Is Fascism an Ideology

[Wastl]

IMO Political violence is as old as humans:

Yes, I didn't really word that well in my post. I didn't mean to imply that political violence was "invented" in the modern era, but that this particular style of street violence came up big again in the modern era due to communists/socialists and following that fascists, after not being of much importance for quite some time. In other words: what I wrote wasn't meant to say "this behaviour came up in the modern times" but "in the modern times, this sort of behaviour came up again through ...".

Unfortunately for people obsessed with "right definitions" and the purity of terminologies, there's no International Academy of Fascist Studies that can say with authority what fascism is or isn't.

I think my description describes Fascist Italy imperfectly but reasonably well, and also Nazi Germany, and Chavista Venezuela or Franco's Spain. It's sufficiently vague for that. And of course all those regimes were radically different in many ways, but most people would agree that they were fascist (I mean Germany, Italy and Spain).

But as I said, there's no right definition. For a long time a fascist was simply someone the communists didn't like, as they used and abused this term more than anyone.

I don't see how that is true at all.
First, following the true (and only) definition of something is the only proper way, there is nothing "obsessive" about it. And yes, you can easily state what fascism is by looking at what the fascist leaders and thinkers themselves declared it to be. This isn't some sort of unexplainable witchcraft. People using a word incorrectly doesn't somehow make it true if you just wait long enough either.

Second, there is very little fascist about the current regime in Venezuela. If anything, it's following more in the line of the old Soviet regimes. The politics have been decidedly socialist in nature, and the few points that also appear in fascism (idolisation of a leader, state-control of almost everything, removal of opposition, etc.) exist in the same way in socialist regimes, be it in the Soviet Union or even Cuba. There is little reason to compare this to fascism when there is a much more fitting comparison available.

I'd also add that there is quite a bit of difference between fascism and national socialism. While they share many ideas, and you would generally put them into the same corner, there are quite a few different ideals as well. Fascism was about a common idea, shared by anyone who believed in it. There weren't really any large amount of racial overtones, in fact, Mussolini openly mocked Hitler's and the Nazi's racial ideas for the longest time. It was only when Italy became more and more depending on Germany that its politics changed towards racial based themes. National socialism, on the other hand, was all about blood and ancestry. Well, at least in theory, those ideas could be modified or dropped whenever it was deemed beneficial to do so (see Japanese as "honorary aryans" or all sorts of slaws and muslims being catered to to use them during the war).

 

[Hygro]

LARPing on a national scale.

 

[luiz]

I don't see how that is true at all.
First, following the true (and only) definition of something is the only proper way, there is nothing "obsessive" about it. And yes, you can easily state what fascism is by looking at what the fascist leaders and thinkers themselves declared it to be. This isn't some sort of unexplainable witchcraft. People using a word incorrectly doesn't somehow make it true if you just wait long enough either.

Second, there is very little fascist about the current regime in Venezuela. If anything, it's following more in the line of the old Soviet regimes. The politics have been decidedly socialist in nature, and the few points that also appear in fascism (idolisation of a leader, state-control of almost everything, removal of opposition, etc.) exist in the same way in socialist regimes, be it in the Soviet Union or even Cuba. There is little reason to compare this to fascism when there is a much more fitting comparison available.

I'd also add that there is quite a bit of difference between fascism and national socialism. While they share many ideas, and you would generally put them into the same corner, there are quite a few different ideals as well. Fascism was about a common idea, shared by anyone who believed in it. There weren't really any large amount of racial overtones, in fact, Mussolini openly mocked Hitler's and the Nazi's racial ideas for the longest time. It was only when Italy became more and more depending on Germany that its politics changed towards racial based themes. National socialism, on the other hand, was all about blood and ancestry. Well, at least in theory, those ideas could be modified or dropped whenever it was deemed beneficial to do so (see Japanese as "honorary aryans" or all sorts of slaws and muslims being catered to to use them during the war).

Problem with your reasoning is that there is no one true definition of fascism. You equate it entirely with the Italian version, which is a respectable opinion, but not the only one by a longshot. Some scholars talk of several fascisms (German, Italian, etc), others say there isn't even a coherent definition of fascism (like John Lukacs).

Note that you compare Venezuela with Cuba and the USSR, but there are huge differences with those regimes as well. In Venezuela, despite oppressive state control, the majority of the GDP is still in private hands. Quite a difference from the USSR, and more similar to... Fascist countries. But that's not the most important point. The point is that you accept very different regimes can still be called "socialist", but can't seem to accept the same applies to Fascism.

Bottom line: you have an opinion, it's a defensible one, but it's, like, just your opinion dude.

 

[Tahuti]

If we take a movement-by-movement look, Fascism is clearly a cultural phenomena of Italian origin driven by Italy's disappointment at the outcome of WWI. Italians were primed by their government to celebrate the war, yet the main event, it's end, was a disappointment. And why? People were simply brainwashed into thinking that war would bring glory. Glory was withheld, because the ideas involving glory weren't that great in reality, it turned out. Yet it was demanded that glory would be desired by the nation.

Fascism is the desire for national glory.

 

[Borachio]

Fascists are generally the sort of people I don't like who think their opinions are the only ones that count.

For example, a fascist fashionista who assures me that "one" must on no account wear socks with sandals.

 

[Hygro]

Fascism is giant pillars and Hugo Boss jackets, looting foreign lands of their art and jewels to an orchestrated soundtrack drowned out by diesel engines.

 

[warpus]

It can be an ideology or a pizza topping, depending on how you define it. If we're going by the classical definition, then it most definitely is an ideology.

 

[Dachs]

Unfortunately for people obsessed with "right definitions" and the purity of terminologies, there's no International Academy of Fascist Studies that can say with authority what fascism is or isn't.

I think my description describes Fascist Italy imperfectly but reasonably well, and also Nazi Germany, and Chavista Venezuela or Franco's Spain. It's sufficiently vague for that. And of course all those regimes were radically different in many ways, but most people would agree that they were fascist (I mean Germany, Italy and Spain).

But as I said, there's no right definition. For a long time a fascist was simply someone the communists didn't like, as they used and abused this term more than anyone.

How can a term be "abused" if "there's no right definition"? If you admit that the term "fascism" can be abused, why are you complaining that I'm calling your use of it abuse as well?

Conveniently, there is an excellent definition of fascism: it's the one that the Fascists themselves came up with in the first half of the twentieth century. That's the starting point. It doesn't have much to do with your collection of claims about Venezuela.

You're correct in pointing out in your subsequent post that socialism is a term that is often in similar misuse, and to highlight the disparity in ostensibly socialist ideologies. But there are good reasons that socialism is used to refer to such widely disparate things. For one thing, a lot more people claim that they're socialists than claim they're fascists. Self-identification is hardly the be-all/end-all, but it's another good starting point. For another, there's a lot more diversity among self-professed socialists than among self-professed fascists while still possessing at least some form of ideological connection. It's entirely valid to refer to both the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as being "socialist" entities in one form or another. But it's still ridiculous when, say, an American conservative refers to the ACA as "socialism".

So the Venezuelan government doesn't refer to itself as a fascist government, and the only definition of "fascist" it meets is an idiosyncratic one employed by you, which does not match up particularly well with historical fascism. I hope you understand why I don't take it seriously.

The full sentence of the quote you used said: "I have a little theory what Fascism, in an ahistorical and principle manner, is about." In this sentence, I did not mean for "manner" to refer to how to discuss fascism, but rather to what end. The end being an ahistorical and principle understanding of fascism.
And as you may note, I in deed did make claims about actual historic fascism witiin my argument, albeit not terribly precise ones. In any case, it should go without saying that also an ahistoric understanding of fascism has to be fed by historical fascism and as a consequence can be discussed in terms of historical fascism. Otherwise - what is one even talking about?

What indeed.

I appear to have mistaken your use of the word "ahistoric[al]" for a use that is reasonably close to the definition of explicitly not historical or counter to history, when in reality you appear to have been saying...something that doesn't mean that.

 

[Hygro]

Fascism is about layering.

 

[Dachs]

Fascism is about layering.

Mussolini is like an onion! He stinks and he'll make you cry...and when you leave him out in the sun, he'll turn brown and start sprouting little white hairs.

 

[abradley]

San Jose protesters attack Trump supporters with punches, eggs


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...upporters-with-punches-eggs.html?intcmp=hpbt1

--Video--

Published June 03, 2016 FoxNews.com

Trump supporter egged by protesters at San Jose rally

Protesters attacked Donald Trump supporters on the sidelines of a San Jose rally Thursday night, in a raucous scene where a dozen or more people were punched and at least one woman was pelted with an egg.

Protesters also reportedly grabbed Trump hats from supporters and set the hats on fire on the ground.

Police eventually moved into the crowd to break it up and make arrests. At least four people were taken into custody, though police didn't release total arrest figures Thursday night. One officer was assaulted, police Sgt. Enrique Garcia said.

Mixed accounts emerged overnight over to what extent the Trump supporters were taunting the protesters. KTVU reported that the woman who got hit with an egg was “making gestures back at” the protesters. But the same report said the crowd of demonstrators had surrounded and trapped her at the time, and video of the incident appeared to support that account.

Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta took to Twitter to condemn violence against "supporters of any candidate."

There were no immediate reports of injuries and no major property damage, police said.
(continued)

You'll see the Mexican flag in this video and others that I've seen. Who are these people ... Americans or Mexicans?

Are the MSM covering stuff like this or are they blind to anti Trump violence?

 

[plarq]

Fascism is the desire for national glory.

Is manifested destiny a variant of fascism?

 

[abradley]

Is manifested destiny a variant of fascism?

Are you referring to 'Manifest Destiny'?

Was it Fascist ... not in my opinion. It was a popular movement but not a movement to change the government.

Was it right ... I'd rather be living in Sacrament then Mexico City, so IMHO it was right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. Historians broadly agree[weasel words] that there are three basic themes to manifest destiny:

The special virtues of the American people and their institutions
America's mission to redeem and remake the west in the image of agrarian America
An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty[3]
Historian Frederick Merk says this concept was born out of "a sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example ... generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven".[4]

Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was a contested concept—Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and most Whigs) rejected it. Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity.... Whigs saw America's moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest."[5]

Newspaper editor John O'Sullivan coined the term manifest destiny in 1845 to describe the essence of this mindset, which was a rhetorical tone.[6] It was used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico and it was also used to divide half of Oregon with the United Kingdom. But manifest destiny always limped along because of its internal limitations and the issue of slavery, says Merk. It never became a national priority. By 1843 John Quincy Adams, originally a major supporter of the concept underlying manifest destiny, had changed his mind and repudiated expansionism because it meant the expansion of slavery in Texas.[7]

Merk concludes:

From the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence.[8]
(Continued)

 

[Rashiminos]

With the imminent release of a much-maligned remake, I'm tempted to view these following scenes as an allegory for rousing the troll beasts of the altright by knocking on/out the locks of the doors of the prisons (ie endorsing political violence) holding them from acceptable and effective political engagement:


Link to video.

Is manifested destiny a variant of fascism?

No. There could be a fascist variant of manifest destiny, however. Whether that would form a more perfect union or not... time will tell.

 

[gay_Aleks]

LARPing on a national scale.

Roll a d6 for exterminating the Judeo-Bolsheviks.

Fascism is giant pillars and Hugo Boss jackets, looting foreign lands of their art and jewels to an orchestrated soundtrack drowned out by diesel engines.

For the record, inefficient diesel engines and the whine of dying transmissions. Plus, of course, the whirring sound of overengineered tanks.

Mussolini is like an onion! He stinks and he'll make you cry...and when you leave him out in the sun, he'll turn brown and start sprouting little white hairs.

Yes, but hanging onions is rather difficult. I mean, I saw it in a book and I must admit it was rather grotesque experience.

 

[luiz]

How can a term be "abused" if "there's no right definition"? If you admit that the term "fascism" can be abused, why are you complaining that I'm calling your use of it abuse as well?

Conveniently, there is an excellent definition of fascism: it's the one that the Fascists themselves came up with in the first half of the twentieth century. That's the starting point. It doesn't have much to do with your collection of claims about Venezuela.

You're correct in pointing out in your subsequent post that socialism is a term that is often in similar misuse, and to highlight the disparity in ostensibly socialist ideologies. But there are good reasons that socialism is used to refer to such widely disparate things. For one thing, a lot more people claim that they're socialists than claim they're fascists. Self-identification is hardly the be-all/end-all, but it's another good starting point. For another, there's a lot more diversity among self-professed socialists than among self-professed fascists while still possessing at least some form of ideological connection. It's entirely valid to refer to both the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as being "socialist" entities in one form or another. But it's still ridiculous when, say, an American conservative refers to the ACA as "socialism".

So the Venezuelan government doesn't refer to itself as a fascist government, and the only definition of "fascist" it meets is an idiosyncratic one employed by you, which does not match up particularly well with historical fascism. I hope you understand why I don't take it seriously.

Problem is when it comes to Fascism, at least post-1945, we can't go with self-definitions at all, because the Fascists lost and it became a term of abuse (ha). That doesn't mean Fascists ceased existing, it just mean they don't usually characterize themselves as such, much like anti-semites and other opinions that fell out of favor. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Venezuelan government doesn't define itself as fascist, just like no other government on Earth does (and to my knowledge no government has claimed to be fascist since 1945).

All definitions of fascism are idiosyncratic. Italian thinkers came up with this term, and you can argue that only their original definition is the correct one. That's fine, but it's only your opinion, not The Truth. We don't take the definition of whoever came up with the term "socialism" as the only valid one, and we accept definitions evolve and change over time, depending on usage. When Fascism was fashionable, in the 1930's, there was indeed a great variety of groups calling themselves fascist or at least suggesting some degree of affiliation, and those groups were extremely varied, with only vague unifying characteristics (like the vague definitions I gave). Both Brazilian Integralists, Italian Fascists and the British Union of Fascists called themselves Fascists, but differences in ideology were enormous (role of women, role of the Catholic Church, anti-semitism, etc etc).

There is no scholarly consensus on what is Fascism, as you know very well. I do see a lot of Fascist elements in the Venezuelan regime, and that they don't call themselves that is as relevant as racists not admitting they're racists or thieves coming up with euphemisms to explain their thievery.

What you take seriously or not is your problem, but don't mistake your opinion with the truth. This is after all very much a case of opinions, with no consensus and in fact no possible consensus.

 

[Tahuti]

Is manifested destiny a variant of fascism?

Absolutely. Ideological hooks like this may not necessarily come with other features of fascism, though it paves the way for their enactment.

 

[abradley]

Absolutely. Ideological hooks like this may not necessarily come with other features of fascism, though it paves the way for their enactment.

So does people being born, after all it paves the way for them to become ideologically anything and if they weren't born they couldn't become anything ... right?

 

[gay_Aleks]

I'm a born-again Communist, if you're wondering.

 

[Traitorfish]

Support the most peak experience by pyramiding society hard with one lance tip to party on the level of world-history making? Fascism is more of an aesthetic.

Yeah, I think a lot of attempts to define fascism in definite, rational terms flounder because fascism isn't about the definite or the rational: it's about strength and movement and violence, not fixed points. Fascism, like no other political identity, is felt, not thought.

And it's probably something that it's fixed to a particular historical moment. Fascism, the authentic kind, requires a certain sense of transformation and peril, a dramatic exposure to modernity in all its wonder and horror. Only fascists could see the sense in praising the aeroplane and condemning the factory that built it. Even at that time, it was difficult to export: fascism was a non-starter in Britain and America, where industry was mundane, and even in Germany it always found its base in the South and the countryside rather than in the industrial cities. And, more than anything else, it needed the experience of a war so all-consuming as to create a generation of men incapable of thinking in terms of anything else.

There's echoes of fascism today, but not much more. Even those movements which embrace the trappings of fascism are basically nostalgic: they don't contain the seeds of an actual fascist movement- and when they achieve power, they quickly shed those trappings in favour of those of the state.

The one thing I'd disagree with Hygro on, though,

Fascism is giant pillars and Hugo Boss jackets, looting foreign lands of their art and jewels to an orchestrated soundtrack drowned out by diesel engines.

Is that for the fascist, the diesel engines are an integral part of the soundtrack.