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Old March 1st, 2014 #1
Alex Linder
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[good cold saturday, to kick off march 2014, with snow setting in later, to learn about fascism... Fascism can be a little hard to understand, as it incorporates elements from sides normally opposed. will start with a sticky thread, and may turn this into a subforum.]


Fascism, by Roger Eatwell, (1995).



- Eatwell was funded by British Academy. (what is that?) paid for trips to do interviews and visit specialist libraries.
- Eatwell was a "reader" at Bath when this book came out, back in 1995 (so it's already nearly 20 years old). British Academy is:

Quote:
The British Academy is an independent national academy of Fellows elected for their eminence in research and publication. It is the UK's expert body that supports and speaks for the humanities and social sciences.

Our mission is to inspire, recognise and support high achievement in the humanities and social sciences throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.

The Academy has three principal roles:

A Fellowship, composed of distinguished scholars from all areas of the humanities and social sciences, elected by their peers, which promotes the work of these disciplines and facilitates the exchange of knowledge and ideas.

A Funding Body, supporting the best ideas, individuals and intellectual resources in the humanities and social sciences, wherever they are located.

A Voice, providing independent advice about the health of disciplines and the needs of research, contributing evidence to strengthen policy making, enhancing public understanding and debate, and representing the humanities and social sciences in the UK and internationally.
- so that's where this book is coming from - the who and what behind its creation

- eatwell's book Fascism breaks into three parts: 50 pages on origins of the idea; 200 on fascism between WWI and WWII; 100 pages on fascism after 1945.

Introduction

- the fascist idea is serious (has roots) and is still alive
- Franco's regime not socially radical enough to be fascism
- a "founding form of political correctness" denounced all fascism
- why does fascism succeed here and not there?
- what produces fascism? economic breakdown AND social dislocation - rootlessness and fear it breeds.
--"fascism is nothing if not the child of breakdown and fear" (you'll see this thinking in every mass media description of Golden Dawn)
- syncretistic - appeals to both collectivists and individualists
- beyond socioeconomics, fascism involves politics: national traditions determined the form and success of fascism. romanticism, desire for strong leadership in Germany; tie between fascism and national economic progress in Italy; versus French revolution's liberte-egalite-fraternite and England's
constitutional liberty (were reason it was stronger in first two and weaker in latter two)
- politics II: non-fascists gave fascists power. fascists had paramilitaries and led electoral movements, but did not come to power on their own; rather weak rightists who could not alone stem radical left gave power to hitler and mussolini
- fascism was both pragmatic and ideological - dealing w army and business in Germany, church in Italy
- "most historians have held that fascism was essentially a phenomenon of the interwar years"
- in postwar period, leftists call all non-leftists fascists, and no one wants to claim the title. shift to use of radical right or extreme right. but radical right can mean anti-government, which is not fascist; and extreme right ignores that fascism draws from the left as well as the right, hence "Third Way"
- "neofascist" = post-45 developments legitimately linked or influenced by fascism, an ideology that evolved at turn of 20th century
- core of fascism: holistic, national, radical Third Way (communism and capitalism are the first two ways)
- sucess thru syncretic legitimation: "in which the insurgent party was able to portray itself as both economically efficacious and a legitimate part of the national tradition" (that is EXACTLY how golden dawn portrays itself today (greece, 2014). "and the Establishment elites were willing to accord to fascism and important element of support" (the opposite of what we see in greece so far. rather, the elites have demonized golden dawn across the board and jailed its leaders on manufactured charges)

Last edited by Alex Linder; March 1st, 2014 at 05:23 PM.
 
Old March 1st, 2014 #2
Alex Linder
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- what's confusing about fascism is that is seems, sounds, looks right-wing, yet isn't necessarily what the left calls racist, nor does it ncessarily favor the market over the state where rightists usually do
- we see this confusion, or disagreement, reflected in our forum (search "continental divide" poll). We all agree we want to be part of a state that is a racial community. But we don't agree about the nature and role of government, beyond creating and protecting that racial community.

Last edited by Alex Linder; March 1st, 2014 at 05:31 PM.
 
Old March 1st, 2014 #3
Alex Linder
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[the intellectual roots of fascism]

"The Birth of Fascist Ideology"

- mussolini founded movement in 1919, was in power by 1922 - three years!
- at ten-year celebration in 1932, inscriptions read: BELIEVE, OBEY, FIGHT and ORDER, AUTHORITY, JUSTICE - "the Holy Trinities of the new order that had replaced the hated liberal democratic system"
- slogan: war is to man as childbirth is to woman
- slogan: better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep
- "it is easy to understand why fascism is seen as little more than a nihilistic, authoritarian, and violent movement that is best comprehended in terms of psychology rather than rational thought"
- "most influential" academic definition stresses its style (leadership and propaganda) and its "negation" (hostility to communism) rather than its positive intellectual content
- eatwell insists fascism is not just slogans, like liberalism-Marxism-socialism-conservatism, it's a real ideology too. (conservatism is not normally considered an ideolgy, it's normally considered anti-ideological (Kirk))
- what in fascism appealed to intellectuals, as well as fighters?

- roots of fascism: Enlightenment: idea that people top kings, and individuals top people: individual will and decision can determine outcomes, not just fate. at first this led to liberalism - individual rights and limited government; later this liberalism kept name but transformed into socialism (the old way came to be known as classical liberalism).
-- fascists don't like liberalism/individualism-and-limited-state -- classic liberalism -- because it puts money-seeking over spiritual values, and it creates warring classes and rifts between government and people
-- fascists don't like liberalism/socialism (today's liberalism, or much closer to it) because it supports property-communism (abolition of private property) and racial-universalism (brotherhood of man)
- fascism was both a reaction to and product of the Enlightenment. it rejected the modern man (described in points above) but it agreed with the idea of the will of the people creating a new order through violence
- eatwell says, even so, that only a "handful" of academics "who have accepted that fascism has some form of intellectual core" (this speaks to the leftism of academics: no politics they don't share is actually serious)
- figures: elements in Rousseau prefigure fascism: idea of "general will" arising among a people, overcoming social divisions
-- Rousseau liked small states not big ones and homogeneity - looked to city-states of ancient greece
-- Rousseau's general will might not be perceived by people hence they'd need to be forced to be free (note similarity to marx's false consciousness). anyone can speak in the name of The People (just as anyone can speak in the name of god); this can easily lead to dictatorship by those who know best; it certainly justifies dictatorship
- figures: Hegel: cited as forerunner
-- saw history as process
-- illiberal in that he did not trust masses or abstract reason - a position more typical of conservatism than fascism
-- saw Enlightenment severing people from tradition, producing alienation rather than liberation
- movements: romanticism: reaction to abstract reason: focus on historical-national rather than universal-timeless; worship of nature; exaltation of (artistic) genius over mass mediocrity
-- political romanticism would involve desire for strong leader, not bourgeois compromiser, creating a national rebirth
-- hostility to material values increasingly translates into anti-jewism in 19th century: "the jew was pilloried as the epitome of capitalist materialism -- a view particularly prevalent in the German volkisch movement, which railed against the evils of urban, industrial society"
- movement: holistic nationalism: began as people over kings and church (leftist - self-determination for all peoples); became more rightist over 19th century. change from overthrowing regimes to securing them via social unity
-- figure: Maurice Barres: French journalist: prophet of rootedness (enracinement), involving a mystical union between the living and the dead (doesn't sound too dissimilar to ur-modern-conservative Edmund Burke's ideas).
-- barres' new nationalism was hostile to first-wave Enlightenment nationalism (The People) and its individualistic materialism. "born a man, died an accountant"
-- new nationalism arose out of opposition to universalism
- movements: racialist thinking (science or near-science)
-- hostility to others goes back to Greeks - it in itself is perhaps the true universalism. but now, in 19th century, you can put science there to back this difference-feeling
-- figure: Arthur de Gobineau: Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1850s, read widely after 1870s). theme: struggle between white, yellow, black = history.
-- figure: Houston Stewart Chamberlain: influenced by composer wagner, who became his father in law. book: Foundations of the 19th century (1900). influenced not just ideas of fascism but its style. pulling together wagner's history and mysticism with modern science - and without gobineau's pessimism.
- hostility to Enlightenment rationalism is not the same as irrationalism
- figures: Darwin: Origin of Species (1859). ideas: natural selection. Survival of fittest. easy transfer to politics. but could go either way: state stays out, lets the inferior die out; or state protects the better from being driven out by the lower but stronger (gresham's law, essentially: bad money drives out good money, mutatis mutandis applied to race).
-- rise of eugenics
--- figure Ernst Haeckel: worried that morality will interfere with natural selection (boy is that the case in 2014! not just for niggers either; all kinds of white defectives are state subsidized)
-- rise of social sciences: elite theory: figures: Vilfredo Pareto and Robert Michels. idea: all societies are run by elites; difference is social composition of elite and permeability to outside would-be entrants
--- psychology: figure: Freud: idea: man is driven by unconscious desires. is not the rational actor shaping his own fate of Enlightenment supposition
---- figure: Gustave Le Bon: book: The Psychology of Crowds (1895): idea: crowd as emotive mass easily influenced by demagogues: very widely read: hitler and mussolini certainly familiar with it.
- philosophy: figures: nietzsche and georges sorel: right and left (primarily): show danger of casually calling fascism rightist.
-- nietzsche: ideas: focus on irrational; belief west was sinking due to individualist-materialist decadence brought on by slave religion of christianity; humanism and secular socialism are later forms of this slave religion! they "promote universalism and encourage pity for weak rahter than respect for the strong"
--- nietzsche: idea: superman will rise above herd and restore spiritual values, overcoming nihilism and turning politics into aesthetics (as opposed to ordinary democratic pandering)
- figure: sorel: idea: darker view of human nature (than most socialists) - men are divided into economic-rational and emotive-collective. idea: socialists must worry about production, not just distribution! idea: working class only led to revolutionary consciousness by myths - via slogans. idea: "general strike" to bring down social order. associated with french syndicalists (trade unionists).
-- "it is far from clear that Nietzsche or Sorel would have supported the fascist movements that emerged after 1919"
- fascism as socialism with myths and private property - owes a lot to Sorel, probably more than to Nietzsche. both N and S worried about general (decadent-materialist) european man more than individual nations. nationalism creates myths that can move the people, as WWI showed. sorel opposed biological racism.
- fascism as a new ideological synthesis emerging pre-WWI...
- fascism: core ("was clear"): i: appealing to masses with populist propaganda. key metaphor: rebirth. old? new? picks up christian idea too, for wider appeal.
-- core idea ii: synthesis as key philosophical approach. new society with old values. create a "new man" growing from deep national roots. economic development BUT within a national community. integrate the individual and the community where they've been set adrift and at odds.
- heart of fascism: reviving the nation. creating a new man in a new social order. with economic growth, but more agreement on social goals - a Third Way. HOLISTIC-NATIONAL RADICAL THIRD WAY. still, more style than programs. and much demonization of enemies. flexible enough to permit more biological approach in germany and cultural in italy. yet distince from conservative
authoritarianism in franco's spain, where they're not trying to make a new man.
- "affective-communal and "rational-economic" - this is where it can gain broad appeal. the collectivism of the left without the economic insanity, and the private property of the right without putting economic growth above everything else, including borders and citizenship.
- fascist views: human nature: SYNTHESIZED left and right: sort-of new man. not claim man is totally plastic, like soviets or Enlightenment rationalists, but do believe people, though "constrained by nature and talents," can be "remolded in a more communal and virile society."
-- views: geopolitics: nation/region/race as driving force of history, hence need for strong military.
-- views: political/economic structures: set by 1919: THIRD WAY
-- views: propaganda: great need for it. celebrate the great leader, get people to buy in to new values.
- all these ideas were floating before 1914. the war changed the sorelites ideas from general strike to nationalism as the effective myth. fascism as specific parties really took off after WWI.

This was the general cross-national intellectual, social and political background from which fascism emerged. From here we go to specific men and movements within specific nations.

Last edited by Alex Linder; March 1st, 2014 at 10:48 PM.
 
Old March 2nd, 2014 #4
Alex Linder
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development of fascism in Germany

- brotherhood of man? or different, competing nations?
- figures: herder, la garde, langbehn: what is german/german blood? what makes germany/germans unique among nations?
- napoleon's occupation of germany strengthened rejection of enlightenment liberal universalism
- German nationalism rejected french and english way - but wasn't wholly aggressive-authoritarian
- writer: Wilhelm Marr: The Victory of the Jew Over the German (1873): introduced term anti-semitism
- germany had same problems with loosed jews france did, but citizenship was always tied more closely to blood in germany than in france, which was more universalist
- groups: new in 1900s: Navy League and Pan German League: getting Germany a position on world stage.
- concepts: weltpolitik (world politics); lebensraum - living room/expansion into eastern europe
- context of rapid industrialization; new more agressive groups straining against old-style conservatives
- conservative nationalism: nation as collection of estates: church, landowners, king, et al.
- nationalist nationalism: will of the people
- key insight: emotion, as much as any other thing, is what separates conservatism from right radicalism. pan germanism is romatic or emo-driven movement. it makes conservatives nervous. this parallels hitler's description of the sweaty conservatives speaking tepid jokes with their wimpy "they mean wells" for the communist enemy ready to beat them down, contrasted with his nazi streetfighters guarding his speeches, ready to beat the marxists up
- emotion is for men; reason is for boys. victory lies in the emotional appeal, not in the rational. if the rational is to win, it requires encasing in the iron of emotion, just as the filament which when charged produces light requires wrapping in clear hard glass
- rise of left: SPD (socialists) became largest party for the first time in 1912. felt need to oppose this across the right.
- 1917: creation of first "mass right-wing party," the German Fatherland Party. aggressive war aims, against jewish war profiteers and shirkers - to be Nazi themes. "lack of social radicalism" meant it was not truly fascist.
- war left Germany fractured, and many wanting a renewed "community of blood" admit the dislocations and humiliations
 
Old March 2nd, 2014 #5
Lars Redoubt
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“The strength of the Fascists was their speedy recognition of the realities behind the situation. This, indeed, is the whole strength of the movement.”

“…it is always this same sense of reality, together with their disinclination to bow their heads before an unpleasant fate, or to have anything to do with claptrap and romantic ideals, which is the distinguishing feature of their contribution to modern politics.”

Anthony M. Ludovici: The English Review 37, 1923
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Old March 2nd, 2014 #6
James L Walker
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I don't think fascism has to be necessarily racial or cultural.

Could the current nation of the United States be called fascist even though it has no embraced cultural or racial ideals?

Fascism may of started as a cultural or racial politicized movement but overtime it has been corrupted from its original creation by the internationalists and globalists.

Through the eyes of the enemy globalists, is not their goals for global governance incorporating everybody on the planet be considered a type of global fascism?

Some would say no and describe the enemy as communist yet here in the west it isn't communism that the enemy has embraced like other places in the world but instead is a variant of crony capitalism where fascism is the governmental politicized expression to power.

This is definitely the atmosphere here within the United States.

The United States is a fascist nation but without the embraced racial or cultural beliefs.

I look forward to other people's thoughts here on this issue.
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Last edited by James L Walker; March 2nd, 2014 at 01:38 PM.
 
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