“Before
mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is
marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact
depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
Foucault
used the term "fascism" to refer "not only historical fascism,
the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini...but also the fascism in us
all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes
us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us
It was Umberto Eco who first
described the essence of Ur or eternal
Fascism. He observed that it was always present both within each society and
each individual for all of us it is an uncomfortable issue and lies both with
the political id or shadow. Over the last three years we have seen it rise here
and across Europe. From the AFD to the Brexit party and UKIP it can be detected
in the streets, on social media and in everyday discourse. It comprises of 14 points
and I will examine each one and illustrate with examples.
1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus
of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi
gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.” The
essence of getting our country back can be seen here. It talks of a fictional,
mythical past. It adherents talk of being a patriot and of being Christian. Its
traditional values never existed bad its supporters can never tell you what the
y mean or when. Overwhelmingly there is an ontological insecurity that is
threatened by feminists, trans gender activists and lefties.
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of
Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism
can be defined as irrationalism.” There is clearly a rejection of all
predictive disciplines. Psychology, Sociology, and Economics is dismissed as “bullshit”
Time after time the replies are the same and yet there is no clear
identification with who, when or where there was a time before modernism. To
some it is the sixties to others it was “getting through the war” and yet it is
a time in which its promotor never lived
in or knew anything about. Modernism and multiculturalism is often
conflated.
3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being
beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous
reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.” The term remoaner is most apt
here. Terms are used that quote the critic as being full of doom and gloom.
There is no use in arguing historically, analytically or theoretically. The
fictional` then` is elevated over the possibilities of the future with the
phrase “well you don’t know that” Correlation and causation are ignored and
simple binary oppositions are created. Simple answers for complex questions are
promoted and all attempts to understand analogy and allegory confused.
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes
distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the
scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
Disagreement comes from disloyalty. If you challenge the dominant discourse is challenged,
then you are told to use simpler words and stop showing off. Gove`s comments on
exerts are a primary example. I was once told that `you learn nothing from
books”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or
prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus
Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” The threat is always the other, the
Muslim, the lefty. Gender is simply the product of genitals while sexuality and
culture is ignored or go comprehended.
The threat is from “Cultural appropriation, or cultural Marxism yet the nature
of the threatened culture is never described.
6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical
features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class,
a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation,
and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.” Things have gone on
long enough, breaking point is here but we are never told what is broken or
what has been lost. The appeal to a fictional past and structure that once was
is never described or articulated. The insecurity of the personal is projected outwards.
Once I saw on a Facebook group the phrase “If you don’t fit in fuck off”. Yet
strangely the appeal of the individual never explored the difference between
individuals that create a diverse society. There are no multiple explanations
that are examined or discussed.
7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged.
The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.” I have been
accused on another Facebook page of belonging to a shadowy left wing
organistaion. Its usually from old Conservative men looking for the enemy
within or enemy without. The threat is the destruction of the epistemological
and ontological identity of the individual sensing the plot. Yet once more they
can tell you nothing of they feel they will lose.
8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous
shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and
too weak.” The enemy is gutless and cunning. Last week a member of the DFLA
challenged me to a boxing match. He did not grasp that I was challenging his
ideas and his fears. He could not distinguish himself from the perception of a
vast plot and saw that physical violence was the only solution. He has no
perception that as his individual life fell to pieces that it has nothing to do
with himself but simply the enemy within.
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism
there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.” It’s
about action, it’s about saving the veterans, the white homeless and those
threatened by socialism. There is no time to ask structural questions there is
just time to act.
10.
Contempt for
the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.” The
unemployed and disabled are not to be pitied. They are soft and should be dealt
with. Hard work is the solution to everything. The academic and critical
thinkers are no more than `snowflake`.
11.
Everybody is
educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This
cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.” The heroes are
gone, they died for the present and what they have achieved is under threat
from the enemy within. There are no
solutions but defense and action. The answers are racially contained. The
nation state is an essential unit and all else is useless and without meaning.
Class is ignored and right wing nationalism is the only chance of meaning.
12.
Machismo and
weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and
condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.” The
Democratic Football Lads Alliance is a model of masculinity as is the EDL.
13.
Selective
populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the
emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and
accepted as the Voice of the People.” Popular democracy trumps representative
democracy. A referendum is forever and elections are transitory and without
meaning. Common sense is a statistical average of prejudice and the elite are
the threat.
14.
Ur-Fascism
speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an
impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the
instruments for complex and critical reasoning.” Education is about work, or an
idealized view of history. Critical history is threat written by Marxists, the
unpatriotic and un British people. The
enemy within is clever and a threat but is also weak as well. The words are the
snares bad only physical violence is the solution to deal with them.
“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is
combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races,
parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him
ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.”
―
―
Am I racially kin to this man? Baynes wondered. So
closely so that for all intents and purposes it is the same? Then it is in me,
too, the psychotic streak. A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in
power. How long have we known this? Faced this? And—how many of us do know it?”
― The Man in the High Castle
― The Man in the High Castle
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