around the USA for a couple of months last year, followed by time spent in Baja and interacting with Americans who came down there. So many young Americans are very concerned with pronouns and their proper usage, and the attitudes of early-millennium activist movements like Antifa seem to have made inroads into the wider culture. Of course, American society is polarized and there is a whole other camp. I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    > I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”. If you're right that it's becoming such, than I would agree it's simply changing its meaning, I'm not a presciptivist. However, from my experience, which is limited to online content, I've only seen accusations of fascism being used by left-wing speakers against right-wing (or perceived right-wing) adversaries. So, my theory is that the term actually retains most of its original meaning even by those throwing it around willy-nilly. It is then not a wrong use of the term nor a novel use, but in fact a sign of increasingly extreme language. That is, people who call you fascist for not caring whether you add alt text to an image aren't using fascist to mean generic bad person, they actually intend to compare your actions to Hitler. It's similar to how "socialist" is used by right-wing pundits. When they call a boss who raises employee wages "socialist", they are not using that as a generic insult, they explicitly mean to compare that boss with Stalin or Chavez or other such boogeymen. I think it's all a sign of increasingly more extreme discourse. I would actually be much happier to find out that you are in fact right and fascist is just a more generic insult now.
deleted 3y ago
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volloe 3y ago
> That would make even non-Western cultures with an ancient tradition of acceptance of transpeople, but ascribing them to a third gender, comparable to Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. It's not comparable to any of those of course, but it wasn't exactly acceptance either. These 'third genders' were a method of othering those who didn't conform to strict gender roles, typically effeminate men. It would be like if we had just three gender categories today of 'man', 'woman' and 'faggot'. Not really a societal situation to aspire to in my view, we'd be better off ridding ourselves of constrictive gender roles and be more accepting of e.g. men who enjoy wearing dresses and makeup while still understanding that they are of course men.

tsimionescu 3y ago

Comparing people who don't use someone's preferred pronouns/gender association to Hitler is obviously ridiculous and I don't think there's too much to be gained from discussing with someone who believes such a thing. However, I'm not sure why this contradicts my point. Those people are simply wrong in their use of the word. Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American English zeitgeist, I doubt you could say that the language has changed such the term fascist just means evil.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American English zeitgeist A year ago I would have thought those people some weird online-only fringe. But not after travels around the USA for a couple of months last year, followed by time spent in Baja and interacting with Americans who came down there. So many young Americans are very concerned with pronouns and their proper usage, and the attitudes of early-millennium activist movements like Antifa seem to have made inroads into the wider culture. Of course, American society is polarized and there is a whole other camp. I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  > I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”. If you're right that it's becoming such, than I would agree it's simply changing its meaning, I'm not a presciptivist. However, from my experience, which is limited to online content, I've only seen accusations of fascism being used by left-wing speakers against right-wing (or perceived right-wing) adversaries. So, my theory is that the term actually retains most of its original meaning even by those throwing it around willy-nilly. It is then not a wrong use of the term nor a novel use, but in fact a sign of increasingly extreme language. That is, people who call you fascist for not caring whether you add alt text to an image aren't using fascist to mean generic bad person, they actually intend to compare your actions to Hitler. It's similar to how "socialist" is used by right-wing pundits. When they call a boss who raises employee wages "socialist", they are not using that as a generic insult, they explicitly mean to compare that boss with Stalin or Chavez or other such boogeymen. I think it's all a sign of increasingly more extreme discourse. I would actually be much happier to find out that you are in fact right and fascist is just a more generic insult now.

deleted 3y ago

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volloe 3y ago

> That would make even non-Western cultures with an ancient tradition of acceptance of transpeople, but ascribing them to a third gender, comparable to Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. It's not comparable to any of those of course, but it wasn't exactly acceptance either. These 'third genders' were a method of othering those who didn't conform to strict gender roles, typically effeminate men. It would be like if we had just three gender categories today of 'man', 'woman' and 'faggot'. Not really a societal situation to aspire to in my view, we'd be better off ridding ourselves of constrictive gender roles and be more accepting of e.g. men who enjoy wearing dresses and makeup while still understanding that they are of course men.