without class analysis, a liberal's understanding of fascism is limited to a list of checkboxes (Umberto Eco)
Eh, Ur-Fascism works fine for what it wants to work at, providing a rundown of fascist semiotics. Does it outline the historical and material roots of fascism? No, but that's already been covered by various Marxists and Marxism-influenced scholars, especially Dimitroff with his core idea that fascism is capitalism in decay, "the terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist, most imperialist elements of financial capital." A capitalist system aching so much under its internal contradictions that it turns the mechanisms of imperialist oppression developed in the periphery inward, against the populace of the imperial core itself. That's a good explanation, it is my explanation as well, but it is also fully compatible with Eco's Ur-Fascism, because Dimitroff and Eco analyze two completely different layers of the issue, Dimitroff how fascism originates and Eco with which signifiers it operates in the emotional manipulation of the masses that is so crucial for the actively anti-rational, anti-empiricist, purely mythologizing fever dream that is fascism. Adorno and Horkheimer with their studies of the authoritarian character are also useful to grasp this propagandistic and psychosocial dimension of fascism. We need to understand how our enemies think. We also need to understand which material conditions have brought them there, that is fundamental, but we have to grasp both this "why" and that "how".
The problem with libs trying to wrap their treat-filled heads around fascism isn't that they always cite Eco, there's nothing wrong with that, the problem is that libs, being wide-eyed, bumbling idealists, would never even begin to imagine that a pure critique of semiotics is not enough to understand a subject, that like all of their beloved theories it misses its material foundation and is therefore standing upside down, with no contact to anything outside of the dazzling and blinding world of big brain ideas they would so love to inhabit.
brilliant comment overall.
i'd like to bring to discussion, though, the fact that many 20th century theorists have associated fascism to industrial and financial capital, but to me it seems that 21st century fascism is more tightly linked with landowners and agribusiness. if you check voting patterns in Brazil, the US and Italy it seems to corroborate that - at face value it looks like a fight between god hating cosmopolitan globohomos and common folk.Industrial capital is backing 21st century fascist movements as well, fossil fuel industry is bankrolling a ton of fashy agitprop. ofc these sectors do not have to be behind capital completely - a lot of bankers in 1920s Germany backed the NSDAP, Jewish bankers obviously didn't. What's relevant here is that fascism also means that crisis exacerbates capitalist competition to the point were members of the bourgeois class eventually just have their fascist allies kill other members of the bourgeois class for their assets.
We need to understand how our enemies think. We also need to understand which material conditions have brought them there, that is fundamental, but we have to grasp both this “why” and that “how”.
This is beautifully put, thank you.
They play pretend at the role of a revolutionary without having any greater meaning to their words. I call it Umberto Ecco’s Getting Up.
No one, save for Cadence Owens, actively WANTS to be oppressed, people vote in fascism on the idea that they will be the oppressor, that the government will be a force to make them feel good about themselves. How do people not get this?
"The concentration camp was never the normal condition for the average gentile German. Unless one were Jewish, or poor and unemployed, or of active leftist persuasion or otherwise openly anti-Nazi, Germany from 1933 until well into the war was not a nightmarish place. All the 'good Germans' had to do was obey the law, pay their taxes, give their sons to the army, avoid any sign of political heterodoxy, and look the other way when unions were busted and troublesome people disappeared. Since many 'middle Americans' already obey the law, pay their taxes, give their sons to the army, are themselves distrustful of political heterodoxy, and applaud when unions are broken and troublesome people are disposed of, they probably could live without too much personal torment in a fascist state — some of them certainly seem eager to do so."
They don't recognize it because they're immersed in it. We have all the characteristics of a fascist state (be them prescriptive or descriptive) but because we're not systemically liquidating the camps for the most part we aren't Nazis for some reason? People don't want to admit in 1933 they would have been doing the exact equivalent of what they are doing now - nothing.
The majority of people are fine with fascism as long as it's called Imperialism and happening far away from them.
It's not even away. We keep millions of "criminals" imprisoned in labor camps. They are disproportionately minorities and almost all poor. Radical thought and action is systemically and violently suppressed irregardless of the rule of law. The state is constantly spying on us. So many aspects of fascism are very clearly present here right now but because the Einsatzgruppen aren't kicking my door down right now it's absurd to call it fascism.
Seems like a base vs superstructure type thing. When the foundation of your everyday life is completely reproduced via fascist means, it just hides in plain sight, and no one dares to speak its name, or you risk being viewed as 'part of the problem' to be corrected. Copaganda and all the rest hasve been completely normal for about 3 generations now. Keep your head down, don't rock the boat, etc. The only folks that can afford to make waves are the wealthy that already have concentrated power. Do you stan the good billionaire or the evil billionaire?
