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"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out poli

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base.

lewhoo 3y ago
I don't think it's so simple. Support for fascism can seem sensible and logical if you let yourself think that between you and greatness stands a minority whose sole purpose is to prevent you from becoming great. You could argue it's not emotion but a calculation coming from struggle and an easy explanation for that struggle. Not every wrong assumption comes from emotion and we have the whole history of science to prove that.
- KittenInABox 3y ago
  I think the initial assumption comes from emotion. Humans are not dual creatures with frontend and backends that must communicate through an API between their emotions and thoughts. Emotions and thoughts are actually phenomenon in simultaneous occurrence-- your thoughts can trigger emotions (planning what to do after being laid off can trigger anxiety) and your emotions can trigger thoughts (you're anxious, so you consider putting planning off and binge a show/movie). Fear of the "other" is clearly an emotion, but all the justifications, reasons, and overall narratives about the "other" are thoughts.
- Noughmad 3y ago
  "X can seem sensible and logical if you ignore sense and logic and believe your emotions instead". Yes, that's true for everything, and it is exactly what believing your emotions over facts means.
  - lewhoo 3y ago
    But that's just ad absurdum considering we don't have straight answers when it comes to socio-political issues.
    - ryanklee 3y ago
      It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic principles over Fascistic enterprises. People who get this wrong are simply wrong, and it's likely emotional and psychological forces that got them there, not rational, historiographic, or empirical ones. The current headwinds are a result of ill-equiped individuals being manipulated by other ill-equiped individuals.
      - lewhoo 3y ago
        > It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic principles over Fascistic enterprises. That may be, but it also seems perfectly logical to claim democracy is broken because a voice of an educated person carries same weight than that of a high school dropout. All you need to do is extend this logic a bit. I think it is because of our emotions, empathy or maybe something else that we see that this "flaw" in democracy isn't really a flaw. > ill-equiped individuals being manipulated by other ill-equiped individuals Except fascism wasn't only a manipulation. Had fascism succeeded it would've made the participating states extremely rich, powerful and influential throughout the next (maybe) hundreds of years.
        throwaway171223 3y ago
        > to claim democracy is broken because a voice of an educated person carries same weight than that of a high school dropout Is not logical. > fascism wasn't only a manipulation No successful ideology is only a manipulation. > Had fascism succeeded I doubt anyone really knows why, but the historical fact is that it didn't.
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >Is not logical. How so? >No successful ideology is only a manipulation. Depends on how you define success. We can say "fascism didn't succeed" but it certainly didn't blow over as a trend. Not back then, and not now.
- the_af 3y ago
  You are effectively describing an appeal to emotions, not reason.
  - lossolo 3y ago
    Every ideology appeals to emotions—liberalism, democracy, fascism, communism, etc. This is why we seldom see academic professors, who deliver lectures on TV, winning elections based solely on their lectures. Ideologies aim to harness people's emotions to gain support. Democracy, fascism, and communism all possess underlying logic. By analyzing these ideologies dispassionately, without moral judgments, one can discern the logic in each of them. When encountering opposition, there are numerous ways to resolve conflict and achieve one's goals. These include discussion, compromise, and litigation, but also extend to extreme measures like murder and genocide. While one cannot deny the existence of these methods, their acceptability depends on individual values.
    - narag 3y ago
      Every ideology appeals to emotions... I can't find the source right now, but someone said that believing in democracy is like believing in the metric system. And there's another (Churchill's?) one saying that it's the worst government system, except all the others. Not very exciting definitions, more like cynics' choice.
      - IndySun 3y ago
        >..someone said that believing in democracy is like believing in the metric system.. I have no idea whatsoever the hidden meaning here.
        narag 3y ago
        I found it, it was "dying for democracy..." instead. The meaning? Democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Humans can die for freedom. Democracy doesn't sound as such an epic thing to die for.
- Aunche 3y ago
  > Not every wrong assumption comes from emotion I'm not sure what you mean by that. Every assumption right or wrong comes from emotion. The problem tends to come when people let their emotions are left completely unchecked. "Bankers are taking advantage of me. My banker is an X minority. Therefore, we need to exterminate X minority" indeed has a nonzero degree of logic, but it's not the sort of reasoning 99% of people would come up with in a vacuum. A counterpoint is that sometimes an irrational degree of emotion may be required to do extraordinary things like soldiers being brainwashed to fight even a defensive war, building a cathedral that fitting of the magnificence of god, or even a lot of cult-like startups.
  - lewhoo 3y ago
    > Every assumption right or wrong comes from emotion. I disagree. Wrong assumptions are often just a conclusion of limited or false knowledge.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Well, if you remember how not every one wanted to learn in school and realize those people still "grew up", you realize how impractical it can be to make sure everyone has sufficient knowledge.
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  That seems to be perfectly consistent - it's pure hubris and ego to believe that you are great or that a group of people would care enough about you to dedicate themselves so. That's not for you to judge, but for the rest of us. Pure emotion, no logic.
  - lewhoo 3y ago
    There are plenty of exceptions to recall here. People who thought of themselves as great but were diminished by others for being fools are easy to find in history of science in particular. I'd say if you invoke hubris or ego then you yourself are reacting emotionally - then who is right and who is wrong would probably only rely on the outcome of my endeavors (successful or not).
    - arrosenberg 3y ago
      > I'd say if you invoke hubris or ego then you yourself are reacting emotionally - then who is right and who is wrong would probably only rely on the outcome of my endeavors (successful or not). Ah yes - "I am rubber, you are glue". Given that this is a hypothetical, and I have no stake in the outcome, I think it is reasonable to conclude I am not being emotional about this. > People who thought of themselves as great but were diminished by others for being fools are easy to find in history of science in particular. And how many claimed to be great that are not in the history books?
      - lewhoo 3y ago
        > Given that this is a hypothetical, and I have no stake in the outcome, I think it is reasonable to conclude I am not being emotional about this. And why would you assume that ? If you hand no stake then I'd say it's far less likely to go for descriptions like hubris or ego. I have no stake in chess and I wouldn't call Kasparov anything like that but people more invested in chess certainly do because it's closer to heart for them. > And how many claimed to be great that are not in the history books? We don't know, because they're not in the books. But seriously, how exactly does this matter if you are just searching for logical support ?
- wongarsu 3y ago
  If you reduce fascism to "let's genocide everyone else", of course the ideology doesn't make sense. I would say the idea of fascism is more about doing what's best for the nation or people, guided by a strong centrally led state, and a belief that imperialism and war can be appropriate tools to further this goal. It's adjacent to ultranationalism (though it doesn't have to be about the nation). For example to name the most well-known example, Hitler's goals were: - unite the German people under one country - more lebensraum (space to live) for said German people - get rid of undesirables who hold the Germans back (Jews, disabled people, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc) If you start from the axioms that the German people are the best and should be elevated and all other people don't deserve compassion, it's not hard to arrive at those goals by pure reason. Of course those are bad axioms from our point of view, but you can't reason yourself away from your axioms.
  - felipeerias 3y ago
    It's very easy to get to fascism from Darwinism: the best are destined to prosper and rule, everybody else is doomed to servitude and eventual extinction, and that's how progress is made. In fact, all sorts of eugenic and racist ideas were popular in the West until the Nazis took them to their obvious conclusion.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  One of the main motivators of people looking for strong leadership is fear and mostly a purely emotional need. Mostly fear of being taken advantage of. But yes, it also doesn't have to be irrational, it just was for the most prominent instance of fascism. Using your mind and getting some distance and perspective would be quite beneficial here. The heart can follow the mind or the other way around. There isn't a clear cut and there cannot be a general answer which direction is the better one. What probably is true in almost any case is that if you have an image of an enemy to put all the blame on, he probably just looks at you from the mirror.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  I've been wondering lately how much fascist ideas derive from the time of Julius Caesar and imperial Rome. Fascists seem to love Roman architecture, huge buildings with lots of pillars and pediments. They love massed ranks of marching soldiers, and imperial conquest. Caesar was murdered to stop him becoming a King; but the process continued, and Octavian became the first emperor. Murdering the tyrant isn't enough, and imperial Rome lasted 500 years. I've realized that my knowledge of Julius Caesar is sorely wanting, consisting mainly of vaguely-remembered quotes from Shakespeare's play (which, I realize, I've never read through, and never seen on stage). I evidently have some reading to do.
soliton4 3y ago
a society where people are blind to the cruelty of one half while denouncing the cruelty of the other half. that seems to be one of the ingreedience for violence. each side will justify their violence by pointing at the other side. i have seen it before - its not a very original story
Georgelemental 3y ago
In many instances (both historically and in the present), support for fascism is in part a product of fear of communism—fighting fire with fire, hoping that one totalitarian system will protect against a different one.
appleskeptic 3y ago
[flagged]
- rsynnott 3y ago
  … I mean, you’re describing, er, maybe North Korea? Not sure anywhere else has those policies. Maybe the Soviet Union in the Stalinist period (substitute gulags for execution). I’m… not sure that these policies are proven to make most peoples’ lives better. Where are you getting that? Historically, places which pursue these sorts of extremely draconian policies tend to be very, very nasty places to live.
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    Pretty bad fit IMO. It fits the US as much as the Soviet Union.
  - appleskeptic 3y ago
    Singapore is a really nice place to live.
- the_af 3y ago
  Those policies aren't proven to work and your caveat renders the assertion meaningless. But regardless: it is well studied that fascism is an appeal to emotion, not reason. Neither Italian fascism nor German nazism were rational or grounded in science. They were pseudoscientific and appealed to notions of blood, purity, sacrifice and nationalism -- that is, they appealed to emotion. They clouded the reason.
  - yawpitch 3y ago
    To be fair to the people of the day, that pseudoscience was considered mainstream legitimate science at the time, strongly promoted by their equivalent of Elon Musk on their equivalent of ExTwitter. Just part of what terrifies me about the leadership of the world’s superpower from next year being a toss up between two guys who would have been taught that eugenics was settled fact in school.
alternative_a 3y ago
Two faculties are listed and the phrase implies the good working order of both. This then leads to the conclusion that the meaning is “reason alone can not determine all decisions”. Now a mind in good working order may be confronted with a matter that his or her heart of good working order is objecting to. This phrase reminds us to listen to our heart in these cases.
tgv 3y ago
Heart can be understood as a metaphor. It doesn't speak, so it can be a metaphor for love and empathy. A metaphor with an appeal to power is usually associated with the gut.
tcgv 3y ago
> "Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" The "heart" has always symbolized goodness, kindness, love and benevolence. That's the intended message here: always infuse your decisions with 'humanity'.
- the_af 3y ago
  Agreed the "heart" means kindness and love, but the opposite in the metaphor from the speech is "machine men with machine hearts", which in my mind conjures an image of cold-heartedness, emotionless, robotic people. But fascists were cold and cruel, but also highly emotional. I mean, listen to their speeches, shouting, spitting saliva, calling for raw strength, sacrifice, honor -- it's all emotion. Emotion used for evil, but not robotic. (I think however a degree of detachness must have been needed for say, people running extermination camps, gas chambers, etc. You must stop seeing your victims as people, you must detach yourself to be able to sleep at night. But that's different to the rallies and the support for fascism from the masses; that was highly emotional).
stana 3y ago
Romanticism of 19th century can be thought of as rationality winning over less rational religion. The 'God is dead' sort of thinking. Yet in the midst of all of this rationality and scientific progress we end up with 2 world wars?
- ookdatnog 3y ago
  > Romanticism of 19th century can be thought of as rationality winning over less rational religion. Quite the opposite: Romanticism was a reaction to (and rejection of) the rationality of the Enlightenment. Romanticism celebrated strong, overwhelming emotions, such as nationalistic zeal.
bee_rider 3y ago
I think the fascist sells the idea that our feelings of weakness can be hardened into solid, rational, scientific, truths. This almost seems like… a horrible promise to a wounded man, that he could be a machine-man, and that’s the best he could ever be, and that will give him strength. Maybe the fascist must appeal to mechanical-ism because his philosophy is fundamentally emotion-driven. The transparent, meritocratic democracy is naturally pretty rational in the first place. The pitch is that we’re already part of a machine, and we can bend it to serve us. World war 2 was very much not over, when he gave this speech…
- pmcp 3y ago
  The film was released in 1940, I feel you are understating it’s timelyness.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I certainly I didn’t mean to! It is a doubly-interesting speech because he was giving a counterpoint to the idea that men should sell out their hearts and become cruel machines when it was still up in the air, whether or not that Faustian bargain would pay dividends (it didn’t work out so great for them).
- Kamq 3y ago
  > Maybe the fascist must appeal to mechanical-ism because his philosophy is fundamentally emotion-driven. I don't feel like this is the case. Fundamentally all philosophy that has moral prescriptions is emotion-driven. That is to say, this is the case in all philosophies that say that something "ought" (or "ought not") to be. To say that something "ought" to be a specific way, you can't just rationally and objectively look at the material world. That only tells you how things are, not how they ought to be. You have to cross Hume's Is/Ought gap at some point, and that can't be done objectively. Any philosophy that does this can be undermined by the average two year old asking "Why?" enough times. You have to start with some fundamental moral assumptions in order to get an ought, and those are just absolutely dripping with emotion.
eli_gottlieb 3y ago
More than that! Fascism was deliberately, consciously anti-rational. "Reason over feeling" was always the liberal and communist line, not the fascist one, on WW2.
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism, which were the dominant alternative at the time. Many people who had a lot to lose from the rise of the worker's movement, the Weimar Republic, the SDP, etc. very "rationally" supported the Nazi party. Look up e.g. Fritz Thyssen. Similar story in Italy, and very explicitly strongly so in Spain. My point isn't that fascism is a good or reasonable ideology. But that many people's reasons for supporting it weren't just emotional. Also that their support for it wasn't necessarily or primarily racial in origin, but based in strong anti-communist, nationalist beliefs, instead.
- pitaj 3y ago
  > Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism Not really. Many of the founding fascists were socialists, including Mussolini. It wouldn't be wrong to call fascism a type of or derivative of socialism.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    They were ex-socialists, if really holding those convictions at all. Mussolini was only interested in himself. Nobody believes this line you're spreading other than right wingers in the US.
garyrob 3y ago
"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" I always thought he was referring there to compassion.
keepamovin 3y ago
> surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base. As your heart is, if you listen to it. Listening to your heart is different to compulsive thoughts or reactions; getting swept up in a mass hysteria of the times; or a spasm that can tear through a crowd. These types of revolutions, or crowd motions, are more often based on intense intellectual ideas and expressions of subconscious motivations rather than the present intelligence of your actual heart. So I think the original comment has it very right: if people actually tuned into their heart and listened to that they’d find their way much more surely in the world. I encourage you to try it!! :) The untrained mind in its raw state, for most people is not the cool, rational, dispassionate instrument of your imagining, (though you may have been blessed with such a faculty, most are not! Including I). Most peoples minds are chaotic places and can usually be swept up in these movements. But even if yours is the cool instrument you speak of, I encourage you to develop your heart sense and listen to its intelligence—it’s vital and a different perspective. I think most peoples’ hearts are innately sensible, than their minds are in fact. The heart also seems to require less training to make it so—you simply need to listen to it well.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  “They say home is where the heart is / but what a shame / that everybody’s heart / doesn’t beat the same.”
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    Mm, from Green Day. The actual quote seems to suggest the opposite^0, but that's OK, I think you mean you hesitate to follow your heart because you're afraid you'll be labelled as "irrational" -- or disagreeable! haha -- (and you don't want people to think that about you); and you don't yet trust it. But when you do (trust it -- your heart), you can trust that it will lead you, the right way for you! :) I guess a more literal reading is it's sad that not everyone is in love and in sync, emotionally and mentally, but...you know...as long as no one's hurting each other, that great diversity is the spice of life! But if you're against that? I don't know: you got to respect other people's different feelings. Thanks for sharing that bit of you. Beautiful. I appreciate it! :) Happy New Year! :) 0: (definitely more an expression of a personal angst and disillusionment by Green Day than anything about the actual reality of the world): At the center of the Earth, in the parkin' lot // Of the 7-Eleven where I was taught // The motto was just a lie // It says "home is where your heart is," but what a shame // 'Cause everyone's heart doesn't beat the same // It's beating out of time
keybored 3y ago
> No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors) Is “about half” an empirical, dispassionate observation? No, it’s a heart-felt, emotional... I’m pretty sure that Jesus had something to say about seeing the [fascism] in everyone else but yourself.
tpoacher 3y ago
"Follow your heart; but take your brain with you." ~Alfred Adler

lewhoo 3y ago

I don't think it's so simple. Support for fascism can seem sensible and logical if you let yourself think that between you and greatness stands a minority whose sole purpose is to prevent you from becoming great. You could argue it's not emotion but a calculation coming from struggle and an easy explanation for that struggle. Not every wrong assumption comes from emotion and we have the whole history of science to prove that.

KittenInABox 3y ago
I think the initial assumption comes from emotion. Humans are not dual creatures with frontend and backends that must communicate through an API between their emotions and thoughts. Emotions and thoughts are actually phenomenon in simultaneous occurrence-- your thoughts can trigger emotions (planning what to do after being laid off can trigger anxiety) and your emotions can trigger thoughts (you're anxious, so you consider putting planning off and binge a show/movie). Fear of the "other" is clearly an emotion, but all the justifications, reasons, and overall narratives about the "other" are thoughts.
Noughmad 3y ago
"X can seem sensible and logical if you ignore sense and logic and believe your emotions instead". Yes, that's true for everything, and it is exactly what believing your emotions over facts means.
- lewhoo 3y ago
  But that's just ad absurdum considering we don't have straight answers when it comes to socio-political issues.
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic principles over Fascistic enterprises. People who get this wrong are simply wrong, and it's likely emotional and psychological forces that got them there, not rational, historiographic, or empirical ones. The current headwinds are a result of ill-equiped individuals being manipulated by other ill-equiped individuals.
    - lewhoo 3y ago
      > It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic principles over Fascistic enterprises. That may be, but it also seems perfectly logical to claim democracy is broken because a voice of an educated person carries same weight than that of a high school dropout. All you need to do is extend this logic a bit. I think it is because of our emotions, empathy or maybe something else that we see that this "flaw" in democracy isn't really a flaw. > ill-equiped individuals being manipulated by other ill-equiped individuals Except fascism wasn't only a manipulation. Had fascism succeeded it would've made the participating states extremely rich, powerful and influential throughout the next (maybe) hundreds of years.
      - throwaway171223 3y ago
        > to claim democracy is broken because a voice of an educated person carries same weight than that of a high school dropout Is not logical. > fascism wasn't only a manipulation No successful ideology is only a manipulation. > Had fascism succeeded I doubt anyone really knows why, but the historical fact is that it didn't.
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >Is not logical. How so? >No successful ideology is only a manipulation. Depends on how you define success. We can say "fascism didn't succeed" but it certainly didn't blow over as a trend. Not back then, and not now.
the_af 3y ago
You are effectively describing an appeal to emotions, not reason.
- lossolo 3y ago
  Every ideology appeals to emotions—liberalism, democracy, fascism, communism, etc. This is why we seldom see academic professors, who deliver lectures on TV, winning elections based solely on their lectures. Ideologies aim to harness people's emotions to gain support. Democracy, fascism, and communism all possess underlying logic. By analyzing these ideologies dispassionately, without moral judgments, one can discern the logic in each of them. When encountering opposition, there are numerous ways to resolve conflict and achieve one's goals. These include discussion, compromise, and litigation, but also extend to extreme measures like murder and genocide. While one cannot deny the existence of these methods, their acceptability depends on individual values.
  - narag 3y ago
    Every ideology appeals to emotions... I can't find the source right now, but someone said that believing in democracy is like believing in the metric system. And there's another (Churchill's?) one saying that it's the worst government system, except all the others. Not very exciting definitions, more like cynics' choice.
    - IndySun 3y ago
      >..someone said that believing in democracy is like believing in the metric system.. I have no idea whatsoever the hidden meaning here.
      - narag 3y ago
        I found it, it was "dying for democracy..." instead. The meaning? Democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Humans can die for freedom. Democracy doesn't sound as such an epic thing to die for.
Aunche 3y ago
> Not every wrong assumption comes from emotion I'm not sure what you mean by that. Every assumption right or wrong comes from emotion. The problem tends to come when people let their emotions are left completely unchecked. "Bankers are taking advantage of me. My banker is an X minority. Therefore, we need to exterminate X minority" indeed has a nonzero degree of logic, but it's not the sort of reasoning 99% of people would come up with in a vacuum. A counterpoint is that sometimes an irrational degree of emotion may be required to do extraordinary things like soldiers being brainwashed to fight even a defensive war, building a cathedral that fitting of the magnificence of god, or even a lot of cult-like startups.
- lewhoo 3y ago
  > Every assumption right or wrong comes from emotion. I disagree. Wrong assumptions are often just a conclusion of limited or false knowledge.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Well, if you remember how not every one wanted to learn in school and realize those people still "grew up", you realize how impractical it can be to make sure everyone has sufficient knowledge.
arrosenberg 3y ago
That seems to be perfectly consistent - it's pure hubris and ego to believe that you are great or that a group of people would care enough about you to dedicate themselves so. That's not for you to judge, but for the rest of us. Pure emotion, no logic.
- lewhoo 3y ago
  There are plenty of exceptions to recall here. People who thought of themselves as great but were diminished by others for being fools are easy to find in history of science in particular. I'd say if you invoke hubris or ego then you yourself are reacting emotionally - then who is right and who is wrong would probably only rely on the outcome of my endeavors (successful or not).
  - arrosenberg 3y ago
    > I'd say if you invoke hubris or ego then you yourself are reacting emotionally - then who is right and who is wrong would probably only rely on the outcome of my endeavors (successful or not). Ah yes - "I am rubber, you are glue". Given that this is a hypothetical, and I have no stake in the outcome, I think it is reasonable to conclude I am not being emotional about this. > People who thought of themselves as great but were diminished by others for being fools are easy to find in history of science in particular. And how many claimed to be great that are not in the history books?
    - lewhoo 3y ago
      > Given that this is a hypothetical, and I have no stake in the outcome, I think it is reasonable to conclude I am not being emotional about this. And why would you assume that ? If you hand no stake then I'd say it's far less likely to go for descriptions like hubris or ego. I have no stake in chess and I wouldn't call Kasparov anything like that but people more invested in chess certainly do because it's closer to heart for them. > And how many claimed to be great that are not in the history books? We don't know, because they're not in the books. But seriously, how exactly does this matter if you are just searching for logical support ?
wongarsu 3y ago
If you reduce fascism to "let's genocide everyone else", of course the ideology doesn't make sense. I would say the idea of fascism is more about doing what's best for the nation or people, guided by a strong centrally led state, and a belief that imperialism and war can be appropriate tools to further this goal. It's adjacent to ultranationalism (though it doesn't have to be about the nation). For example to name the most well-known example, Hitler's goals were: - unite the German people under one country - more lebensraum (space to live) for said German people - get rid of undesirables who hold the Germans back (Jews, disabled people, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc) If you start from the axioms that the German people are the best and should be elevated and all other people don't deserve compassion, it's not hard to arrive at those goals by pure reason. Of course those are bad axioms from our point of view, but you can't reason yourself away from your axioms.
- felipeerias 3y ago
  It's very easy to get to fascism from Darwinism: the best are destined to prosper and rule, everybody else is doomed to servitude and eventual extinction, and that's how progress is made. In fact, all sorts of eugenic and racist ideas were popular in the West until the Nazis took them to their obvious conclusion.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
One of the main motivators of people looking for strong leadership is fear and mostly a purely emotional need. Mostly fear of being taken advantage of. But yes, it also doesn't have to be irrational, it just was for the most prominent instance of fascism. Using your mind and getting some distance and perspective would be quite beneficial here. The heart can follow the mind or the other way around. There isn't a clear cut and there cannot be a general answer which direction is the better one. What probably is true in almost any case is that if you have an image of an enemy to put all the blame on, he probably just looks at you from the mirror.
denton-scratch 3y ago
I've been wondering lately how much fascist ideas derive from the time of Julius Caesar and imperial Rome. Fascists seem to love Roman architecture, huge buildings with lots of pillars and pediments. They love massed ranks of marching soldiers, and imperial conquest. Caesar was murdered to stop him becoming a King; but the process continued, and Octavian became the first emperor. Murdering the tyrant isn't enough, and imperial Rome lasted 500 years. I've realized that my knowledge of Julius Caesar is sorely wanting, consisting mainly of vaguely-remembered quotes from Shakespeare's play (which, I realize, I've never read through, and never seen on stage). I evidently have some reading to do.

soliton4 3y ago

a society where people are blind to the cruelty of one half while denouncing the cruelty of the other half. that seems to be one of the ingreedience for violence. each side will justify their violence by pointing at the other side. i have seen it before - its not a very original story

Georgelemental 3y ago

In many instances (both historically and in the present), support for fascism is in part a product of fear of communism—fighting fire with fire, hoping that one totalitarian system will protect against a different one.

appleskeptic 3y ago

[flagged]

rsynnott 3y ago
… I mean, you’re describing, er, maybe North Korea? Not sure anywhere else has those policies. Maybe the Soviet Union in the Stalinist period (substitute gulags for execution). I’m… not sure that these policies are proven to make most peoples’ lives better. Where are you getting that? Historically, places which pursue these sorts of extremely draconian policies tend to be very, very nasty places to live.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  Pretty bad fit IMO. It fits the US as much as the Soviet Union.
- appleskeptic 3y ago
  Singapore is a really nice place to live.
the_af 3y ago
Those policies aren't proven to work and your caveat renders the assertion meaningless. But regardless: it is well studied that fascism is an appeal to emotion, not reason. Neither Italian fascism nor German nazism were rational or grounded in science. They were pseudoscientific and appealed to notions of blood, purity, sacrifice and nationalism -- that is, they appealed to emotion. They clouded the reason.
- yawpitch 3y ago
  To be fair to the people of the day, that pseudoscience was considered mainstream legitimate science at the time, strongly promoted by their equivalent of Elon Musk on their equivalent of ExTwitter. Just part of what terrifies me about the leadership of the world’s superpower from next year being a toss up between two guys who would have been taught that eugenics was settled fact in school.

alternative_a 3y ago

Two faculties are listed and the phrase implies the good working order of both. This then leads to the conclusion that the meaning is “reason alone can not determine all decisions”. Now a mind in good working order may be confronted with a matter that his or her heart of good working order is objecting to. This phrase reminds us to listen to our heart in these cases.

tgv 3y ago

Heart can be understood as a metaphor. It doesn't speak, so it can be a metaphor for love and empathy. A metaphor with an appeal to power is usually associated with the gut.

tcgv 3y ago

> "Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" The "heart" has always symbolized goodness, kindness, love and benevolence. That's the intended message here: always infuse your decisions with 'humanity'.

the_af 3y ago
Agreed the "heart" means kindness and love, but the opposite in the metaphor from the speech is "machine men with machine hearts", which in my mind conjures an image of cold-heartedness, emotionless, robotic people. But fascists were cold and cruel, but also highly emotional. I mean, listen to their speeches, shouting, spitting saliva, calling for raw strength, sacrifice, honor -- it's all emotion. Emotion used for evil, but not robotic. (I think however a degree of detachness must have been needed for say, people running extermination camps, gas chambers, etc. You must stop seeing your victims as people, you must detach yourself to be able to sleep at night. But that's different to the rallies and the support for fascism from the masses; that was highly emotional).

stana 3y ago

Romanticism of 19th century can be thought of as rationality winning over less rational religion. The 'God is dead' sort of thinking. Yet in the midst of all of this rationality and scientific progress we end up with 2 world wars?

ookdatnog 3y ago
> Romanticism of 19th century can be thought of as rationality winning over less rational religion. Quite the opposite: Romanticism was a reaction to (and rejection of) the rationality of the Enlightenment. Romanticism celebrated strong, overwhelming emotions, such as nationalistic zeal.

bee_rider 3y ago

I think the fascist sells the idea that our feelings of weakness can be hardened into solid, rational, scientific, truths. This almost seems like… a horrible promise to a wounded man, that he could be a machine-man, and that’s the best he could ever be, and that will give him strength. Maybe the fascist must appeal to mechanical-ism because his philosophy is fundamentally emotion-driven. The transparent, meritocratic democracy is naturally pretty rational in the first place. The pitch is that we’re already part of a machine, and we can bend it to serve us. World war 2 was very much not over, when he gave this speech…

pmcp 3y ago
The film was released in 1940, I feel you are understating it’s timelyness.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I certainly I didn’t mean to! It is a doubly-interesting speech because he was giving a counterpoint to the idea that men should sell out their hearts and become cruel machines when it was still up in the air, whether or not that Faustian bargain would pay dividends (it didn’t work out so great for them).
Kamq 3y ago
> Maybe the fascist must appeal to mechanical-ism because his philosophy is fundamentally emotion-driven. I don't feel like this is the case. Fundamentally all philosophy that has moral prescriptions is emotion-driven. That is to say, this is the case in all philosophies that say that something "ought" (or "ought not") to be. To say that something "ought" to be a specific way, you can't just rationally and objectively look at the material world. That only tells you how things are, not how they ought to be. You have to cross Hume's Is/Ought gap at some point, and that can't be done objectively. Any philosophy that does this can be undermined by the average two year old asking "Why?" enough times. You have to start with some fundamental moral assumptions in order to get an ought, and those are just absolutely dripping with emotion.

eli_gottlieb 3y ago

More than that! Fascism was deliberately, consciously anti-rational. "Reason over feeling" was always the liberal and communist line, not the fascist one, on WW2.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism, which were the dominant alternative at the time. Many people who had a lot to lose from the rise of the worker's movement, the Weimar Republic, the SDP, etc. very "rationally" supported the Nazi party. Look up e.g. Fritz Thyssen. Similar story in Italy, and very explicitly strongly so in Spain. My point isn't that fascism is a good or reasonable ideology. But that many people's reasons for supporting it weren't just emotional. Also that their support for it wasn't necessarily or primarily racial in origin, but based in strong anti-communist, nationalist beliefs, instead.

pitaj 3y ago
> Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism Not really. Many of the founding fascists were socialists, including Mussolini. It wouldn't be wrong to call fascism a type of or derivative of socialism.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  They were ex-socialists, if really holding those convictions at all. Mussolini was only interested in himself. Nobody believes this line you're spreading other than right wingers in the US.

garyrob 3y ago

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" I always thought he was referring there to compassion.

keepamovin 3y ago

> surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base. As your heart is, if you listen to it. Listening to your heart is different to compulsive thoughts or reactions; getting swept up in a mass hysteria of the times; or a spasm that can tear through a crowd. These types of revolutions, or crowd motions, are more often based on intense intellectual ideas and expressions of subconscious motivations rather than the present intelligence of your actual heart. So I think the original comment has it very right: if people actually tuned into their heart and listened to that they’d find their way much more surely in the world. I encourage you to try it!! :) The untrained mind in its raw state, for most people is not the cool, rational, dispassionate instrument of your imagining, (though you may have been blessed with such a faculty, most are not! Including I). Most peoples minds are chaotic places and can usually be swept up in these movements. But even if yours is the cool instrument you speak of, I encourage you to develop your heart sense and listen to its intelligence—it’s vital and a different perspective. I think most peoples’ hearts are innately sensible, than their minds are in fact. The heart also seems to require less training to make it so—you simply need to listen to it well.

mock-possum 3y ago
“They say home is where the heart is / but what a shame / that everybody’s heart / doesn’t beat the same.”
- keepamovin 3y ago
  Mm, from Green Day. The actual quote seems to suggest the opposite^0, but that's OK, I think you mean you hesitate to follow your heart because you're afraid you'll be labelled as "irrational" -- or disagreeable! haha -- (and you don't want people to think that about you); and you don't yet trust it. But when you do (trust it -- your heart), you can trust that it will lead you, the right way for you! :) I guess a more literal reading is it's sad that not everyone is in love and in sync, emotionally and mentally, but...you know...as long as no one's hurting each other, that great diversity is the spice of life! But if you're against that? I don't know: you got to respect other people's different feelings. Thanks for sharing that bit of you. Beautiful. I appreciate it! :) Happy New Year! :) 0: (definitely more an expression of a personal angst and disillusionment by Green Day than anything about the actual reality of the world): At the center of the Earth, in the parkin' lot // Of the 7-Eleven where I was taught // The motto was just a lie // It says "home is where your heart is," but what a shame // 'Cause everyone's heart doesn't beat the same // It's beating out of time

keybored 3y ago

> No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors) Is “about half” an empirical, dispassionate observation? No, it’s a heart-felt, emotional... I’m pretty sure that Jesus had something to say about seeing the [fascism] in everyone else but yourself.

tpoacher 3y ago

"Follow your heart; but take your brain with you." ~Alfred Adler