6 ms·

1933 and the Definition of Fascism

40 points by c-cube 2y ago

Synaesthesia 2y ago
The difference between Fascism of the 30’s and today is that in the 30’s there was a mass movement which was organised as part of the Fascist parties. Whereas today that is missing. The notion of “Inverted totalitarianism” by Sheldon Wolin, I think encapsulates our current political situation.
- aebtebeten 2y ago
  What's your definition of "mass movement"? An anecdote that I find has some[0] parallels: In 1936[1], when the League of German Girls and Hitler Youth had open-air camps at the Nazi party meeting in Nürnberg, many came back pregnant. This was enough of a scandal that they got rid of the girls' open-air camp in 1937; not only because one of new mothers named 13 people as possible fathers, but also because they were all going to be new mothers: Nazis had pushed to largely outlaw abortion in 1933. see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder,_Küche,_Kirche#Third_Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder,_Küche,_Kirche#Third_Re... [0] albeit much sketchier than the 4/4 (elements of fascism), or 14/14 (Eco's elements of Ur-Fascism), evaluated in TFA. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsparteitag#:~:text=Zu%20den%20Reichsparteitagen%20fuhren%20auch,zurückkehrten%2C%20wurden%20anschließend%20Schwangerschaften%20festgestellt https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsparteitag#:~:text=Zu%20d.... EDIT: another loose parallel: if you do a search for the word "Nazi" in german language newspapers, they occur pretty often in the years leading up to 1933, but after that year the word suddenly occurs only in foreign-published german-language papers — even back then, even the historical Nazis didn't like being described by that nickname: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/search/newspaper?query=nazi&fromDay=1&fromMonth=1&fromYear=1929&toDay=31&toMonth=12&toYear=1933 https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/search/newspaper...
kayo_20211030 2y ago
The analysis is dead on. In the American political system, a two party system, the lily-livered SPD's and Victor Emmanuel are represented by those who fail to vote, or actively work against a dastardly outcome; whether they're the abstainers, or GOP fellow-travelers who believe they can control the maelstrom. As the piece says: if you fail there is no next time.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- defrost 2y ago
  > The analysis is dead on. In the American political system, a two party system, Currently fallen into a two party K-hole, sure. But not intrinsically a two party political system and one founded initially by many who were vehemently oppossed to party politics. A good question for the reader is how did the US political system end up in an unrepresentative quagmire of two parties to the effective exclusion of all others? Is this the inevitable emergent outcome of that particular iterative rules based system? Is some political variation of Hotelling's law at play here, can other voting systems help?
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    Interestingly, a similar issue befell UK politics in the small few last decades. It is basically two party - two parties get >90% of the seats, then there's a plethora of small parties. What happened in the last election, for example, is that "small C" conservative voters had no one to vote for. The actual Conservative party was unelectable, mired by scandals and gross incompetence. Labour party, the other one of the two, was anathema. Taking smaller steps to the left or right, you have the Liberal party or Reform, neither of which had any chances of getting a significant number of seats in the parlament. In a healthy multi-party system, some other "small c" Conservative party would spring up to hoover up the votes. As it is, people had the choice of voting for a party widely seen as incompetent (including by its own sympathisers), a party that wants the opposite of everything they like, or a fringe party with no chance of shaping UK politics. I have some theories as to why these happen at the same time... But anyway, it's not a uniquely American phenomenon.
    - defrost 2y ago
      It's a consequence of voting systems and one that First Past the Post systems (such as the UK House of Commons) are prone to. People who are (say) Left-ish but not full blown supportes of BigLeftParty have the choice of voting for the major Left Party or an alternative left faction .. which is a wasted vote in a tight FPtP contest. Worse a not BigLeftParty vote is one that effectively supports the major Right Party as it lowers the count for BigLeft. Preference systems, Ranked Systems (there are variations) allow for direct first preference votes for a variationLeft Party with secondary fallback BigLeft preferences. The direct support for not the main platform shows and causes deals to be made, the votes that fail to elect a variation still fall through and support the LeftWing while allowing the growth of alternative views. Ranked voting fosters a healthy ecosystem of alternative smaller parties which can then grow, take seats, and help better represent the population at large with a diverse range of views, not just the BigTwo which end up as slightly variations of things not many support.
readthenotes1 2y ago
"The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, " So we should have some solace that Trump has already been in office and unable to continue, did not lock Clinton up as he promised, etc.
- karmakurtisaani 2y ago
  I've understood it was because no one, including the Republicans, expected Trump to win. And that this time they're ready.
- DougN7 2y ago
  This time the supreme court has already given him immunity. This time he has less to lose (he’s old, and term limited _unless_ he “fixes” that).
- foogazi 2y ago
  Failed to deliver on promises smh
crazydoggers 2y ago
What’s important to note about this analysis is that it’s well researched with links to sources. A reader is free to disagree with what the evidence may demonstrate or not, but at least it provides an education. This is the type of political discourse that we need more of rather than the vitriol that has become standard fair.
DougN7 2y ago
Those who don’t know their history are cursed to repeat it. And unfortunately, if 51% of the population doesn’t know their history, everyone gets to repeat it :(
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Or 49% (or even less) if you're in a winner-take-all country with a system more baroque than one person, one vote.
xtiansimon 2y ago
WNYC’s On the Media had a story on Fascism last week: “Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Jason Stanley, a professor of Philosophy at Yale University and who has written several books on fascism. He first warned about Trump’s fascist rhetoric in 2018, and explains why it's more important than ever to call it by its name.” https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/fascism-fear-and-the-science-behind-horror-films https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/fascism-fe...

40 points by c-cube 2y ago

The difference between Fascism of the 30’s and today is that in the 30’s there was a mass movement which was organised as part of the Fascist parties. Whereas today that is missing. The notion of “Inverted totalitarianism” by Sheldon Wolin, I think encapsulates our current political situation.

aebtebeten 2y ago
What's your definition of "mass movement"? An anecdote that I find has some[0] parallels: In 1936[1], when the League of German Girls and Hitler Youth had open-air camps at the Nazi party meeting in Nürnberg, many came back pregnant. This was enough of a scandal that they got rid of the girls' open-air camp in 1937; not only because one of new mothers named 13 people as possible fathers, but also because they were all going to be new mothers: Nazis had pushed to largely outlaw abortion in 1933. see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder,_Küche,_Kirche#Third_Reich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder,_Küche,_Kirche#Third_Re... [0] albeit much sketchier than the 4/4 (elements of fascism), or 14/14 (Eco's elements of Ur-Fascism), evaluated in TFA. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsparteitag#:~:text=Zu%20den%20Reichsparteitagen%20fuhren%20auch,zurückkehrten%2C%20wurden%20anschließend%20Schwangerschaften%20festgestellt https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsparteitag#:~:text=Zu%20d.... EDIT: another loose parallel: if you do a search for the word "Nazi" in german language newspapers, they occur pretty often in the years leading up to 1933, but after that year the word suddenly occurs only in foreign-published german-language papers — even back then, even the historical Nazis didn't like being described by that nickname: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/search/newspaper?query=nazi&fromDay=1&fromMonth=1&fromYear=1929&toDay=31&toMonth=12&toYear=1933 https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/search/newspaper...

kayo_20211030 2y ago

The analysis is dead on. In the American political system, a two party system, the lily-livered SPD's and Victor Emmanuel are represented by those who fail to vote, or actively work against a dastardly outcome; whether they're the abstainers, or GOP fellow-travelers who believe they can control the maelstrom. As the piece says: if you fail there is no next time.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
defrost 2y ago
> The analysis is dead on. In the American political system, a two party system, Currently fallen into a two party K-hole, sure. But not intrinsically a two party political system and one founded initially by many who were vehemently oppossed to party politics. A good question for the reader is how did the US political system end up in an unrepresentative quagmire of two parties to the effective exclusion of all others? Is this the inevitable emergent outcome of that particular iterative rules based system? Is some political variation of Hotelling's law at play here, can other voting systems help?
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  Interestingly, a similar issue befell UK politics in the small few last decades. It is basically two party - two parties get >90% of the seats, then there's a plethora of small parties. What happened in the last election, for example, is that "small C" conservative voters had no one to vote for. The actual Conservative party was unelectable, mired by scandals and gross incompetence. Labour party, the other one of the two, was anathema. Taking smaller steps to the left or right, you have the Liberal party or Reform, neither of which had any chances of getting a significant number of seats in the parlament. In a healthy multi-party system, some other "small c" Conservative party would spring up to hoover up the votes. As it is, people had the choice of voting for a party widely seen as incompetent (including by its own sympathisers), a party that wants the opposite of everything they like, or a fringe party with no chance of shaping UK politics. I have some theories as to why these happen at the same time... But anyway, it's not a uniquely American phenomenon.
  - defrost 2y ago
    It's a consequence of voting systems and one that First Past the Post systems (such as the UK House of Commons) are prone to. People who are (say) Left-ish but not full blown supportes of BigLeftParty have the choice of voting for the major Left Party or an alternative left faction .. which is a wasted vote in a tight FPtP contest. Worse a not BigLeftParty vote is one that effectively supports the major Right Party as it lowers the count for BigLeft. Preference systems, Ranked Systems (there are variations) allow for direct first preference votes for a variationLeft Party with secondary fallback BigLeft preferences. The direct support for not the main platform shows and causes deals to be made, the votes that fail to elect a variation still fall through and support the LeftWing while allowing the growth of alternative views. Ranked voting fosters a healthy ecosystem of alternative smaller parties which can then grow, take seats, and help better represent the population at large with a diverse range of views, not just the BigTwo which end up as slightly variations of things not many support.

readthenotes1 2y ago

"The time to stop an authoritarian takeover of a democratic system is before the authoritarian is in office, " So we should have some solace that Trump has already been in office and unable to continue, did not lock Clinton up as he promised, etc.

karmakurtisaani 2y ago
I've understood it was because no one, including the Republicans, expected Trump to win. And that this time they're ready.
DougN7 2y ago
This time the supreme court has already given him immunity. This time he has less to lose (he’s old, and term limited _unless_ he “fixes” that).
foogazi 2y ago
Failed to deliver on promises smh

crazydoggers 2y ago

What’s important to note about this analysis is that it’s well researched with links to sources. A reader is free to disagree with what the evidence may demonstrate or not, but at least it provides an education. This is the type of political discourse that we need more of rather than the vitriol that has become standard fair.

DougN7 2y ago

Those who don’t know their history are cursed to repeat it. And unfortunately, if 51% of the population doesn’t know their history, everyone gets to repeat it :(

082349872349872 2y ago
Or 49% (or even less) if you're in a winner-take-all country with a system more baroque than one person, one vote.

xtiansimon 2y ago

WNYC’s On the Media had a story on Fascism last week: “Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Jason Stanley, a professor of Philosophy at Yale University and who has written several books on fascism. He first warned about Trump’s fascist rhetoric in 2018, and explains why it's more important than ever to call it by its name.” https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/fascism-fear-and-the-science-behind-horror-films https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/fascism-fe...