I occasionally find myself having to explain that fascism is not quite an ideology as we ordinarily understand one. It doesn’t have a defining governing policy, or economic policy, or foreign policy. It has, indeed, a hostility to specific programmatic commitments, defined instead in its attitude of nationalism, belligerence, and naked will-to-power.
Mussolini provides clarifying examples. Italian historian Roberto Vivarelli:
From the very beginning, for example, the relation between words and deeds among Mussolini and his followers was very peculiar, and words were used not to state any firm conviction, nor to outline a definite political program but, rather, to arouse emotions that would generate support for a changeable line of action.
Robert O. Paxton’s landmark analysis The Anatomy of Fascism:
Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. Mussolini exulted in that absence. “The Fasci di Combattimento,” Mussolini wrote in the “Postulates of the Fascist Program” of May 1920, “… do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form.” A few months before he became prime minister of Italy, he replied truculently to a critic who demanded to know what his program was: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.”
In an unnerving conversation with an avowed fascist on the internet, he once said to me:
I am enlightened enough to reject all forms of self-delusion. And when ideology is transcended, only will remains.
This relates to a related pattern of speaking in bad faith, and I have a long post which addresses how this fits into a general understanding of fascism.
3 comments:
cut your hair and become a real american you fucking freedom-hating lefty totalitarian shithead
It may not have a specific programme, but it certainly does have a conception of extreme totalisation and collectivism. cf.,
"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people."
("La dottrina del fascismo", 1932)
About the only admirable thing about historical Fascism, aside from the sharp uniforms (sarcasm), is that they are very upfront and honest about their agenda. The tragedy of the Holocaust is in some ways down to the fact that people reading "Mein Kampf" did not consider it as a manual, but as some sort of hyperbolic fantasy.
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