What is "Fascism"?

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From a 1944 essay:


Or for those who prefer to read the source material at their own pace, rather than listen:
https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc
or
https://www.thefreshreads.com/what-is-fascism/

Interesting remark. Surprisingly well-fitting after over 3/4 of a century.

Yes, I found that what he wrote then seems as accurate now as it was at the time when it was written...And with the resurgence in the usage of the term, thought it was worth posting this.

Well, the term "fascism" was invented by Benito Mussolini in the 1910s - 1920s, and it is derived from the Latin word fasces, which means "Bundle".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces_of ... ary_Action
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Etymology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

It had a fairly well-defined meaning (ideology, philosophy, policy, strategy etc.) within its original Italian context, where it would likely not have been confused with the many viewpoints mentioned in the 1944 Orwell essay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Fascism

And since Italian fascism was preoccupied with elevating a specific country (Italy) to a position equivalent to a specific historical role (Ancient Rome), it is no surprise that it has fared poorly as a more general label for political ideologies.

A more modern term when it comes to political systems would be "Authoritarianism", where further distinctions could be made:

- Religious vs. Secular
- Autocracy vs. Oligarchy
- Military vs. Civilian

A totalitarian regime that eliminates democracy, but maintains private ownership of the means of production.
Usually with a dose of militarism, and nationalism.

That ...as opposed to Communism...which is a totalitarian regime in which private ownership of the means of production is in the hands of the state.

In Europe between the world wars fascism appeared largely as a response to the rise of communism in Russia. The rich, and the church felt threatened by "Bolshevism" so they got behind using authoritarianism to oppose authoritarianism: "only a strongman like Mussolini, Franco, or Hitler, can save us from Lenin/Stalin!".

In more recent decades:the Peoples Republic of China basically morphed from a Communist state to nationalistic fascist state. And now is the best example.

That is one definition of "fascism".

But other definitions might be "any bully".

Or...

"Anyone the speaker personally doesnt like".

Last edited by naturalplastic on 03 Feb 2021, 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Opposition to:

Any kind of equality
Abortion
Marijuana
LGBT rights
Public nudity
Laws banning hate speech

Support for:

Militarized police
Theocracy

Fascism is pretty intense in concept.

Nazi is even more intense.

I might call a person who is against abortion rights, wants to expel immigrants, and wants to live with "his own kind" a "reactionary." They "react" to the conditions, but have no solutions-----other than to expel them or denounce them. It's mostly negative, rather than evolving, politics.

Unless they explicitly espouse things like a "homeland for us whites" or something like that, I wouldn't call such a person a "fascist" or a "Nazi."

No, they are things which modern right-wing politicians argue about, but they don't IN THEMSELVES make someone a Fascist. You can be right-wing and still believe in democracy, free speech, freedom of choice etc. Fascism is nationalistic popularism maintained by force, with a very narrow set of rules and no tolerance for anyone or anything deemed "other". You're either with the programme (in which case you're expected to give up most individual claims to rights and freedoms for the greater common good, as dictated by the leadership), or you're an enemy.

The surrendering of personal choice is common to both Fascism and Communism - they're only sustainable if enforced by totalitarian dictators. As NaturalPlastic has already said, the main difference is who owns everything. With Communism everything is owned by the State, under the falsehood that everyone will be made equal and this will make things better for the common man. Under Fascism most of the economy remains in private hands, the falsehood there is the illusion of choice, and (again) the promises of things getting better for the common man.

It's also worth noting that both extremes seem largely driven by hate and jealousy.

To what extent far-left and far-right dictators KNOW they're hypocrites is open to debate. Do they really manipulate their nations for personal gain knowingly, or do they actually believe their own nonsense that it's for everybody's benefit?

This is one of the reasons people have been so wary of Trump. He was never given the opportunity to become a fully-fledged dictator, but he certainly displayed some despotic tendencies, believed a lot of crackpot theories, attempted to override the democratic process, and seemed totally convinced of his own infallability. He's like a one man forest of red flags, if you look back at the rise of dictators in the past.

Trump's Circle of Buddies certainly had a "1984" ring to it......

The internet definition of fascism mostly seems to be "ideas I disagree with".

Seriously though: it's an authoritarian right-wing ideology characterized by nationalism, militarism, and nativism. Hierarchy is the name of the game. Individualism is valued only in the context of benefitting individuals belonging to the fascist-endorsed racial in-group.

I'd be slow to say if it's necessarily secular or theocratic. Most seem to end up secular but they tend to at least pay lip service to religion as part of nationalist rhetoric.
The Third Reich's leadership were largely atheist, but they recognized the necessity of integrating Christianity into their propaganda to appeal to German Christians and to set themselves apart from the atheism of the communists.
Franco's falangism was explicitly pro-Catholic, yet at the same time had no tolerance for those in the church who objected to the government's atrocities.

The pattern seems to be that fascists pretend to value religion when it is convenient, or they try to suppress voices in their own religion that go against their politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_language

I'm not convinced, incidentally, that Orwell thinks the term "Fascist" means nothing per se. What he's saying is, if it is over-used and hijacked to represent other things, this already somewhat generalised label gets so diluted as to be largely meaningless.

By definition, then, if you stick to the original meaning of "Fascist" (as in, "an aggressively intolerant, nationalistic, far-right totalitarian dictatorship") then the term regains its significance.

That's no different to jumbling up "Democratic Socialism" with "Communism". In attempting to make the former look way more extreme than it really is, the true horror of the latter is diminished. Watering down the meaning causes insightful comment to be thrown out, having been lumped in with all the more tenuous exaggerations. It's very easy to cry wolf over the misuse of terms even when they're actually being used correctly.

Just because "Fascist" is an over-used insult doesn't mean, every once in a while, it isn't a totally accurate label. Deep-seated cultural bias starts to play a big part at that point, in terms of how easy it is to see the wood for the trees. America's political middle ground is the centre right. There's a carefully cultivated, ingrained suspicion of anything centrist or remotely left-wing, which means the genuine article gets spotted and exposed very, very quickly. Decades of "reds under the bed" paranoia pretty much guarantee it. On the right of the spectrum there isn't the same huge void between everyday politics and extremism, they're much closer together and so harder to identify and separate out. There's still more people convinced Bernie Sanders is some form of arthritic Che Guevara than there are folk cottoning on to the dangers of Trump and Q-Anon. Even though the gap between Bernie Sanders and Communism is absolutely huge compared to the gap between Trump and someone like Augusto Pinochet.

Q-Anon is more than just "fascism." It's like a cult. They are friggin' nuts. Members of this cult have already "drank the Kool-Aid."

A guy like Heinrich Himmler was similar in that he had "spiritual" beliefs related to Nazism. The ironic thing is that he didn't look like an "Aryan." He looked like a man of Asian ancestry, actually.

Yes. The right of politics uses emotive words such as "communism" and "denier", to evoke a subconscious emotional response that damages rational thinking, too.

It's important to remember that labels like "fascist" and "communist" are mostly used inappropriately, but that doesn't rule out their being used appropriately too.

If anything, name-calling is more likely from the right than from the left, simply because America's political "middle ground" isn't actually anywhere near the middle. Capitalism (and thus the political right) is hardwired into society, the genuine left wing is very much "other". It's easier to detect truth from fiction in criticism of the left, as genuine left-wingers in America are so rare they're immediately, glaringly obvious.

Far right politics have been normalised to a much greater extent, and there's a plentiful supply of far right talking heads, which introduces a great deal more "snow blindness" into the equation. Some of that is down to public confusion, ignorance or (more often) blanket unawareness, some is deliberate manipulation / deception, and some stems from individuals knowingly refusing to abandon dogma even when it turns bad.