So what's wrong with fascism?

[Flying Pig]

An Autobahn is just a long, high-capacity, high-quality road. Hitler's contribution was building lots of them.

That said, I remember driving a minibus when one of the kids in the back piped up that Hitler had the right idea - 'I mean, there are too many people now, and Hitler was reducing the population, right?'

 

[Tahuti]

Definitely not a natalist eh?

 

[Mise]

Say what you want about Hitler but you can't say he didn't have a moustache.

 

[Cutlass]

Well he only had a little piece of a mustache.

 

[Tahuti]

Trivia time! The toothbrush moustache (i.e. the Hitler moustache) became popular as a protest against Wilhelm II, as the toothbrush moustache was seen as modest in contrast to Wilhelm's Hipster moustache which was seen as the epitome of aristocratic arrogance and was associated with the one guy who brought Germany to doom - together with the Judeo-Bolsheviks according to Nazis...

 

[Cutlass]

And now Germans have no mustache choice at all.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

We did take part in the 80s.
Also: I just realized that this whole thing reflects the new king of Game of Thrones. There it was said (paraphrasing): "We had cruel kings and we had idiot kings. I don't believe we ever had both".

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sure how linked it was to fascism, but Italian Futurism as an early 20th century movement was not entirely crap, here are some nice examples of it:

Most of it does seem to be ugly and unimportant though...

 

[Kyriakos]

Trivia time! The toothbrush moustache (i.e. the Hitler moustache) became popular as a protest against Wilhelm II, as the toothbrush moustache was seen as modest in contrast to Wilhelm's Hipster moustache which was seen as the epitome of aristocratic arrogance and was associated with the one guy who brought Germany to doom - together with the Judeo-Bolsheviks according to Nazis...

Epitomy of aristocratic arrogance? Kaiser Wilhelm II? No way...

Still better than the Austrian emperor at the time though:

 

[Mise]

I actually love Italian Futurism, and I think the previously posted bronze statue is wonderful. It's one of the few sculptures that I actually like....

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not that familiar with it, but most of what i saw online (of the paintings) did not really look that good to me...

Also, when compared to other main movements of the era (like the german expressionism of the pre ww1 and shortly after ww1 period) it is quite peripheral. Surrealism was a lot more important too at that age, mainly in Spain.

Moreover the most important painter in Italy of that age was arguably De Chirico, who is ussually seen as part of the Surrealist movement.

 

[Traitorfish]

Futurism was very influential on Russian modernist art, which is undeniably important.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Without the massive deprivation of human rights and civil liberties, persecution and genocide of various minorities, as well as a world war thrown in to boot, fascism wasn't all that bad compared to many other dictatorships.

 

[sophie]

Futurism was very influential on Russian modernist art, which is undeniably important.

Yeah this. Futurism also had its own influences on surrealist art too. For example this guy:

Collaborated with this guy:

Anyway futurism is a beautiful modernist artistic style. It's obsession with movement, light, and space is extremely distinctive, as was its preoccupation with machinery, technology, and their relationship with mankind. It was heavily influential both to Constructivism (Tatlin in particular), but also Surrealism and Dadaism (Duchamps early cubist works have a lot of Futurist aspects to them, particularly Nude Descending a Staircase no. 2 and Art Deco.

My problem with Futurism is that while its art is beautiful (particularly from a formalist perspective) the ideology is crap. At a general level Futurism was wholly preoccupied with progress and technology, and viewed war as a logical and necessary aspect of humanity. The ideology particularly praised WWI as a savior of mankind. In that sense it is a counterpoint to Dadaism which in many respects was a reaction both to Futurism and the War in general.

 

[Dachs]

I must say (and I am including the article Mise posted and I just read) this is the stuff Germans should be taught in school. When I went to school we were taught how Nazis were evil etcetera but not how inept they were. Which makes me think of an evening were a guy my father new said "Sometimes I think we could use another Adolf. You know, not such a crazy one of course!" which carries this notion that while Nazis were evil bastards, they also did good. I can think of a Neo-Nazi I once had a conversation with who would say things like "The holocaust was terrible. But other things were good for Germany". Again this same notion.

Yeah, well. Then you have the backlash, though, where people start to make the argument that the Nazis were so inept and Germany was so weak compared to its enemies that even what successes they had - which were considerable - were basically "all luck". And that's completely ridiculous.

 

[Lord Baal]

Yeah, well. Then you have the backlash, though, where people start to make the argument that the Nazis were so inept and Germany was so weak compared to its enemies that even what successes they had - which were considerable - were basically "all luck". And that's completely ridiculous.

Meh, there was definitely a lot of luck involved, particularly in France. Hitler certainly lucked out politically on several occasions. Chalk that up to the vagaries of politics.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm inclined to believe Ray Kroc on the matter of luck - the more you sweat, the luckier you get.

 

[dutchfire]

Sounds like what someone who was lucky would say.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm inclined to believe Ray Kroc on the matter of luck - the more you sweat, the luckier you get.

Migrant farm workers would like to have a word with you....

 

[Flying Pig]

Alright, I'll rephrase the slightly flippant quotation as an observation that the laws of probability are usually pretty constant for different people. As such, somebody who appears to beat the odds more often than they should usually has a different assessment of the odds to you.