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There are a few nuggets of useful insight scattered amongst the flat caricatures here, but the reason this not a useful guide to our modern affliction of growin
by pixelready 2y ago
There are a few nuggets of useful insight scattered amongst the flat caricatures here, but the reason this not a useful guide to our modern affliction of growing fascism is it frames Nazism as a foreign invading ideology with the subtext of “who among us will bend the knee if those monsters invade and win” rather than an organically homegrown response to certain conditions of our societies.
Fascism is a cancer of the body politic. The ideas that form its foundation as a philosophy are there in every society, and each culture manages them the way most bodies contain pre-cancerous cells that will never metastasize because the body is healthy enough to maintain itself despite its underlying flaws. The far more interesting question than “who”, for me, is “what”? What are the conditions and triggers that cause the cancer of fascism to overwhelm the counterbalancing philosophies. To fester, grow, and ultimately become terminal to a healthy society.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago> What are the conditions and triggers that cause the cancer of fascism to overwhelm the counterbalancing philosophies. To fester, grow, and ultimately become terminal to a healthy society. Probably many of the things the fascists complain about?
- pixelready 2y agoFascists are famously unreliable narrators. Scapegoating is core to the philosophy and fascists are typically entirely focused on winning power and asserting dominance over competing factions rather than understanding, explaining and fixing underlying societal ills.
- zamadatix 2y agoScapegoating isn't just spouting "redheads are horrible" it's identifying some common problem and giving that fake but easier outlet for it "the only reason you don't all have jobs is because the damn redheads came here and took them". The more apt the problem is to people the more likely they will go along with blaming a group for it. After a good long while of deep acceptance of fascism this can start to evolve into an ever wonkier list of reasons as ever more wood is needed to stoke the fire but at the core it's usually built around a very apt summary of the biggest unsolved problems of the time.
- pixelready 2y agoFair point. I don’t mean to downplay the very real pain that creates fertile soil for fascism to grow in the first place, just to point out that you can’t take the narrative about that pain at face value, since it tends to rapidly evolve into a tool for manipulation. Other tools are needed to get to the bottom of it, though the stated grievance can point you to the start of the thread.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y agoI said “many” instead of “all” because I agree with you. But I think like your other post acknowledges is that there is real pain they experience that is driving them to fascism. What creates the pain is a lot of the things they complain about (loss of identify, worsening job outlook, worsening social standing/status, crime, not being heard by the majority).
- yks 2y agoFascists are lesser faction but if the society is bitterly splintered, they maneuver their way to power. For example, if a certain country has 2 major parties each supported by ~50% of population and no voter of one party can ever muster to vote for another for any reason, including to protect their future voting itself, then fascists do not need to metastasize to 51% of population, they just need to metastasize to 26%. Adjust to the number of parties as needed.
- Hedder 2y ago[flagged]