Calling anything you don't like "fascist" is something the left has done for a few generations now. The irony, of course, is that aspects of the modern left are much more fascistic than anything you see in the right, with their near-totalitarian attitudes towards thoughts and beliefs and righteousness.
I do remember, when blissfully working overseas during the chaotic Trump administration, popping into US commentaries and hearing people rant about how their lives were in danger because of Trump (not quite sure how or why but that wasn't the point). Always chuckled and returned to real life. Never occurred to me what I thought was pathetic paranoia of online nutters could actually turn into real life in its own way.
It could be that the rise of the internet and social media and 24/7 news cycles simply gave platforms for the political hypochondriacs to find each other, which intensified their attitudes. Now the most extreme can spend all day in their basements, on twitter and social media, railing against injustice and seeing evil everywhere. It surely is a form of addiction.
but yeah exactly the same thing in Britain where 2% of people were having this meltdown from 2016 about fascism and civil war and outside everyone else was just fine and enjoying themselves. 2018 was a very warm summer, the football was on. no one else cared
"Maybe those Turner Prize winners do genuinely feel unwelcome, I don’t doubt their sincerity"
That's why you're kind, and I am not. I doubt the ability of Turner Prize Winners even to recognise sincerity, let alone experience it. Everything I see from the hysterical Left looks performative, which I used to believe would be its downfall; again, of course, I'm wrong, since my lens remains resolutely pre-post-modern. The fact that everyone knows the artistic shrieking isn't sincere (other than kind Ed), that it's obviously fake ... doesn't matter in the slightest, not in the world these useless "artists"(/pop stars/ex-BBC commentators in leather jackets/junk food pushers who present BBC Sports/et too many al.) inhabit. Performance (to one's own tribe) is everything (because what else are you, some sort of Centrist dad/gammon/Karen/[insert insult du jour] who believes in *objective reality*? ). Does the BBC, for example, ever query such claims, which a toddler could poke to pieces, even while it gives them the oxygen of publicity and top-billing on its pernicious website?
I get the impression that the BBC website is run by 12-year-olds. It's very 'feels' based, which being a repressed middle-aged man, I find pretty unbearable.
'Johnson is an accidental fascist. He didn’t start out as one but a combination of ineptitude, narcissism, failure to deliver, character failings, his vulnerability to political pressure due to a lack of moral compass, and his desperation to survive, has driven him there.'
As Ed appreciated me being a book/topic noodge on the Denmark article I can't help but bud in on this topic. The fake cries of fascism have always bugged me and sometimes even more so when they came from the right. A particular disingenuous, if understandably defensive reaction, move.
Given that most insinuations and accusations of fascism are phoney it would be helpful to know what it actually is. Part of the loose usage is not without merit as it's been a hard ideology to pin down. The best explanation by far in my honest opinions comes from Prof. Paul Gottfried and his book Fascism: The Career of a Concept. He is right of center and one of the premier scholars the right wing has. One reason is his enormous breadth but crucially he detests those historians who don't make an effort to historicise and contextualises their subject and instead use them as batteringrams in current political and ideological battles. That means he ends up with findings that doesn't necessarily help any one particular political narrative:
-Fascism on the whole, with Italy being the purest proponent, was rather mild until it's disastrous alliance with Hitler.
-Except for interwar Stalinism he doesn't buy the theory of totalitarianism. Being a nasty or horrendous regime, like Mao's China, doesn't necessarily qualify you as being a totalitarian regime.
-Fascism and Nazism can definitely not be used interchangeably. He interprets Nazism as being a more radical fusion of Stalinism and Fascism. Recall that Mussolini was trying to create an anti-nazi alliance initially.
-He says modern day leftists, post-war liberal centrists, interwar American classical liberal/libertarians or present day conservatives were all off the mark in understanding fascism. Who got closest to the mark? Marxists! Their description of the fascist movement, as a counter revolutionary force in protection of reactionary interests in fear of an interwar communist takeover, was largely correct. *
-Contrary to what most people with a right wing bent assume, scholars studying fascism have actually done a decent and objective job trying to make sense of the movement.
If you want to understand the various strands of fascism, the failed attempt at creating a fascist international and why totalitarianism is a bad theory then it's a wonderful book. Gottfried writes without much flair but he makes up for it with making his works very dense with no fat to spare. An ideal scholarly model.
His follow up work focuses on the people Ed addresses in this article: so-called anti-fascists. As far as I know Gottfried was quite influential, inadvertently in creating the meme of "cultural marxism" although he dislikes the term and doesn't think the Frankfurt School is to blame either. He studied under one of the leading proponents, Herbert Marcuse, and even had qualified admiration for some of aspects of their work.
One thing in the USA I've observed (and I imagine this is true in the UK to some extent) is that once you notice how many youth-culture Lefty activists who rail against nonexistent "fascism" come from indie music backgrounds where politically illiterate punk rock vocalists would sing about "fighting fascism" whenever they wanted to get political... you can't un-notice it.
Which presumably explains why punk rock vocalist John Lydon -- 'God save the Queen / The fascist regime' -- supported Trump and Brexit (though, to be honest, these days that's possibly the most punky 'anti-establishment' stance to take). Oh, the irony.
There are loads of old punk/New Wave band members from 1976 onwards who were Tories or, like Johnny Ramone, Republican. Some even played golf too -- which is perhaps a more heinous crime.
What is the response of the ordinary person to somebody in their company who sees fascism everywhere? My experience is that it is one of concern - for their wellbeing. A genuine concern. Are they ok? Have they had a bad day? In practice it is an awkward silence in which nobody seems to know what to say in response. Occasionally, a less generous person might laugh.
Only in the company of others who see ubiquitous fascism does the claim even appear sane. The concern of most people is how to do deal with the situation tactfully and to not agitate the person further.
I’m one of the left-leaning people who could no longer bear the shrill fear mongering of my onetime political cohort. My sense now is that it’s not sincere. It’s about status, building clout and maintaining good standing with the group. If anyone fancies a left-wing perspective on this larping (from an avowed Marxist to boot) they might enjoy the writing of Freddie deBoer too.
Ed’s observation that the more progress progressives make the unhappier they are rings true. Maybe it really sucks when you’re in the dominant group because it’s inevitably all downhill from there.
The last sentence is interesting. What else is left for the progressives? Quasi socialism isn't the same as progressivism. The progressive victories of the last 50 years were all in the cultural, not economic spheres. But with trans right now largely achieved, what is left? People who think they are secretly dogs and cats? (not quite jesting here, it's actually a real phenomena if you poke around a bit).
Perhaps it's because progressives ran out of meaningful cultural reform to pursue, they resorted to inventing fake ones (gender spectrum, even much of trans itself) and, blowing hugely out of proportions, racial issues.
‘The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers… will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times.’
"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power."
An explanation for ideology is that it is what advances one's own well-being. Plenty of people have built successful careers with the associated financial rewards by promoting their ideologies.
On the matter of Roe v Wade, Naomi Wolf has an interesting take on it. Ms. Wolf way back used to irritatement intensely (and my Gen 2 feminist Greenham Common wife) but she seems to have woken up big time on the threat of the overbearing state.
Seems to me she makes some very valid points. Not that they will be noticed in the insane cacophony now issuing 24/7 from the poor old Disunited States of America.
It is a superbly written article which puts forward an argument I find it difficult to disagree with. She claims that pro-choice activists brought about this decision by their constant overreach, and that placing future rulings in the hands of the state legislatures is in fact putting these future decisions in the hands of women, the majority of whom are not in favour of late-term abortions.
As many have noted, how does an approach of tolerance deal with the profoundly intolerant? At some point, even the tolerant must say - I cannot tolerate this (whatever it is). No?
I'd add freedom of speech (i.e. the right to insult and upset others) and bodily autonomy. The state stops at my skin. If that goes, as Johnson and co. tried their damnedest to achieve, one is no more than a slave of the state.
"As many have noted, how does an approach of tolerance deal with the profoundly intolerant? At some point, even the tolerant must say - I cannot tolerate this (whatever it is). No?"
I'm a lifelong Man City supporter. When Mark Hughes was our manager, I always referred to him as Herbert. Not a fan of the Frankfurters and their acolytes, shall we say?
Calling anything you don't like "fascist" is something the left has done for a few generations now. The irony, of course, is that aspects of the modern left are much more fascistic than anything you see in the right, with their near-totalitarian attitudes towards thoughts and beliefs and righteousness.
I do remember, when blissfully working overseas during the chaotic Trump administration, popping into US commentaries and hearing people rant about how their lives were in danger because of Trump (not quite sure how or why but that wasn't the point). Always chuckled and returned to real life. Never occurred to me what I thought was pathetic paranoia of online nutters could actually turn into real life in its own way.
It could be that the rise of the internet and social media and 24/7 news cycles simply gave platforms for the political hypochondriacs to find each other, which intensified their attitudes. Now the most extreme can spend all day in their basements, on twitter and social media, railing against injustice and seeing evil everywhere. It surely is a form of addiction.
sure is for me!
but yeah exactly the same thing in Britain where 2% of people were having this meltdown from 2016 about fascism and civil war and outside everyone else was just fine and enjoying themselves. 2018 was a very warm summer, the football was on. no one else cared
"Maybe those Turner Prize winners do genuinely feel unwelcome, I don’t doubt their sincerity"
That's why you're kind, and I am not. I doubt the ability of Turner Prize Winners even to recognise sincerity, let alone experience it. Everything I see from the hysterical Left looks performative, which I used to believe would be its downfall; again, of course, I'm wrong, since my lens remains resolutely pre-post-modern. The fact that everyone knows the artistic shrieking isn't sincere (other than kind Ed), that it's obviously fake ... doesn't matter in the slightest, not in the world these useless "artists"(/pop stars/ex-BBC commentators in leather jackets/junk food pushers who present BBC Sports/et too many al.) inhabit. Performance (to one's own tribe) is everything (because what else are you, some sort of Centrist dad/gammon/Karen/[insert insult du jour] who believes in *objective reality*? ). Does the BBC, for example, ever query such claims, which a toddler could poke to pieces, even while it gives them the oxygen of publicity and top-billing on its pernicious website?
I get the impression that the BBC website is run by 12-year-olds. It's very 'feels' based, which being a repressed middle-aged man, I find pretty unbearable.
Ed
Alastair Campbell on Twitter just now:
'Johnson is an accidental fascist. He didn’t start out as one but a combination of ineptitude, narcissism, failure to deliver, character failings, his vulnerability to political pressure due to a lack of moral compass, and his desperation to survive, has driven him there.'
Not sure where to start. Just beggars belief.
In short, fascist is simply anyone you don't like.
As Ed appreciated me being a book/topic noodge on the Denmark article I can't help but bud in on this topic. The fake cries of fascism have always bugged me and sometimes even more so when they came from the right. A particular disingenuous, if understandably defensive reaction, move.
Given that most insinuations and accusations of fascism are phoney it would be helpful to know what it actually is. Part of the loose usage is not without merit as it's been a hard ideology to pin down. The best explanation by far in my honest opinions comes from Prof. Paul Gottfried and his book Fascism: The Career of a Concept. He is right of center and one of the premier scholars the right wing has. One reason is his enormous breadth but crucially he detests those historians who don't make an effort to historicise and contextualises their subject and instead use them as batteringrams in current political and ideological battles. That means he ends up with findings that doesn't necessarily help any one particular political narrative:
-Fascism on the whole, with Italy being the purest proponent, was rather mild until it's disastrous alliance with Hitler.
-Except for interwar Stalinism he doesn't buy the theory of totalitarianism. Being a nasty or horrendous regime, like Mao's China, doesn't necessarily qualify you as being a totalitarian regime.
-Fascism and Nazism can definitely not be used interchangeably. He interprets Nazism as being a more radical fusion of Stalinism and Fascism. Recall that Mussolini was trying to create an anti-nazi alliance initially.
-He says modern day leftists, post-war liberal centrists, interwar American classical liberal/libertarians or present day conservatives were all off the mark in understanding fascism. Who got closest to the mark? Marxists! Their description of the fascist movement, as a counter revolutionary force in protection of reactionary interests in fear of an interwar communist takeover, was largely correct. *
-Contrary to what most people with a right wing bent assume, scholars studying fascism have actually done a decent and objective job trying to make sense of the movement.
If you want to understand the various strands of fascism, the failed attempt at creating a fascist international and why totalitarianism is a bad theory then it's a wonderful book. Gottfried writes without much flair but he makes up for it with making his works very dense with no fat to spare. An ideal scholarly model.
His follow up work focuses on the people Ed addresses in this article: so-called anti-fascists. As far as I know Gottfried was quite influential, inadvertently in creating the meme of "cultural marxism" although he dislikes the term and doesn't think the Frankfurt School is to blame either. He studied under one of the leading proponents, Herbert Marcuse, and even had qualified admiration for some of aspects of their work.
https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-Career-Concept/dp/B081QMLP8D/ref=sr_1_5?qid=1656449447&refinements=p_27%3APaul+Gottfried&s=books&sr=1-5
https://www.amazon.com/Antifascism-Course-Crusade-Paul-Gottfried-ebook/dp/B08YXF4V7F/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1656449447&sr=1-3
*For the economic defence of fascism as being on the right:
https://pseudoerasmus.com/2015/05/03/fascism-left-or-right/
This is great Ed.
One thing in the USA I've observed (and I imagine this is true in the UK to some extent) is that once you notice how many youth-culture Lefty activists who rail against nonexistent "fascism" come from indie music backgrounds where politically illiterate punk rock vocalists would sing about "fighting fascism" whenever they wanted to get political... you can't un-notice it.
Which presumably explains why punk rock vocalist John Lydon -- 'God save the Queen / The fascist regime' -- supported Trump and Brexit (though, to be honest, these days that's possibly the most punky 'anti-establishment' stance to take). Oh, the irony.
Mr. Lydon is an eccentric outlier.
There are loads of old punk/New Wave band members from 1976 onwards who were Tories or, like Johnny Ramone, Republican. Some even played golf too -- which is perhaps a more heinous crime.
Wait, the UK isn’t fascist already?
Has my New York Times misled me?
We must not forget arch Fascist fighter, Paul Mason, still in his late middle age bedecked in the leather jacket of the teenage revolutionary.
What is the response of the ordinary person to somebody in their company who sees fascism everywhere? My experience is that it is one of concern - for their wellbeing. A genuine concern. Are they ok? Have they had a bad day? In practice it is an awkward silence in which nobody seems to know what to say in response. Occasionally, a less generous person might laugh.
Only in the company of others who see ubiquitous fascism does the claim even appear sane. The concern of most people is how to do deal with the situation tactfully and to not agitate the person further.
I’m one of the left-leaning people who could no longer bear the shrill fear mongering of my onetime political cohort. My sense now is that it’s not sincere. It’s about status, building clout and maintaining good standing with the group. If anyone fancies a left-wing perspective on this larping (from an avowed Marxist to boot) they might enjoy the writing of Freddie deBoer too.
Ed’s observation that the more progress progressives make the unhappier they are rings true. Maybe it really sucks when you’re in the dominant group because it’s inevitably all downhill from there.
The last sentence is interesting. What else is left for the progressives? Quasi socialism isn't the same as progressivism. The progressive victories of the last 50 years were all in the cultural, not economic spheres. But with trans right now largely achieved, what is left? People who think they are secretly dogs and cats? (not quite jesting here, it's actually a real phenomena if you poke around a bit).
Perhaps it's because progressives ran out of meaningful cultural reform to pursue, they resorted to inventing fake ones (gender spectrum, even much of trans itself) and, blowing hugely out of proportions, racial issues.
‘The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers… will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times.’
What does that mean in English? Anyone?
That is INCREDIBLY clear by Butler's standards.
She, after all, produced this great work:
"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power."
Do you think she's serious about this stuff, or does she go home at night with her paycheck and snicker about how she's snookering the Establishment?
Possibly a bit of both?
An explanation for ideology is that it is what advances one's own well-being. Plenty of people have built successful careers with the associated financial rewards by promoting their ideologies.
To what extent is promulgating Leftist memes classical rational behaviour ("homo economicus") in a society where they appear to be well rewarded?
presumably must be partly driven by incentives, in that sense that incentives have an effect on everything.
Surely a government whose main economic policy is TAX TAX TAX SPEND SPEND SPEND is Socialist - Fascist.
On the matter of Roe v Wade, Naomi Wolf has an interesting take on it. Ms. Wolf way back used to irritatement intensely (and my Gen 2 feminist Greenham Common wife) but she seems to have woken up big time on the threat of the overbearing state.
Seems to me she makes some very valid points. Not that they will be noticed in the insane cacophony now issuing 24/7 from the poor old Disunited States of America.
isn't she a bit... how do I put this? Mental
She certainly was! Read the article and make up your own mind.
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/on-losing-roe for those who want to read it. It's very well written and thanks for recommending it.
It is a superbly written article which puts forward an argument I find it difficult to disagree with. She claims that pro-choice activists brought about this decision by their constant overreach, and that placing future rulings in the hands of the state legislatures is in fact putting these future decisions in the hands of women, the majority of whom are not in favour of late-term abortions.
Thank You. Also for Unherd. TYTY.
As many have noted, how does an approach of tolerance deal with the profoundly intolerant? At some point, even the tolerant must say - I cannot tolerate this (whatever it is). No?
I'd add freedom of speech (i.e. the right to insult and upset others) and bodily autonomy. The state stops at my skin. If that goes, as Johnson and co. tried their damnedest to achieve, one is no more than a slave of the state.
"As many have noted, how does an approach of tolerance deal with the profoundly intolerant? At some point, even the tolerant must say - I cannot tolerate this (whatever it is). No?"
Yes. (As long as You aren't quoting Marcuse. ;-)
:-)
I'm a lifelong Man City supporter. When Mark Hughes was our manager, I always referred to him as Herbert. Not a fan of the Frankfurters and their acolytes, shall we say?
Only skimmed beginning. Dunno conclusion, but it sure *could.* "Will" i think a little too early to call. Mebbe overoptimistic, so there is that.