The Essence of the Left

[Tahuti]

For a Jew, your political views always have a weird anti-Semitic vibe to them.

Is this because I distrust academia and that happens to have a lot of Jews in it as well?

Come to Australia, where all the good jobs in media, academia, and businesses go to ultraconservative medieval-fetishers.

The problem is that you might have a different view than I have what exactly constitutes "medieval-fetishers".

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm not quite convinced by the (admittedly amusingly phrased) assertion that fighting in the Great War necessarily made people sympathetic to fascism. Building one's identity around a struggle for national greatness seems to be the sort of interpretation that a fascist would have in the first place, but it's not the only feeling you could get from fighting in the war. Plenty of people came out of it as socialists, having realised that they had more in common with the grumpy young men in the trench in front than the officers in the trench behind, and still others rejected the whole idea of war and doubted political authority more than their predecessors had. So I think you had to go in with a certain mindset (or develop it afterwards) to view your experience of the Great War as something which would lead you towards fascism.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Some time ago I stumbled upon a very interesting documentary about European history from pre-WWI until WWII. What made it so interesting was that it largely ignored the world wars as well as politics and public discourse - instead it just tried to illustrate how societies changed in that time. A wonderful idea.
One thing that got stuck in my head was that mass gymnastics were a big thing in at least Germany all by itself. Like thousands of people would gather in some stadium or something and do gymnastics together. So far I thought those kind of events were just a Nazi invention, I thought it just mirrored Nazi culture. But actually it mirrored normal contemporary culture. One thing all those documentaries focusing on explaining the Nazis missed to tell me.

My impression is that many people lack an awareness for what it meant to live in those times. What a crazy new social world it was industrialism had created. On the one hand mass societies, hundreds of thousands of people living in relatively close space and at the same time you actually knew less people than in some little village, papers reaching millions, politics was as hot a topic as football is nowadays (imagine that!), no abundance of entertainment to distract you, still very masculine societies, notions of honor etcetera still being strong, living conditions still often being poor...
And in this crazy new massive world - there seems to have been a strong and from our modern perspective naive belief in the virtues of political mass movements. I guess form their perspective those where just what the time was about. Where it was at.

I am perhaps, no probably gravely over-simplifying things, but nationalism, socialism and fascism almost seem like logical, like necessary results to me. Like things people had to 'give a try'. But where they were implemented, they ultimately failed, badly, and now with the failure of such mass movements and the comforts and diversions of modern life people seem to kind of part with politics. That is just this removed thing high up there.
Just my silly musings

The point though is with regards to this thread - the current status of a society matters, and 'left' and 'right' only make sense within the context of that status.
Musing about things steadily going left and in the end totalitarian or other proposed 'laws' to me seem utterly ridiculous. Removed form reality, caught up in a paradigm which is nowhere near fit to handle its great task of universally explaining 'left' and 'right.
Left and Right are just words, after all. They follow the logic of battle lines. But what the battle actually is about seems to depend on those who partake, but not on some 'essence' of 'the right' or 'the left'.
The right tends to be more conservative, the left progressive. That is all the essence I see. :shrug:

However, given what I just said I think I agree that it is hard to say that fascists belong to the right. They seem to tend to share certain values with the right, after all being conservative is about fearing change and fascism also seem to be about the opposition to some progressive policies, but fascists also share the left's desire for changing society into something new.
Fascists are just kinda out there

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

And did the Capitalist Class have its secret meeting on which they outlined this evil plan to dupe the working class on a sinister castle in Transylvannia? Did they send the memo via flying winged monkeys?

God, how can someone write so much garbage? So much straight out falsification?

Fascism was primarily working class movement, of people frustrated by liberal society and also by the pacifism and internationalism of traditional socialists. The rest are lies.

I'm not sure you're one to be judging other peoples' definitions of fascism.

Fascism was never a working class "movement;" there was working class astro-turf, but it was not a working class movement. Hell, in France the most stable base of power for fascism was the yeoman farmer.

 

[Snorrius]

Come to Australia, where all the good jobs in media, academia, and businesses go to ultraconservative medieval-fetishers.

Do this "ultraconservative medieval-fetishers" support universal suffrage? If they do, they are certainly can not be called "ultraconservative medieval-fetishers" because universal suffrage is very Leftist idea, and not "medieval" (even metaphorically) for sure.

 

[useless]

Are you against universal suffrage?

 

[Snorrius]

Are you against universal suffrage?

If you try to introduce universal suffrage in commercial company it will not survive competition. So there is no wonder African states collapsed one after another when right to vote was given to masses of, undoubtedly, good-hearted people but who do not had any understanding of statecraft and how world politics work.

So obviously, I am against universal suffrage just as I am against being diagnosed in hospital by selecting diagnose using voting of all adults inside including janitors and other patients.

 

[luiz]

Fascism was never a working class "movement;" there was working class astro-turf, but it was not a working class movement. Hell, in France the most stable base of power for fascism was the yeoman farmer.

If you look at the main Fascist leaders in both Italy and Germany you'll be hard pressed to find one who might be said to belong to the "Capitalist Class". In Italy virtually all high ranking Fascists came from one of the two backgrounds:

1) Poor or working class background;
2) Middle class socialist Law graduates.

Mussolini himself was the son of a socialist blacksmith and a provincial school teacher. Hardly a titan of industry. Roberto Farinacci, 5th Secretary of the National Fascist Party, was born in deep poverty, dropped out of school and worked as a railroad builder. Another wealthy scion!

Sorry, but facts are stubborn things. The Marxist theory of Fascism is known to be BS for decades now. To describe Fascism as a sinister Capitalist conspiracy to keep and perpetuate power is not only bad history, it is laughable.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

If you look at the main Fascist leaders in both Italy and Germany you'll be hard pressed to find one who might be said to belong to the "Capitalist Class". In Italy virtually all high ranking Fascists came from one of the two backgrounds:

1) Poor or working class background;
2) Middle class socialist Law graduates.

Mussolini himself was the son of a socialist blacksmith and a provincial school teacher. Hardly a titan of industry. Roberto Farinacci, 5th Secretary of the National Fascist Party, was born in deep poverty, dropped out of school and worked as a railroad builder. Another wealthy scion!

Sorry, but facts are stubborn things. The Marxist theory of Fascism is known to be BS for decades now. To describe Fascism as a sinister Capitalist conspiracy to keep and perpetuate power is not only bad history, it is laughable.

It's taken for granted that you will discard Marxist theories of anything out of blind hatred. It's amazing that you have the audacity to call me a biased falsifier with that kind of an attitude.

Facts are indeed stubborn things. Like how fascism was a complete and utter boon to Big Business, and how such a set of laws were passed that destroyed the power of labour unions and to strike, and how the very first people the fascists went after was leftists. The KPD disappeared within a year after the Nazis took power. The corporatist and capitalist-sycophantic attitude of fascist governments is well-known. Please read The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy before you attempt to discuss fascist economics again.

The social origin of specific leaders is irrelevant; who they served is all that matters. As I just described above - I guess you were too busy foaming at the mouth because I had said something again - the political leaders were astro-turfed thugs whose unguided anger at sections of both the rich and poor was funneled into useful directions by capitalists. I realize it's easier for you to believe that everyday people are just naturally subservient to capital and violently reject communists, but that doesn't make it so. The facts, as you so love, say otherwise.

 

[Traitorfish]

Is this because I distrust academia and that happens to have a lot of Jews in it as well?

It's because you deal heavily in a particular strain of right-wing tropes that have historically had pronounced anti-Semitic overtones. It's very strange to me that somebody so sensitive to the barest hint of an anti-Semitic inflection in left-wing rhetoric should reproduce such tropes without seeming even vaguely aware of their associations.

I'm not quite convinced by the (admittedly amusingly phrased) assertion that fighting in the Great War necessarily made people sympathetic to fascism. Building one's identity around a struggle for national greatness seems to be the sort of interpretation that a fascist would have in the first place, but it's not the only feeling you could get from fighting in the war. Plenty of people came out of it as socialists, having realised that they had more in common with the grumpy young men in the trench in front than the officers in the trench behind, and still others rejected the whole idea of war and doubted political authority more than their predecessors had. So I think you had to go in with a certain mindset (or develop it afterwards) to view your experience of the Great War as something which would lead you towards fascism.

That's true, and I should specify, I don't imagine the Great War as a big machine that took in socialists at one end and spat out fascists at the other. It was a universally transformative experience, but the nature and depth of that transformation varied with countless circumstances, from ethnic and racial background to religion to class to individual psychology.(In another thread, Kaiserguard is arguing for returning the individual to history: this would be an example of just such an opportunity.) I certainly agree that, as you said, it was a certain kind of person who came out the war a fascist, just as another kind came out Bolshevik. But that doesn't mean that the war was not crucial to the development of these sympathies among veterans, only that it's not sufficient explain them.

However, given what I just said I think I agree that it is hard to say that fascists belong to the right. They seem to tend to share certain values with the right, after all being conservative is about fearing change and fascism also seem to be about the opposition to some progressive policies, but fascists also share the left's desire for changing society into something new.
Fascists are just kinda out there

Problem here is you're taking it for granted that "right-wing" and "conservative" are interchangeable categories, and while it's true that conservatives are largely right-wing and right-wingers largely conservative, it doesn't follow that they're identical. "Left" and "right" are questions of how people and movements behaved, how they oriented themselves politically, not of the innate character of a bundle of ideas. You have to look at this stuff contextually, otherwise you're just drafting entries for the Monster Manual.

 

[luiz]

It's taken for granted that you will discard Marxist theories of anything out of blind hatred. It's amazing that you have the audacity to call me a biased falsifier with that kind of an attitude.

Facts are indeed stubborn things. Like how fascism was a complete and utter boon to Big Business, and how such a set of laws were passed that destroyed the power of labour unions and to strike, and how the very first people the fascists went after was leftists. The KPD disappeared within a year after the Nazis took power. The corporatist and capitalist-sycophantic attitude of fascist governments is well-known. Please read The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy before you attempt to discuss fascist economics again.

The social origin of specific leaders is irrelevant; who they served is all that matters. As I just described above - I guess you were too busy foaming at the mouth because I had said something again - the political leaders were astro-turfed thugs whose unguided anger at sections of both the rich and poor was funneled into useful directions by capitalists. I realize it's easier for you to believe that everyday people are just naturally subservient to capital and violently reject communists, but that doesn't make it so. The facts, as you so love, say otherwise.

You're putting words and positions in my mouth. I never said Fascism was left-wing or that Fascism was tolerant with communists. It wasn't, obviously. If you read my first post on the matter (which you quoted so I'm assuming you did) you'll note that I stated that Fascism grew in opposition both of Capitalist Liberalism and traditional socialism. Obviously the Fascists were very antagonistic towards socialists.

I don't deny facts or make up stuff from thin air. You do. The claim that the Fascist leaders were astro-turfed for instance is plain pathetic. So Mussolini was just a pawn in some Capitalist's pocket? Is that your theory? That's on the same intellectual level as The Learned Elders of Zion, and deserves the same respect.

It's not about the biography of one or two Fascist leaders. It's about the fact (that stubborn thing) that virtually all Fascist leaders, including the Duce, had either a working class or a middle-class, socialist lawyer background. They were not bankers or industrialists. And they held power, not bankers or industrialists. This is another fact. Mussolini made the calls, as Hitler did in Germany. Not the Agnellis and the von Krupps.

And cool that you mentioned the KPD. Did you know that your Great Leader Stalin deported about 500 German communists back to Nazi Germany where they faced certain death? Or are you not allowed by your superiors to learn this fact (that stubborn thing)?

 

[Snorrius]

Well, you know, fascism is the far right. So right there you have chosen to discredit everything else you are saying.

«Right» and «Left» of political spectrum is defined against «Center». The problem with the latter is that it was slowly moving towards Left since the time of French Revolution when this political scale appeared for the first time.

In certain sense, this is a Leftist trap itself. One can become an orthodox national-socialist, buy t-shirt with swastika and think he is Right. Actually, he still is sitting in the Leftist den.

Neoreactionaries avoid this trap by going back to the roots and identifying themselves as Right against the Center as it was in the beginning, and comparing to the Center as it was in the end of 18th century Nazism was very Leftist ideology. For example:

1) Nazi acknowledged universal suffrage for males, and, actually, their ascension to power were not possible without ochlocratic election system. They would not able come to power nor in monarchy, nor in old republic where only a very limited set of residents could practice politics.

2) Their rhetoric was addressed to "the people", and their legitimacy was based on "the will of people".

3) While their were in power they, as other Leftist seeking to rapidly equalize society, used brutal methods to equalize society and weed out everything which was not fit to a selected ideal. A lot of people who belongs to elites of different kinds (aristocratic, intellectual, financial etc.) were killed, prisoned or driven out of the country.

4) As extension - using mass eugenics to equalize the race to the desired ideal. Very Leftist-minded. Was trendy Progressivist idea of the day.

5) Nationalization of corporations and industries - very Leftist thing.

6) Expansion of welfare

7) Expansion of governmental control over every sphere of the country's and citizens' lives.

8) Animal rights - very, very Leftist thing. Proto-environmentalism.

 

[warpus]

What's wrong with laws designed to protect the rights of animals? How is that in any way a liberal or conservative issue?

 

[Domen]

What's wrong with laws designed to protect the rights of animals?

What was wrong about that was for example that Hitler wanted to remove all [sub-]humans from areas for animals.

Areas chosen by the Nazis as future nature reserves were among the first ones to experience genocides:


Link to video.

http://naziswithcats.tumblr.com/

Spoiler :

 

[Snorrius]

What's wrong with laws designed to protect the rights of animals? How is that in any way a liberal or conservative issue?

I did not say it is "wrong" (or "right") -- this is a topic for another thread. I just pointed out several markers which show that National-Socialism was a very Leftist, Progressive movement for their era.

What was wrong about that was for example that Hitler wanted to remove all [sub-]humans from areas for animals.

Thanks, Domen. Valuing animals over humans indeed a very Left thing to do. You look at modern environmentalists who are ready to sacrifice billions (except themselves, of course).Though it still good to know that even heartless mechanical Nazi bowed to cats!

 

[Tahuti]

It's because you deal heavily in a particular strain of right-wing tropes that have historically had pronounced anti-Semitic overtones. It's very strange to me that somebody so sensitive to the barest hint of an anti-Semitic inflection in left-wing rhetoric should reproduce such tropes without seeming even vaguely aware of their associations.

I'm actually well aware that many historical reactionaries were antisemites. However, it must be noted that it was a personal opinion - which often appeared to be a central point in their line of thinking when in fact it wasn't - and often much smaller in scale. And admittedly, it significantly hampered their cause, preventing them from gaining and cultivating support from tradition-oriented Jews. Likewise, whenever antisemitism seeped into mainstream political discourse, it would often lead to the decapitation of Jewish society of its tradition-respecting leaders, replacing them with intellectuals that would argue against old values.

Now, I'm more suspicious of antisemitism coming from the Left than antisemitism from the Right. Proudhon and Voltaire were arguably more vitriolic antisemites than even Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain. While Nazism wasn't a completely Left-Wing ideology, I doubt the Holocaust would have happened for Nazism's Left-Wing elements like mass politics. I consider the Tsarist pogroms to have a significantly less systematic character than Soviet antisemitism or that of Left-Wing Palestinian militants. Since Jews are often associated with tradition and elitism, Jews are likely to be systematic targets of certain strains of Left-Wing discourse (yours being an exception in that you are rather cautious regarding antisemitism, to the point of being even hostile to certain Anti-Israel rethoric, despite your anarchist credentials), than of Right-Wing discourse such as that of Julius Evola and Charles Maurras, where it is more often the result of certain personal opinions and political circumstances of the moment (to which unfortunately no person is fully insulated).

Besides, most modern reactionaries and ultra-conservatives like Oswald Spengler and Keuhnnelt-Leddihn are arguably more philosemitic. The Left can never truly be philosemitic, other than Tokenism out of their historical status as persecuted minority, for Jews are generally on the wrong side of the Left by doing their thing alone. Minorities are supposed to be marginalised after all, lest they are evil!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

So Mussolini was just a pawn in some Capitalist's pocket? Is that your theory?

Yup.

That's on the same intellectual level as The Learned Elders of Zion, and deserves the same respect.

Nope.

It's not about the biography of one or two Fascist leaders. It's about the fact (that stubborn thing) that virtually all Fascist leaders, including the Duce, had either a working class or a middle-class, socialist lawyer background. They were not bankers or industrialists. And they held power, not bankers or industrialists. This is another fact. Mussolini made the calls, as Hitler did in Germany. Not the Agnellis and the von Krupps.

I wonder if there isn't a single thing you know about history that didn't come from the gen-ed boiled-down pop narrative. That big business benefited enormously under fascism and that fascist governments were extremely pro-business and anti-worker is so well-known that it's plainly obvious that you don't study it. At all. Again, please read some study of the issue, like Wages of Destruction. I realize that you think everyone who disagrees with you (or who at least agrees with me) is some kind of Stalinist Professional Falsifier Apologist, but they really aren't. That you think they are shows how little you actually know about the topic and how much research you haven't done.

And cool that you mentioned the KPD. Did you know that your Great Leader Stalin deported about 500 German communists back to Nazi Germany where they faced certain death? Or are you not allowed by your superiors to learn this fact (that stubborn thing)?

I love how at the beginning of the post, you think the idea of a vast conspiracy is ludicrous and compare the idea to anti-semitic theories, but by the end of the post, you're accusing me of being part of some high-controlled conspiracy.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

"Left" and "right" are questions of how people and movements behaved, how they oriented themselves politically, not of the innate character of a bundle of ideas.

Yes I strongly agree, but when I tried to picture all those different ideas which are or were associated with left or right, then I thought that what united them all was that they tended to be conservative / progressive in the context of their time. I understand 'essence' as something that fundamentally characterizes, at best defines something. Conservative /progressive was just the best things I saw, nothing more. And that makes Fascism kind of an oddball.

However, if we completely forget about ideas for a moment, as you seem to suggest, and focus on allegiances then I understand why you may think that Fascism has to be understood as right-wing, period.
It depends on what criteria one wants to use

But given how many seem to view the choice of a criteria which puts Facsim here or there as an important argument in itself rather than just heuristics I can understand that this is important to you or others. But I am sure you also understand that it is in the end a silly way to argue over ideologies and that ideally we would not do it.

 

[warpus]

Valuing animals over humans indeed a very Left thing to do.

What sort of leftists live in Russia? Who are you basing your misunderstanding of "leftism" and "leftists" on?

 

[gay_Aleks]

I thought it's more of an American thing - PETA and the rest of the psychotic animal organisations (because, in fact, there's some legit and decent ones) aren't really well-represented in Russia.